Verbal Submission: UFC 123 Preview

Time to review UFC 123

Music to listen to: Mace Spray by The Jezabels

　

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson vs. Lyoto Machida: The last time each of these men were in the Octagon, both of them lost fights to superior talents along with something extra.

For Jackson, his decision loss to Rashad Evans not only put another L on his record but set Rampage back on the light heavyweight food chain. If he beat Evans, he would be facing current UFC light heavy champion Shogun Rua in early 2011. Furthermore, Rampage developed an intense rivalry with Evans that resulted in endless trash talking and banter only to get outclassed for three rounds. Now the question of motivation for Rampage has to come into play. Why get your head punched in when you can head to Hollywood and make more money without getting punched in the head?

For Machida, his first round TKO loss to Rua not only cost him the UFC light heavy title, but placed a major chink in the aura of invincibility that Machida had developed in his entire tenure at the UFC. Rua showed the gameplan to beat Machida and now other fighters will expose it. Furthermore, the next fight after the loss of a previously undefeated fighter is always interesting because we don’t know how the psyche of the fallen combat artist is after being humbled.

This is the classic matchup between the power puncher and the counter puncher. Rampage relies on power punches and maybe some wrestling. Machida has the top counter fighting technique in all of MMA and has a unique fight style and physical stance that causes many problems for his opponent.

I see Rampage trying to get his strikes in but getting stuffed by Machida’s defense.

Prediction: Machida by decision

B.J. Penn vs. Matt Hughes: This may be the most interesting fight on the card for a variety of reasons.

First, both of these men have been in two memorable fights. The first one gave Penn the UFC welterweight title in one of the mid-range upsets in UFC history. The second fight saw Hughes defend his title in one of the most exciting technical fights in recent memory. In fact, editor note, the second fight really made me interested in MMA as a sport so this is a personal contest for me.

The next reason for intrigue is that both fighters are in unique places in their career.

Penn was the reigning lightweight champion in the UFC and establishing himself as one of the top pound-for-pound fighters of all-time before two consecutive decision losses to current champion Frankie Edgar. Since Penn seems to need challenges to keep him interested in MMA, he is returning to the 170 pound division and facing a familiar face that should motivate him.

Hughes has had a legendary career and was the king of the welterweight division until a surge of elite fighters in the division, particularly Georges St. Pierre, gave Hughes some losses on his record. However, wins over Renzo Gracie and Ricardo Almeida has Hughes on a hot streak. However, Penn is better than Gracie and Almeida combined so this is a big step up from recent competition.

Penn has the advantage in the stand up but Hughes has looked better in that department recently. Hughes may be the best fighter ever to incorporate his wrestling skills to MMA so that advantage will always be there.

Penn’s ground game speaks for itself but has had his guard passed in his previous fights by St. Pierre and Edgar, something that had never happened before in his career and was thought to not even be possible.

The usual issues of changing a weight class shouldn’t apply as much for Penn because he has been a welterweight before and done well. However, Penn tends to have more stamina as a lightweight and cardio is never a question for Hughes.

I’ve been leaning towards taking Hughes for the past few weeks because of his superior grappling skills and wrestlers have been giving Penn fits recently (see Frankie Edgar). However, I think Penn has one more good submission in him and can also use his better stand up technique to soften up Hughes.

Prediction: Penn by third round submission

Here’s the rest of my picks for the main card:

George Sotiropoulos def. Joe Lauzon via decision

Gerald Harris def. Maiquel Gonclaves via second-round TKO

Phil Davis def. Tim Boetsch via decision

Those are my thoughts, what are yours?