** UFC 97 **

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hamato_yoshii

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Dec 12, 2005
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MAIN CARD (televised)
* Anderson Silva vs. Thales Leites
* Chuck Liddell vs. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua
* Krzysztof Soszynski vs. Brian Stann
* Cheick Kongo vs. Antoni Hardonk
* Luis Cane vs. Steve Cantwell
PRELIMINARY CARD (un-televised)
* Mike Ciesnolevicz vs. Eliot Marshall
* Xavier Foupa-Pokam vs. Denis Kang
* Jason MacDonald vs. Nate Quarry
* Ed Herman vs. David Loiseau
* David Bielkheden vs. Mark Bocek
* Ryo Chonan vs. T.J. Grant
* Sam Stout vs. Matt Wiman


I actually like a lot of fights on this card, and I think this will be a great night of fights.

Anderson Silva vs. Thales Leites - I'm taking Silva here for sure in a nice bounce back performance after what he did with Cote. I have been in the camp that Silva is ripe to be beaten, but I don't think Leites is that guy. I have been hoping that Bisping would have gotten a shot because I think he can beat him, but now he'll fight Hendo for that shot and I'm not sure if he can beat him. I know that's weird, but in mma it's match-ups, match-ups, match-ups. I will say that the winner of Hendo and Bisping will beat Silva. And if Marquardt gets a shot sooner, which I don't think he will, Nate could get him too.

Chuck Liddell vs. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua - This fight is really hard to pick. I think that if Chuck can make it through the first round with Shogun he should win. Shogun even with his recent conditioning issues still has been coming out really aggressive in the first rounds of his fights. I'm not sure that Chuck can last through the initial advances by Shogun, but if he does, I think that Chuck may be able to wear Shogun down. I'm taking Shogun, but this is a toss up for me.

Krzysztof Soszynski vs. Brian Stann - I'm really excited for this fight because I thought that Krzysztof had the best chance out of all the last TUF fighters to have success in the UFC. He reminds me a little of Chuck in the way he uses his stand-up. He got beat by a guy (Vinny) who is devastating on the ground in TUF and it was because he made a mistake. I think that he's a smart fighter and he has a chance to be a good fighter.

Cheick Kongo vs. Antoni Hardonk - For me this is one one the cooler match-ups of the night. Kongo has the opportuntiy here to really advance in the heavyweight ranks if he can pull this out. I have thought that he has had an issue with coming through in his big fights, but he does look like he has improved. Hardonk though is a great opponent for him because of how likes to go at it. He is a great stand-up fighter with solid kickboxing skills. He isn't bad on the ground either because of his strength. This makes him very similar to Kongo, which should make for a very entertaining fight. Both men are on winning streaks too.

I am also excited for the Xavier Foupa-Pokam and Denis Kang fight, and also I like watching Ryo Chonan fight, but I'm not sure I'll get to see him because he's on the prelim.
 
Silva vs Who?!?!? This has to be one of the most boring title fights in recent years, no idea why they gave Thales Leites a title shot... The guy hasn't beaten anyone who is anyone, ever except Marquardt. And he only won that fight because Marquardt got a point deducted in the 2nd and 3rd round and he STILL only won by split decision. Sure, I hope he wins because then someone can beat him and there will be some excitment in the MW division again but this matchup makes no sense to me.

Chuck vs Shogun, battle of the washed ups... Both have looked bad recently but are still very dangerous. It's been a while since I've seen Chuck put someone out, hopefully he can pull another off because obviously there is nothing new in his bag of tricks.

K-Sos vs B Stann - K-Sos all the way, Stann annoys me and K-Sos is Polish... Easy Pick.

Cheick K vs Hardonk - Hardonk, even though I am not even a fan. Cheick just annoys the hell out of me, that stupid chest pound thing he does during his entrance walk makes me want to punch babies. He isn't that great either, just a big striker but so is Hardonk...

Cane vs Cantwell - This could be fight of the night right here, both hungry fighters coming off big wins. I can almost guarantee this fight wins fight of the night, KO of the night, or Submission of the night. I just see it being a good matchup. Cantwell has good standup & ground and Cane just ***** slap KO'd Sokoudjou...

cane_slap.gif


The undercard has a few scraps too, I hope Kang pulls off a win.
 
I'll be watching although I don't know much about the fighters.
 
I'm not really excited about this line up. I will not be ordering this.

But we all know....
Anderson Silva
Chuck Liddell
Brian Stann
Cheick Kongo
Steve Cantwell

Will win.
 
I agree Polish about having Leites in this fight. I think that there are better guys there for Silva to fight, but here's how I think he got in there.

After what happened in the Silva/Cote fight the UFC wanted a quick turnaround for Silva because he kind of came off looking like a jerk. They knew Cote wouldn't be ready fast enough so they needed to look elsewhere. IMO the potential guys were, Maia, Marquardt, Leites, Bisping, Hendo. Maia now looks like a good choice, but now he has another win. At the time it was probably to early to go with him. The same kind of goes for Marquardt because since it will be a rematch he needs to basically beat everybody else besides Silva to back in. He has done that for the most part, but at the time he was still one win less and it was probably to early for him. I think Bisping should have been the choice, but he was already in the slot for TUF so that rules him out and Hendo. That leaves Leites who is 14-1 and has beaten Marquardt, so he was kind of the best of the bunch, that fit their criteria.
I think Rousimar Palhares would have been a better pick because of his talent, but his record isn't as good as Leites.
 
I agree with your reasoning for sure, I'd say that is pretty much spot on.

I still wish they would have brought over someone else, had Gegard Mousasi (Dream MW Champ) not decided to move up in weight I would have said the UFC should have brought him in. He hasn't lost since 2006 and is 11-0 in his last 11 fights. All against some serious competition - Jacare, Kang, Manhoef - etc... He would have been a GREAT challenge.

Also I think they could have rematched Silva with Okami, but it doesn't seem like they even considered it since Okami is fighting @ UFC 98. He has won his last 3 and has a win over Silva, granted it's a DQ win but still. Easier to build fight hype when it's a rematch, especially when he lost the last one in a DQ. He did lose to Franklin in 07 but aside from that has beaten 7 other UFC Middleweights, however he just floats under the radar.

We'll see, maybe Thales will surprise us all.
 
polish;3020949; said:
I agree with your reasoning for sure, I'd say that is pretty much spot on.

I still wish they would have brought over someone else, had Gegard Mousasi (Dream MW Champ) not decided to move up in weight I would have said the UFC should have brought him in. He hasn't lost since 2006 and is 11-0 in his last 11 fights. All against some serious competition - Jacare, Kang, Manhoef - etc... He would have been a GREAT challenge.

Also I think they could have rematched Silva with Okami, but it doesn't seem like they even considered it since Okami is fighting @ UFC 98. He has won his last 3 and has a win over Silva, granted it's a DQ win but still. Easier to build fight hype when it's a rematch, especially when he lost the last one in a DQ. He did lose to Franklin in 07 but aside from that has beaten 7 other UFC Middleweights, however he just floats under the radar.

We'll see, maybe Thales will surprise us all.
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I agree about Gegard Mousasi and I thought I heard rumblings not long ago that he was going to be fighting in the UFC soon...

The Okami thing is interesting because I agree that it probably would be a good fight to see, but he does seem to go un-noticed. Sometimes in the UFC that is enough for you to miss out on a deserved fight. If they don't think you can get viewers, you won't be allowed to try.
 
Mousaii signed with M-1 (same management as Fedor)... there is no way in hell he ends up in the UFC.

curious... how do you see bisbing even competing with silva? I can't think of one thing he does better???

Silva has decimated that division. Maia is the only person I want to see him fight that he hasn't already killed and that is just because of Maia's absolutely amazing offensive BJJ... which seems to be silva's only weakness these days. But... every bjj guys is going to have to get through his ridiculously long reach, clinch, and knees to even get a takedown.

I would rather Silva move up to 205 for good. I don't think there is anything left for him at MW. Just like GSP has cleaned out the WW (after he gnp's alves) and there will be nothing left for him there.
 
Don't forget Wanderlei Silva is moving down after the Rick Franklin fight which will be at a catch weight of 195. Even though Wand and Anderson used to train together back in the day and were friends he just said in an interview that he would have no problem fighting Wanderlei since there friendship went sour anyways. I think if Okami wins his next fight he'll get the title shot after Bisping or Henderson. Anderson has 4 more fights after this 1 and then he'll retire from MMA so maybe for his last fight we'll get to see The Spider vs. The Axe Murderer.
 
dbcb314;3021310; said:
Mousaii signed with M-1 (same management as Fedor)... there is no way in hell he ends up in the UFC.

curious... how do you see bisbing even competing with silva? I can't think of one thing he does better???

Silva has decimated that division. Maia is the only person I want to see him fight that he hasn't already killed and that is just because of Maia's absolutely amazing offensive BJJ... which seems to be silva's only weakness these days. But... every bjj guys is going to have to get through his ridiculously long reach, clinch, and knees to even get a takedown.

I would rather Silva move up to 205 for good. I don't think there is anything left for him at MW. Just like GSP has cleaned out the WW (after he gnp's alves) and there will be nothing left for him there.
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I think that Bisping's style of stand-up will make him able to hang in there and not get destroyed on his feet.
Look, I know when guys have success for a while people act like they can't ever be beat, but they can.

BTW there are plenty of guys for him to fight. Bisping, Maia, Marquardt (again), Wandy, maybe Hendo, Palhares.
 
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