UFC68 Predictions

[jdrake10]

Main card
Heavyweight championship bout: Tim Sylvia vs. Randy Couture
Sylvia has too much reach for Couture who won't be able to get inside. Wrestlers sometimes have trouble getting taller opponents to the ground and Sylvia is sure to make him pay with stiff jabs every time he tries and fails. Plus the young champions traditionally pound on aging veterans and Couture is like 58 years old now. I like Syvia to send one of my favorite fighters back into retirement again.

Middleweight bout: Rich Franklin vs. Jason MacDonald
Rich Franklin will be pumped to get back in the ring after losing his title in his last fight. Plus he is from Cincy so he will fight in front of a hometown crowd and should be ready for a big night. Mac has had a couple of good wins lately and will try to take this fight to the ground but overall he is just a journeyman fighter and will not be able to get past Franklin's stellar take down defense. There is no way he can trade hands with Franklin so I expect a knockout.

Light Heavyweight bout: Jason Lambert vs. Renato Babalu Sobral
I like Babalu to win by submission. Babalu has not fought since his loss to Chuck Liddell but is still a well rounded fighter who will handle the inexperienced Lambert.

Welterweight bout: Chris Lytle vs. Matt Hughes
Similar to Franklin, Hughes should be pumped to get back into the ring after the loss of his title. However, Hughes has sometimes not taken lesser opponents seriously enough so watch out for that here with Matt coming off of a series of big fights all in a row. Lytle has a pretty solid ground game and this is where the fight should take place between this wrestler and submission artist, unless Hughes continues to try to impress people with his unimpressive striking ability. I still think Hughes wins but this one may be closer than it should be.

Middleweight bout: Martin Kampmann vs. Drew McFedries
I don’t know either of these guys so please help me out here.

[Guest]

MacDonald a journeyman huh?
I guess you haven't been watching recently?
Making predictions and admitting you flipped a coin on the winner.
Horrible.

[swerb]

Hey Spoon, instead of dogging other people opinions with no explanation, why don't you tell him why you think he's wrong?

If you want activity in this forum to go up, taking pot shots at people isn't going to do it.

Just my two cents.

[jdrake10]

I based my predictions on my knowledge of the UFC bouts that I have seen. I have not seen every fight like you obviously have, nor have I done tireless research like you obviously have, so excuse me for posting my predictions based upon my limited knowledge. I noticed you have not disagreed with any of them though.

I do know who McDonald is, and as I noted in my post, he had a couple of good wins recently. But since you are now forcing me to do research to defend what I stated I have found out that most of McDonald’s 7 losses have come to guys I have never heard of in his early fighting days. His 2 most recent losses are to Shonie Carter and Patrick Cote who are solid fighters but I would not call them elite by any means (sorry there I go again using my limited knowledge). According to Webster, a journeyman is “an experienced reliable worker, athlete, or performer especially as distinguished from one who is brilliant or colorful.” That sure seems to fit this guy right now. If he beats Franklin I will agree he is more, but until then, he is the poster boy of a journeyman.

I admit I don’t know either of those other guys, do you? Why don’t you tell me about them instead of bashing me? Are they worth watching?

[Guest]

Why make predictions if you don't know who the guys are?
That's all I'm saying.
As far as dogging guys with no explanation Rich, if a guy says he flipped a coin to predict a winner, I will dog him all day long. He should have left that fight out.
That's like saying I have never watched football in my life and doing a mock draft.
So you can keep your two cents.
You can see my preview of UFC 68 on the site, if I decide to do one.
I might just keep my opinions to myself on one of the best cards in a long time.
Did I mention I will be in attendance for that by the way?

[swerb]

Just some friendly advice, that's all.

I've seen many a message board ruined over the last five years by confrontational posters. Thats no way to encourage new people to join in the discussion.

Don't like someone's take/opinion? Thats fine. But tell them why instead of firing off a cheap shot with no explanation as to why you disagree.

[jdrake10]

On computers these days you can copy and paste information. That is how I got that fight card in my post. I was hoping to hear who those guys are since they are on the main card but I guess you don't know either.

You can try out the copy and paste function from my post when you write your little article if you like. It's pretty good stuff and I won't accuse you of plagiarism or anything.

Have fun at the fight I am envious as I have only ever seen one real fight live (Roberto Duran). But I will be at a high school basketball game seeing an undefeated team go down! Oops, sorry, that's another prediction.

[Guest]

jdrake why don't you write the preview then? Dick can copy and paste it for you so you're already done. Nice work.

Dick,
Again, people saying they flipped a coin for a prediction would make me think it's a joke of a post anyway.

I am going to flip a coin here soon and then I'll post my picks.

That would make a real solid forum.

This board is full of cheap shots, just saying.
I wanted to fit in and I like doing it.

[jdrake10]

OK, white flag. I am not qualified to write an article on the UFC, and we are getting way off track as to the point of my post which is to make my predictions and then have people make theirs so we can argue them. So I have edited my original post to get this out of the way (no more coin flipping on the Kampmann vs. McFedries fight).

Does anyone have anything on any of my other predictions?

[Guest]

I don't

[Guest]

I take that back, I'll be in the 12th row