The Full Mount w/ J Squire: UFC 91 Preview

To say that this Saturday’s ppv is a big one would be a bit of an understatement. UFC 91 is THE BIGGEST ppv in mixed martial arts history for one reason: Lesnar/Couture. For those of you who don’t know, Brock Lesnar is most known for being one of the biggest “champions” (its not a real competition, therefore not a real champion) that the WWE has produced in I’d say the last 20 years. But he left the squared circle a few years ago to pursue a short lived career in the NFL. Having never made it off of the Minnesota Viking’s practice squad he left that and soon decided to give mma a try. Since he is a two time NCAA wrestling champion and a physical freak, the transition hasn’t been all to difficult. He had one short fight before getting a call from the UFC to face former champ Frank Mir. He did surprisingly well in that fight despite getting caught in a heel hook about mid way through the first round. A few months later was his second fight inside the octagon.

 

This time against Pride and UFC vet Heath Herring. Lesnar definitely showed a lot of improvement in this fight easily taking the unanimous decision. So naturally his next fight should be for the heavy weight title…. Right? No, but the money to be made for the UFC in a fight featuring Lesnar and Captain America himself Randy Couture is undeniable. Especially since Couture is making his long awaited return to action after a long and much publicized legal battle with the UFC’s parent company Zuffa over his pay compared to other fighters. Couture thought he deserved more money and all Zuffa had to say to that was “You signed a contract bitch” (well that’s basically what they said). So here we are, 2-1 Brock Lesnar versus 5 time UFC Champion Randy Couture for the UFC Heavy Weight Championship. Vegas has Lesnar as the favorite in this one. And I guess I’d have to begrudgingly agree. For two reasons, one being that Randy hasn’t fought in 14 months and the second reason simply being Lesnar’s size and strength advantage.

 

I mean the dude is ripped and still has to cut weight to make the 265 pound weight limit. And since he seems to be picking up this sport pretty fast he has decent skill too. But I definitely wouldn’t count the champ out in this one. He certainly has the skill advantage. He probably has as much skill advantage as Lesnar has size advantage. So Couture’s chance to win will all count on what his game plan is and his ability to execute. Couture usually likes to get in close and use his dirty boxing skills (punching and elbowing from the clinch) both in the middle of the octagon and up against the cage. I don’t see that working against his mountain of an opponent. Randy will have to keep his distance and expose Lesnar’s lack of striking experience. If he is able to do that, I see this fight playing out a lot like his fight against Tim Sylvia where he used amazing head movement and a solid jab to win the decision and the belt. Also, we don’t know how big of a gas tank (stamina) Lesnar has. So if Randy is able to stay away and make Brock chase, he might gas out pretty quickly and start to make mistakes.

relaunch / ufc 90 review

The relaunch is complete and CurryPopTart is finally born. Thanks to everyone who helped out with some great input and suggestions in getting this together. Not a major change but a few good new additions. Click through the pages tab on the sidebar for some new info and be sure to add the RSS feed if you want new updates as they go up. Other than that same site content you’ve come to love. Spread the word and tell a friend so the site can continue to grow.

As part of the new relaunch I would like to celebrate by unveiling a new feature. J Squire is joining CurryPopTart as our new MMA columnist with his feature, The Full Mount w/ J Squire. If you want some background on his accomplishments click the “about” link on the right. Here’s a review of last night’s UFC 90 featuring Silva vs Cote as the main event:

Despite three of the five main card bouts going the distance the UFC once again put on a show that was certainly entertaining enough to hold the attention of both the casual and hardcore MMA fan alike. The telecast kicked off with a bout between the seasoned veterans Sean Sherk facing the 24 year old Tyson Griffin. I personally really enjoyed this fight. It definitely had consistent action with both fighters landing plenty of quality strikes. Sherk was the aggressor for pretty much the entire fight except for a quick burst that Griffin had in the second. I, like the judges, saw this fight in favor for the Muscle Shark (Sherk) thanks to his ability to force the action and land multiple punch combinations. Tyson spent the night mostly just reacting to the former champ’s attacks rather than trying to initiate attacks of his own.

Next, was a fight that well exceeded my expectations. It was a bout between Junior dos Santos, a 24 year old Brazilian making his UFC debut, and Fabricio Werdum. Many saw Werdum as the next man in line for a title shot after the winner of the upcoming fight between Rodrigo Nogueira and Frank Mir. Those same people certainly are not thinking that today as he was quickly disposed of by dos Santos with a nasty uppercut 1:21 into the first round. This was much to my surprise as I was expecting a 3 round snooze fest since that’s all Fabricio ever seems to be involved in. But thanks to the new comer we were treated to the ppv’s lone “real” knock out.