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Performify’s Picks: UFC 74
Posted by Performify on August 23, 2007 at 10:10 am ET
Performify back with my usual round of picks and predictions for Saturday’s UFC 74. Before I get started, don’t forget to check out our
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On to the picks:
Thales Leites (-270) vs. Ryan Jensen (+210)
Thales Leites is a well-regarded Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter with a world-class ground game. Leites came in to the UFC with a 9-0 record, however Leites was defeated in his UFC debut by Martin Kampmann (15-2 MMA, 2-0 UFC) at The Ultimate Fighter 4 finale back in November 2006. He has since rebounded to win his last two – a unanimous decision win over Pete Sell at UFC 69 and a first round submission victory over Floyd Sword at The Ultimate Fighter 5 Finale — to improve his MMA record to 11-1 and UFC record to 2-1. Leites will turn 26 years old about two weeks after the fight.
Ryan Jensen is 29 years old and fights out of Omaha, Nebraska. He sports an 11-1 MMA record and is making his UFC debut. His lone loss was to the WEC’s Brock Larson at Extreme Challenge 63 in July 2005. Jensen started his martial arts training under Steve Jennum, the alternate who stepped in to win the UFC 3 tournament when Ken Shamrock was unable to continue. Jensen has been training MMA full time since 2006. He’s also spent time training with the Miletich camp as well as Team Qwest. Jensen will face the usual first-time octagon jitters, but he has competed on some decently large stages, including fighting Marlon Sims at Arco Arena in 2006 in front of close to 10,000 fans.
Jensen could fare better than many expect here, but I don’t believe he has the tools to hand Leites a loss. Leites is improving with every fight in the octagon, and I look for him to hand Jensen a loss via a second round submission.
Frank Mir (-170) vs. Antoni Hardonk (+140)
Antoni Hardonk is a 31-year-old Dutch kickboxer and is a protégé of legendary kickboxer Ernesto Hoost. He sports a 5-3 MMA record and is 1-1 in the UFC. Hardonk made his UFC debut on the undercard of UFC 65 (St. Pierre vs. Hughes II), defeating Sherman “The Tank” Pendergarst with a first round KO. He returned to the UFC to lose a unanimous decision to Justin McCully at UFC Fight Night 9 in April.
Frank Mir has heavy hands and great ground skills, but has had terrible conditioning ever since coming back from a motorcycle accident which left him with a severely broken femur and a crushed pelvis. Mir is 28 years old, with a record of 9-3 in MMA and 7-3 in the UFC. However, Mir is only 1-2 since his return from the motorcycle accident, with first round TKO losses to Brandon Vera at UFC 65 and Marcio Cruz at UFC 57. Mir trains at Randy Couture’s “Xtreme Couture” in Vegas.
<IFRAME name=300x250 align=right marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0 src="http://www.activeathletevector.com/OAS/AA_300x250.cfm?pub=tas.ufcjunkie&refresh_rate=60&refresh=yes" frameBorder=0 width=300 scrolling=no height=250></IFRAME>These two were originally scheduled to fight at UFC Fight Night 9 in April, however Mir had to pull out of the fight with a shoulder injury. This is an important fight for both fighters. A loss for Hardonk will likely bounce him out of the UFC. Likewise another disappointing performance for Mir will likely put a final stamp to his hopes of a comeback.
I’m not exactly looking forward to this fight — Hardonk has not looked impressive in his two fights, and “new” Mir hasn’t shown much either. However, Hardonk showed very limited ability to prevent takedowns and almost nothing from his back in the McCully fight. Mir should have the ability to put Hardonk on his back and can possibly end the fight early with his jiu jitsu skills. We’ll see if Mir has improved his conditioning if the fight goes past the first round. Mir by submission in the first round.
Clay Guida (-120) vs. Marcus Aurelio (-110)
Clay “The Carpenter” Guida is 25 years old with a 21 - 8 MMA record in just over four years. Guida is a very strong wrestler (he won the National Junior Collegiate Championship in 2001) and has a strong MMA pedigree, holding the Strikeforce lightweight Championship at one point and holding three belts in regional Midwest fighting organizations. Guida made his UFC debut at UFC 64 (Silva vs. Franklin) in October 2006, where he submitted Justin James with a second round rear naked choke. Guida comes in off two decision losses: to Din Thomas on the undercard of UFC Fight Night 8 (Evans vs. Salmon) and a controversial split decision loss to Tyson Griffin at UFC 72 just two months ago.
Marcus “Maximus” Aurelio makes his UFC debut at the age of 34 after spending years in PRIDE and the Japanese organization ZST. Aurelio trains with American Top Team and is a very strong Brazilian Jiu Jitsu — he holds a submission victory over top-ranked lightweight Takanori Gomi at PRIDE Bushido 10 in April 2006, and again fought Gomi to a close split decision in a rematch at PRIDE Bushido 13 in November 2006. Aurelio hasn’t finished many of his recent fights: six of his last seven have gone to decision.
Guida is a strong and explosive wrestler, however — as in his recent fight against Griffin — Guida will face a tremendous danger when the fight is on the ground – Guida can’t simply work on wrestling and control, he’s going to have to constantly be aware of Aurelio’s dangerous submission attempts in transitions.
At 34 years old, Aurelio is nearing the end of a MMA career that features some notable wins and a few disappointing losses. This fight will significantly define Aurelio’s future — a win over the young and hard-charging Guida will put Aurelio on the map with the UFC fans and start him on a path towards facing top contenders in the lightweight division. Guida likewise greatly needs a win, coming off two losses. It will be interesting to see if the pressure negatively affects Guida, or if it drives him.
This line is close, as it should be, but I would actually rank Aurelio as a very slight favorite in this match due to overall MMA experience and his dangerous submission skills. There are still significant unknowns with Aurelio: we haven’t seen him in action in almost a year thanks to the factor of PRIDE being in limbo. He’s also getting up there in years. Even with the unknowns, I still think its worth a small play. Aurelio by submission in the second round.
Renato Sobral (-210) vs. David Heath (+170)
Renato “Babalu” Sobral (27-7 MMA, 5-4 UFC) was ranked among the top few UFC light heavyweights last year, but his stock dropped significantly after his last two fights. First came an undisciplined performance in his title shot against Chuck Liddell at UFC 62, followed by a very disappointing loss to heavy underdog Jason Lambert by KO at UFC 68.
David Heath comes in with a 7-1 MMA record, 2-1 in the UFC. Heath lost his perfect record to Lyoto Machida at UFC 70, filling in for Forrest Griffin who was fighting a serious staph infection. In his previous UFC fights, Heath won a close split decision over Canadian fighter Victor Valimaki at UFC Fight Night 7, and in his debut submitted Cory Walmsley on the undercard of UFC 62 (Liddell vs. Sobral). Heath trains with Tom Jones and Clayton Marrs as part of the Absolute Combat Alliance out of Mikey Burnett’s gym. Heath is the former light heavyweight champion in Freestyle Cage Fighting, an Oklahoma-centric regional fighting organization.
Heath prefers to stand and fight on his feet, but has solid takedowns and is versed in submissions. Sobral will likely want to take this fight to the ground where he should have the advantage. Like many fights, this should be decided by the fighter who can better impose their will and execute their gameplan. It should be an entertaining match — it’s always great to see “Babalu” fight. Ultimately I think Heath has the ability to pull out the upset. Sobral is going to be under tremendous pressure to win and faces a dangerous, well-rounded fighter who can cause trouble for him standing or with superior power on the ground. I expect Sobral to be a little tentative and cautious, and think Heath will push the pace enough to win a decision.
Kendall Grove (-260) vs. Patrick Cote (+200)
Kendall Grove’s record is deceiving: he’s 8-3 in MMA overall, but 3-0 UFC. Grove was the middleweight winner of the third season of The Ultimate Fighter and made dramatic improvement since joining up with Tito Ortiz’s Team Punishment on the show. While he still is a member of Team Punishment, he’s also moved on to training with Xtreme Couture and Marc Laimon’s Cobra Kai. At 6’6”, Grove is very tall for a middleweight — Grove has seven inches of height on Cote and a huge reach advantage. In his most recent fight Grove defeated Alan Belcher at UFC 69 in April utilizing a rare choke called a brabo to finish the fight. The brabo choke is a counter to an escape from side control — when the fighter on the bottom tries to turn and escape, you start to apply a whizzer (overhook from the top) and can transition it to a choke trapping the bottom’s arm and securing a choke similar to a triangle. You may have also heard the choke called a “Shaolin choke”, named for the fighter Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro who utilizes it with great effectiveness.
Patrick Cote is 10-4 MMA but 1-4 in the UFC. Cote finally secured his first UFC victory over Scott Smith at UFC 67 after opening 0-4 in the organization. Cote recently stepped outside the UFC to defeat Jason Day by first round TKO at TKO 29 to win the organization’s Middleweight title. Cote has spent significant time training with Canadian Georges St. Pierre.
I think this is a decent line for us to attack. I think we see Grove take another step forward in his career here handing Cote a decisive loss. Kendal Grove by decision.
Joe Stevenson (-295) vs Kurt Pellegrino (+235)
Joe Stevenson holds a 27-7 MMA record and is 4-1 in the UFC. Stevenson has cross-trained with numerous camps, but is most closely affiliated with Marc Laimon’s Cobra Kai Jiu Jitsu. His last two UFC fights have gone just over two and a half minutes in total, both guillotine submissions: the first over Dokonjonosuke Mishima at UFC 65, and most recently putting a quick end to the highly touted fight with Melvin Guillard at UFC Fight Night 9 in April. Stevenson is very strong for a lightweight, very compact at 5’7” (Pellegrnio is only slightly larger at 5’8”).
Kurt “Batman†Pellegrino teaches and trains at The Armory alongside Hermes Franca. Pellegrino holds a 10-2 MMA record and is 2-1 in the UFC. 8 of his 10 wins have come by way of submission, with another win by TKO and only one by decision. Only three of his fights have gotten out of the first round, both of his losses (Drew Fickett in his UFC debut at UFC 61, and a loss in Pancrase in mid 2004 against Satoru Kitaoka), and a decision win against the highly regarded Mac Danzing in Pellegrino’s first fight, in the WEC in late 2002. Pellegrino has a decorated grappling resume, including competing in the prestigious invitation-only Abu Dhabi Combat Club.
Stevenson is being given almost a 75% chance to win this fight, and I believe this line should be closer. Stevenson is a top contender at lightweight, but Pellegrino is extremely skilled, especially on the ground. His ground skills and submission skills should negate some of Stevenson’s traditional ground-and-pound. Neither fighter has demonstrated much capability on their feet in their past fights. This should be an interesting fight, and one that should help to solidify the top contenders of the lightweight division. A small play here on the big underdog, and as such I’ll have to predict Pellegrino with the upset — possibly a kneebar or some other lower-body submission, probably catching Stevenson early if he’s going to pull it out. That said, this is obviously a long shot play, even if Pellegrino is a good bet as the heavy underdog we expect to lose this play much more often than we win.
Gabriel Gonzaga (-135) vs. Randy Couture (+105)
Gabriel “Napao†Gonzaga sports a 8-1 MMA record and is 4-0 in the UFC. Gonzaga made his UFC debut at UFC 56, defeating Kevin Jordan. Gonzaga then returned to defeat Fabiano Scherner at UFC 60 (Hughes vs. Gracie) and went on to submit Carmelo Marrero in the very first round at UFC 66 (Liddell vs. Ortiz). Most recently, in the “kick heard ’round the world,” Gonzaga dropped top heavyweight Mirko Cro Cop, first stunning the heavily-favored Croatian with a barrage of vicious ground-and-pound elbows before finishing the fight with a devastating head kick.
Gonzaga has trained with some of the best in Brazil, receiving his BJJ black belt from Wander Braga and trains with Marco Alvan at Link BJJ. Gonzaga is certainly skilled in BJJ, with four submissions in his six wins, including choking out UFC fighter Branden Lee Hinkle with a triangle choke in Vale Tudo back in 2003 in Brazil. Gonzaga also sports a decorated record in grappling contests outside of MMA: he is a four-time Brazilian jiu-jitsu National Champion, placed second at Abu Dhabi Combat Club 2005 (losing in the finals to Jeff Monson). Most impressively, Gonzaga won the 2006 Mundials, one of the biggest and best jiu jitsu tournaments in Brazil. Gonzaga is certainly world class on the ground, and has proven an ability to bang on his feet in his previous UFC contests.
Randy Couture is 15-8 in MMA, 12- 5 in the UFC. Couture is 3-3 in his last six fights back to the beginning of 2004, with two losses to Chuck Liddell (UFC 52 and 57) and a technical loss due to a cut against Vitor Belfort back at UFC 46. “The Natural” is 44 years old.
Couture is a smart fighter with excellent gameplans. He’s obviously a superb wrestler, and he works very well in the clench with a lot of takedowns, throws and slams from the clench. Couture is very strong in the clench and is great at throws from the clench (pretty much exactly what Couture used to defeat Chuck Liddell back in the day). It’s always hard to count Couture out, however I don’t see how he’s going to be able to defeat Gonzaga.
Gonzaga obviously possesses a significant advantage due to his age, and is by far the most dangerous jiu jitsu practitioner that Couture has ever faced. As we saw with Cro Cop, Gonzaga has vicious ground and pound and definitely has good stand up as well. In short, he is a very well rounded fighter, and I expect he will take the heavyweight title from Couture at UFC 74.
I expect both fighters to come out slow and spend a good portion of the first round feeling each other out. I expect Gonzaga to grind out an edge everywhere — I’m afraid he’s going to be too much for Couture standing, too dangerous from his back, and will be very dangerous if he can get on top. I predict Gonzaga by submission (set up by strikes) in the fourth round.
Georges St-Pierre (-220) vs. Josh Koscheck (+180)
Georges St. Pierre holds a 13-2 MMA, and is 6-1 in fights going back through 2005. This is St. Pierre’s tenth fight in the octagon, where he is undefeated except against fighters named Matt. St. Pierre’s first loss was to Matt Hughes at UFC 50 in October 2004, later avenged in dominant fashion at UFC 65. St. Pierre is coming off one of the largest upsets in MMA history, a loss to Matt Serra at UFC 69.
Josh Koscheck sports a 9-1 MMA record, 7-1 in the UFC. “Kos” is a former NCAA wrestling standout who was a strong competitor on the first season of The Ultimate Fighter. After making a strong run on the show, Koscheck was ultimately beaten by Sanchez in the second semifinal match of the show’s welterweight bracket. Koscheck’s lone professional loss is a submission loss to Drew Fickett at UFC Fight Night 2 back in October 2005. Koscheck was controlling the fight most of the way, and then got caught with a knee late in the third round while shooting in for yet another takedown – Fickett capitalized, jumping on his back and securing the comeback win by rear naked choke. Since the loss, Koscheck has five wins in the UFC: two of them first round submission victories - over Ansar Chalangov at UFC Fight Night 4 and Jonathan Goulet at UFC Fight Night 6 - and three of them unanimous decision wins, over Dave Menne at UFC Fight Night, over Jeff Joslin at UFC Fight Night 7 back in December 2006, and most recently over Diego Sanchez at UFC 69.
Few people realize exactly how accomplished a wrestling background Koscheck actually holds. Koscheck went 42-0 in 2001 and was the NCAA Division I National Champion that year in the 174-pound weight class. “Kos” was honored as the Wrestler of the Year three times by his conference, and was a four-time conference champion and also a four-time Division I All-American. Koscheck trains with the American Kickboxing Academy (AKA) team out of San Jose.
Koscheck has been pretty widely criticized as a “lay and pray” fighter in the past, even to the point of Diego Sanchez stopping by Koscheck’s Myspace page to call him a “human blanket” as previously reported here on UFCjunkie.com. Koscheck has shown marked improvement in several of his recent fights – especially the Goulet fight - before taking a bit of a step backwards in his most recent fight with Jeff Joslin.
Koscheck has a tremendous takedown and elite wrestling ability, and has started to effectively add strikes on the ground to his arsenal.
This is an interesting fight to call. St. Pierre is extremely well rounded and considered by many one of the best pound for pound in the world. However, with the loss to Serra his status as one of the best is now in question. Koscheck has one of the fastest and strongest takedowns in MMA right now. We haven’t really seen St. Pierre on his back frequently, so the main questions here will be how effectively St. Pierre can defend the takedown and when (not if) he gets taken down, how effective Koscheck is at controlling him.
<IFRAME name=300x250 align=right marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0 src="http://www.activeathletevector.com/OAS/AA_300x250.cfm?pub=tas.ufcjunkie&refresh_rate=60&refresh=yes" frameBorder=0 width=300 scrolling=no height=250></IFRAME>I think this line is very well set. Koscheck has a chance to win this fight, without question. I think Koscheck gains advantage in that its not a five round title fight — to ride this to a unanimous decision he only has to control two rounds instead of three. It will be interesting to see how the mental aspect of St. Pierre’s game has improved — if Koscheck puts him on the canvas right away and holds him down for a round, will St. Pierre become frustrated and lose focus?
From a pure gambling perspective, I think a small play on Koscheck is the right side here. St. Pierre likely wins this fight more often than not, however I think Koscheck has a reasonable chance and we’re being offered solid odds at close to two-to-one.
Roger Huerta (-450) vs. Alberto Crane (+300)
Roger Huerta is a well-regarded Miletich fighter with a 18-1-1 MMA record. Huerta made his UFC debut on the undercard of UFC 63 (Hughes vs. Penn), defeating Jason Dent by unanimous decision. In his most recent fight, Huerta defeated Doug Evans by second-round TKO at the Ultimate Fighter 5 Finale. Huerta won the IFC and ISKA lightweight and welterweight titles in 2005, and is on a fourteen-fight win streak after his only loss in mid-2004. Huerta is very explosive and very well rounded, possessing serious strikes on his feet and is well-versed in submissions.
Alberto Crane is a highly regarded jiu jitsu practitioner, a BJJ black belt out of the famous Gracia Barra academy in Brazil. Crane is 8-0 in MMA but has not competed in a professional MMA bout since January 2005. Crane is a decorated grappler who won the 2002 World Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Champion (Mundials), is a 3 time Brazilian National Jiu-Jitsu Champion, and has competed in the prestigious Abu Dhabi Combat Club. Crane has held the lightweight title in both King of the Cage and Ring of Fire.
Huerta’s previous UFC fights are a major edge in experience. First time octagon jitters are a very real thing, as fighters can be very affected by the major adrenaline dump that comes from stepping in under the UFC lights for the first time, regardless of any previous experience in smaller venues. This fight could be one of the best fights of the night — Huerta is always explosive, and Crane is certainly well regarded as a grappler. This will likely play out where Huerta wants to keep the fight standing and utilize his advantage on the feet, and Crane will obviously want to take the fight to the ground where he can utilize his BJJ.
I know a lot of people like Crane here as an underdog play. However, I think there are too many unknowns here to consider wagering on this fight — most of Crane’s experience is in grappling contests with a gi and we’ve yet to see extensive proof of his skills translating effectively against top tier competition in the no-gi world of MMA. Crane is also coming off almost a three year MMA layoff — he’s been grappling and teaching and training, but hasn’t been fighting. Huerta by TKO in the second round after a surprisingly competitive first round.
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