Thursday, July 5, 2012

Terrere, Copa Podio, & UFC 148 Picks



News about Terrere. He's hoping to soon be moving out of a rehab facility and dealing with the schizophrenia he now believes causes his drug abuse. For those who have watched the A&E show Intervention, you'll notice that often times drug addicts are self-medicating with illegal drugs a host of problems including: trauma, past abuse, schizophrenia, depression et cetera. Here's to hoping Terrere can get his life back on track and find that love of  Jiu-Jitsu that brought him to prominence.



Copa Podio has GB Belo Horizonte vs GB Recife in the first round among other notable match-ups.

Leadro Lo, Otavio Souza, and Formiga all figure into one side of the bracket for a considerable task. I wouldn't be surprised for any of those guys to take the Copa Podio, so say nothing of Vinicius on the other side of the bracket repping GFTeam (he happened to be training one night at a gym I stopped in at while in Recife).Small world.

UFC 148 Picks/Predictions:
Here are my picks for this weekend megafight between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen.
I am going against conventional wisdom and picking Chael Sonnen. I've never seen so many people ignore the the reality of how the first fight went and let their dislike of Chael Sonnen cloud their memory. There are people who actually think that a) Anderson deliberately gave away 4 rounds of the fight and b) Anderson was trying to win ONLY using his Jiu-Jitsu despite being a KO machine across much of his career.
I understand that many people do not like Chael....that does not change the fact that stylistically, Chael is a bad match-up for Anderson. Other than Dan Henderson who does not have the frame/build/length to stay on Anderson and close the distance, the Spider has not faced any top flight wrestlers. When he did? He got knocked down by Chael and take down each and every round. To say nothing of the fact that Chael put Anderson on his butt with a punch more than once across 4 1/2 rounds.
At any rate, here are my picks:

- Chael Sonnen def. Anderson Silva VIA split decision
   - Vinny Magalhaes, who's been training Chael's ground work for this fight saying basically what I think about the fight - 
- Forrest Griffin stops Tito Ortiz in the 3rd round via TKO
- Riki Fukuda wins split decision by pressing Phillippou against the cage and taking him down
- I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Demian Maia taps out Dong Hyun Kim in the 3rd round
- Gleison Tibau proves to be too much too soon and wins a unanimous decision against Khabib Nurmagomedov. Tibau is huge. Fights the whole fight. Is built like Toquinho's little brother (and about as ugly).
- Fabricio Camoes taps out Melvin Guillard in the 2nd round b/c Melvin is overrated, has no business being in the sport and finds a way to lose as often as he does a way to win. Oh, and Melvin showboats when he thinks he's better than his opponent (Fun Fact: Melvin once tested positive for Cocaine following a UFC fight earlier in his career).
- John Alessio taps Shane Roller in the 3rd round b/c Shane Roller has been on a downturn lately and Alessio is as experienced an underdog as they come.

- I'm gonna bet with my heart rather than conventional wisdom and predict Cody Mckenzie taps out Chad Mendes despite the fact he's never been tapped in his MMA career and has survived against Javier Vasquez and other notables.

- Ivan Menjivar will beat Mike Easton by unanimous decision based on Menjivar's experience, grit, and the fact that I'm still butthurt Easton was too busy shadowboxing to stop and watch his sister get her black belt from Lloyd Irvin after she won the Mundials.

- Rafaello Oliveira will prove too much too soon for Yoislandy Izquierdo b/c Rafaello despite some losses has a lot of potential and Yoislandy has shown less in his octagon time - Oliveira by submission in the 1st round

- Cung Le b/c he's finally fighting semi-regularly will win a unanimous decision against Patrick Cote. Despite conventional wisdom, Cung has managed to nearly beat/hang with former world champions despite not really fighting full-time over the past several years. Now that this is what he's doing (for the time being) and he's got some consistency in running through training camps, and Cote's been gone from the big show for awhile, my money's on Cung! Besides he's been in the live action version of Tekken, Pandorum, and a movie with JCVD!


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