Fight!

Saturday night is the latest and greatest in UFC PPVs. While I was a casual observer of MMA shows [mostly Pride] in 2005, I never would have imagined it would become the new "it sport" and involve my friends gathering every month to watch. It's a cool phenomenon to behold... especially the influx of people who suddenly become experts on MMA because they can identify a full mount.

Well, I'm about to reveal my level of bullshit expertness as I look over the card and give you my sure-to-be-horrific predictions. I'm also going to run a little experiment with myself by checking the gambling odds, using some faux money, and seeing how badly I would have won or lost my fundage. We'll use a fair amount of $100 to work with.

I'm going to go ahead and really be a jackass and pick the method and round of victory but to get the point for getting the prediction right, I only have to pick the winner!

DISCLAIMER: While I feel I have a decent amount of MMA knowledge, I'm pretty bad at picking winners and I'm lacking the familiarity of a lot of MMA fighters. So, you're going to get a lot of picks based off whatever info I can find on the Interweb. DO NOT take much stock in these picks. Enjoy!

Here's the card thanks to our friends at MMAJunkie:

UFC 80
Date: Jan. 19
Location: Newcastle, England
Venue: Metro Radio Arena
Broadcast: Pay-Per-View

MAIN CARD

* B.J. Penn vs. Joe Stevenson (for vacant lightweight title)
* Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Fabricio Werdum
* Marcus Davis vs. Jess Liaudin
* Jason Lambert vs. Wilson Gouveia
* Kendall Grove vs. Jorge Rivera

PRELIMINARY CARD

* Antoni Hardonk vs. Colin Robinson
* Paul Kelly vs. Paul Taylor
* James Lee vs. Alessio Sakara
* Per Eklund vs. Sam Stout

Blue's picks:

Per Eklund vs Sam Stout
ODDS: No action being taken
Crikey. First match and already someone I've never heard of. This will be a trend. I have no idea who Eklund is and only vaguely recall Stout. A quick researching online shows Eklund at 12-2-1 with a lot of pretty good wins in decent sized promotions. Stout is 12-3-1 with a lot of TKOs but seems like he might be susceptible to submissions [totally hoping I'm not talking out my ass here]
PREDICTION: Per Eklund via submission (Kimura) in Rd 2

James Lee vs Alessio Sakara
ODDS: No action being taken
Uh huh. I recall Sakara's name but nothing springs to mind one way or the other. Lee is 13-2 with a ton of submission wins. He's only had one fight go past the first round and that was a loss to Vernon White seven years ago. His last fight was a triangle choke win in 41 seconds which is pretty impressive. Sakara is 11-6 and fights with Brazilian Top Team. He's got losses to Houston Alexander and Dean Lister recently. Seems to have some heavy hands though. He's got the puncher's chance.
PREDICTION: James Lee via submission (RNC) in Rd 1

Paul Kelly vs Paul Taylor
ODDS: No action being taken
Riiiiight. No clue who either guy is. Kelly is 6-0 with 4 TKOs against... no one I've heard of. Taylor is 8-2-1 with a mixed bag of opponents. This is the "hometown" fight as they're both from the UK. This makes up for Bisping not being on the show? Total crapshoot here.
PREDICTION: Paul Kelly via TKO in Rd 2

Antoni Hardonk vs. Colin Robinson
ODDS: No action being taken
Hardonk sounds familiar. He's 5-4 with two losses to Frank Mir and Justin McCulley last year which is a bad sign for him. Colin is 9-3 with one of the losses coming in the UFC to Eddie Sanchez last year. Sanchez didn't look horrible against CroCop so I'm gonna guess Colin's respectable.
PREDICTION: Colin Robinson via TKO in Rd 1

MAIN SHOW!

Kendall Grove vs. Jorge Rivera
ODDS: BoDog's got Kendall at -500 and Jorge at +350
Holy shit! Two guys I know! Jorge is 14-6 and has lost to some pretty average fighters. Kendall's 8-4 with most of the losses way in the past but he's coming off a shitty loss to Cote. The question will be how Kendall responds to a shitty loss. I'm going to say Kendall rises to the challenge and takes this one but with the odds so high, this would probably be a good sleeper pick.
PREDICTION: Kendall Grove via submission (Triangle) in Rd 2
BETTING: $20 on Jorge for the upset with a $70 payoff if he pulls it off

Jason Lambert vs Wilson Gouveia
ODDS: No action being taken
More guys I know! Lambert's 23-6 with his last win coming over Babalu and his last loss to the human blanket, Rashad Evans. He also fights out of Apple Valley which makes him a bit of a sentimental favorite for me. Gouveia is 9-4 with his last loss to Jardine in '06. He's riding a four fight win streak into this one.
PREDICTION: Jason Lambert via TKO in Rd 1

Marcus Davis vs Jess Liaudin
ODDS: No action being taken
Uhhh. Who? Davis is on a roll. 13-3 record with a 10 fight win streak and the last loss coming via cut stoppage. Of course, wins against Shonie and Spratt don't exactly set the world on fire. Liaudin's 12-8 with a 5 fight win streak. Something's gotta give!
PREDICTION: Marcus Davis via submission [armbar] in Rd 1

Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Fabricio Werdum
ODDS: BoDog has it at -280 for Gonzaga and +220 for Werdum
More guys I know! Although I can't recall a lot about Werdum other than he had some decent hype coming out of Pride. Werdum comes in from Cro Cop's fight team at 9-3-1 with a loss in his UFC debut to Arlovski (that I vaguely recall.) Looking at his record, he seems to only lose to big names (Arlovski, Kharitarov, Noguiera) but hasn't beaten many of note. He does, however, have a win over Gonzaga from 2003 in Jungle Fight. Just a fun fact to consider. Gonzaga, of course, has the big KO highlight reel win over Cro Cop but came up short against Randy Couture in his heavyweight title shot. Gonzaga is 8-2 with his only losses coming to Randy and Werdum. This is a very definite pick 'em.
PREDICTION: Gabriel Gonzaga vis decision
BETTING: $30 for GG which would give a return of $11

MAIN EVENT: BJ Penn vs Joe Stevenson for the vacant lightweight title
ODDS: BoDog has Penn at -285 and Stevenson at +225
Whew. This is a tough one. I've liked Stevenson ever since his Ultimate Fighter challenge where he had to climb around his teammate's body without touching the ground... you know the one! But I've always had a soft spot for BJ Penn because he's such an absolute prick and he really should have beaten Matt Hughes before he gassed out. Going off records, BJ is 11-4-1 coming off a win over Jens Pulver after back-to-back losses to Hughes and GSP. The Pulver fight was BJ's only fight in 2007 due to some legal troubles. Joe Daddy is 28-7, trains at Cobra Kai for christ's sake, and is riding a four match win streak. He doesn't quite have the star power on his resume that BJ does though. Joe is prone to the bizarre loss though when he dropped a decision to Neer in '06. Hrmm. Honestly, I think this is going long and that tends to be BJ's area of trouble. He's known for bad conditioning and Joe Daddy is known for great conditioning. I haven't decided who I'm rooting for yet but I think my pick is solid.
PREDICTION: Joe Stevenson via decision
BETTING: $50 on the under dog which would give a return of $113


That's it, baby! Everyone tune in on Saturday night or check back here next week to see how right [or horribly wrong] I was.