{"id":3444,"date":"2009-08-29T19:13:28","date_gmt":"2009-08-29T23:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=3444"},"modified":"2009-08-29T19:13:28","modified_gmt":"2009-08-29T23:13:28","slug":"ufc-102-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=3444","title":{"rendered":"UFC 102 Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><\/strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2009\/z082909ufc102.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"475\" height=\"504\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>UFC 102<\/strong> is tonight so let&#8217;s go right to my picks:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris Tuchscherer<\/strong> (17 &#8211; 1) <strong>vs Gabriel Gonzaga<\/strong> (10-4) <strong>Gonzaga<\/strong> has fought the better quality of fighters, but <strong>Tuchscherer <\/strong>is no slouch. If he can get through the first round and make use of his <strong>All-American wrestling skills<\/strong>, he should be able to take the win. <strong>My pick: Tuchscherer by decision.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Krzysztof Soszynski<\/strong> (18-8-1)<strong> vs<\/strong> <strong>Brandon Vera<\/strong> (10-3) <strong>Vera<\/strong> is favored because <strong>Soszynski <\/strong>seems made to order. <strong>Vera<\/strong> is bigger, and more skilled.\u00a0 Still, I&#8217;ve never been a <strong>Brandon Vera<\/strong> fan. I&#8217;m pulling for the upset in this one however&#8230; <strong>My pick: Vera by decision.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Demian Maia<\/strong> (10 &#8211; 0) <strong>vs Nate Marquardt<\/strong> (28 &#8211; 8 &#8211; 2) This could be the <strong>best fight of the night<\/strong>. I like both of these fighters. It&#8217;s hard to go against an <strong>undefeated talent<\/strong> like <strong>Maia<\/strong>, but&#8230;<strong> My pick: Marquardt in a close decision.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Jake Rosholt<\/strong> (5 &#8211; 1) <strong>vs Chris Leben<\/strong> (18 &#8211; 6) I&#8217;m not a huge fan of <strong>Leben<\/strong>, but even I can&#8217;t deny he is one tough fighter. If <strong>Rosholt<\/strong> sticks to wrestling, he could have a very good shot at an upset. My guess is <strong>Leben<\/strong> won&#8217;t let him. If <strong>Rosholt<\/strong> tries to slug it out with <strong>Leben<\/strong>, game over. <strong>My pick: Leben by decision.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Thiago Silva<\/strong> (13 &#8211; 1) <strong>vs Keith Jardine<\/strong> (14 &#8211; 6) <strong>Keith Jardine<\/strong> goes into every round looking for the knockout.\u00a0 <strong>Silva<\/strong> won&#8217;t want to trade with <strong>Jardine<\/strong>.\u00a0 <strong>\u00a0Jardine<\/strong> shouldn&#8217;t want to take it to the ground with <strong>Silva<\/strong>. This could make for a very <strong>tactical fight<\/strong>&#8230; it could also end up a<strong> snooze fest<\/strong> if <strong>Silva<\/strong> refuses to stand and trade in order to set up a takedown. <strong>My pick: Jardine by decision.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira<\/strong> (31-5-1) vs <strong>Randy Couture<\/strong> (16 &#8211; 9) \u00a0I like both of these fighters.\u00a0 <strong>Couture<\/strong> is older and has had less fights. Both are coming off of losses [<strong>Nog <\/strong>was <strong>KO&#8217;d<\/strong> by<strong> Frank Mir<\/strong> and <strong>Couture<\/strong> was <strong>KO&#8217;d<\/strong> by <strong>Brock Lesnar<\/strong>]. Both need the win in order to remain at the top of the<strong> MMA<\/strong> food chain. <strong>My pick: Couture by KO<\/strong>. [And the fact that <strong>Couture<\/strong> is co-starring in <strong>&#8220;The Expendables&#8221;<\/strong> had very little to do with my decision. ; ) ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UFC 102 is tonight so let&#8217;s go right to my picks: Chris Tuchscherer (17 &#8211; 1) vs Gabriel Gonzaga (10-4)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mma","comments-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3445,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3444\/revisions\/3445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}