{"id":4923,"date":"2010-10-23T11:46:42","date_gmt":"2010-10-23T15:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=4923"},"modified":"2010-10-23T18:06:25","modified_gmt":"2010-10-23T22:06:25","slug":"ufc-121-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=4923","title":{"rendered":"UFC 121 Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2010\/z10232010ufc121.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"475\" height=\"605\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>UFC 121<\/strong> is live tonight on pay-per-view and has one of the best fight cards in recent memory.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s get to my predictions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Patrick Cote vs. Tom Lawlor <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This should be an exciting, close fight.\u00a0 I&#8217;m a<strong> Cote<\/strong> fan, but <strong>Lawler <\/strong>is no pushover.\u00a0<strong> Lawler<\/strong> needs to get this to the ground where he would most likely have the advantage.\u00a0 That advantage coupled with the fact that <strong>Cote<\/strong> has only fought three times in two years makes <strong>Lawlor<\/strong> a tempting pick.\u00a0 But, as I said, I&#8217;m a <strong>Cote<\/strong> fan.<br \/>\n<strong>My prediction:<\/strong> <strong>Cote<\/strong> for the win.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Brendan Schaub <\/strong>My guess is this one will end early.\u00a0 Either man has the ability to do the job.\u00a0 If you think experience is the key, then <strong>Gonzaga<\/strong> is the fighter to pick.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>My prediction: Gonzaga<\/strong> by TKO.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Paulo Thiago vs. Diego Sanchez<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This should be another exciting fight.\u00a0 At one point <strong>Diego<\/strong> was my favorite fighter, and although<strong> Frank Mir<\/strong> has moved into my top spot, <strong>Diego<\/strong> not too far behind.\u00a0 <strong>Thiago<\/strong> is a slight favorite.\u00a0 I think that they&#8217;re pretty equally matched, but the smart money will be on <strong>Thiago<\/strong>.\u00a0 Since I&#8217;m not betting, it makes my decision pretty easy.<br \/>\n<strong>My prediction: Diego<\/strong> by decision.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Matt Hamill vs. Tito Ortiz<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Another interesting fight.\u00a0 Despite the fact [as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>MMA Fighting<\/strong><\/a> points out] that  &#8220;that the last time he [<strong>Ortiz<\/strong>] finished someone not named <strong>Ken Shamrock<\/strong> was in <strong>2001<\/strong>,&#8221; many folks think that he&#8217;ll beat <strong>Hamill<\/strong>.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t see how.\u00a0 <strong>Hamill<\/strong> can wrestle and should be able to stuff any of <strong>Ortiz&#8217;s takedowns<\/strong>.\u00a0 <strong>Hamill<\/strong> is stronger than <strong>Ortiz<\/strong>.\u00a0 He&#8217;s younger than <strong>Ortiz<\/strong>.\u00a0 Of course <strong>Hamill<\/strong> is coming off of a brutal loss to <strong>Bones Jones <\/strong>and that may play mind games with him for this first fight back.<br \/>\n<strong>My prediction: Hamill<\/strong> by decision.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Jake Shields vs. Martin Kampman<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is <strong>Jake Shields&#8217;<\/strong> first fight since his dramatic upset of <strong>Dan Henderson<\/strong>.\u00a0 <strong>Shields&#8217;<\/strong> game plan will be to dominate via ground and pound.\u00a0 <strong>Kampman<\/strong> will want this to be a standup war.\u00a0 I think at some point the fight will go to the ground and <strong>Shields<\/strong> will do enough to win.<br \/>\n<strong>My prediction: Shields<\/strong> via decision.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Brock Lesnar vs. Cain Velasquez<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The fight that will get everyone to tune in.\u00a0 And it should be an exciting one.\u00a0 <strong>Lesnar<\/strong> is a beast.\u00a0 He improves with every fight.\u00a0 <strong>Cain<\/strong> is undefeated with punching power, wrestling ability and stamina.\u00a0 But will all those attributes be enough to stop <strong>Lesnar<\/strong>?\u00a0 We saw the chink in<strong> Lesnar&#8217;s armor<\/strong> when he fought <strong>Carwin<\/strong>.\u00a0 Of course<strong> Lesnar<\/strong> saw it too.\u00a0 Has he had enough time to shore up his boxing defense?\u00a0 We&#8217;ll find out tonight.<br \/>\n<strong>My prediction: Velasquez<\/strong> via TKO.<\/p>\n<p>This should be the best card in recent memory.\u00a0 Every fight has the potential to be <strong>&#8220;fight of the night.&#8221;<\/strong> I&#8217;ll post the results tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UFC 121 is live tonight on pay-per-view and has one of the best fight cards in recent memory.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s get<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4923","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\/4923","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=4923"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4926,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4923\/revisions\/4926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}