{"id":5958,"date":"2011-10-30T09:28:33","date_gmt":"2011-10-30T13:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=5958"},"modified":"2011-10-30T09:28:33","modified_gmt":"2011-10-30T13:28:33","slug":"fireworks-before-after-ufc-137","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=5958","title":{"rendered":"Fireworks Before &#038; After UFC 137"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2011\/z103011ufc137.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"475\" height=\"357\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>UFC 137<\/strong> was last night and it turned out to be an interesting night of fights.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go right to my picks\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <strong>Mirko Cro Cop vs. Roy Nelson<\/strong> \u2013 <strong><br \/>\n<\/strong>Prediction: <strong>Nelson wins<\/strong> by<strong> TKO<\/strong>.<br \/>\nResult: <strong>Nelson won by TKO<\/strong> in round 3 making me <strong>1-0<\/strong> for the night.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Cheick Kongo vs. Matt Mitrione<\/strong><br \/>\nPrediction: <strong>Mitrione wins<\/strong> by <strong>TKO<\/strong>.<br \/>\nResult: <strong>Kongo won<\/strong> by <strong>unanimous decision<\/strong> making me <strong>1-1 <\/strong>for the night.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>BJ Penn vs. Nick Diaz<\/strong><br \/>\nPrediction: <strong>Diaz with an upset win<\/strong>.<br \/>\nResult: <strong>Diaz won<\/strong> with a <strong>unanimous decision<\/strong> making me <strong>2-1<\/strong> for the night.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Final thoughts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Brandon Vera<\/strong> showed a lot of heart in earning a close but <strong>unanimous decision<\/strong> [29-28 on all 3 judge&#8217;s cards] over <strong>Elliott Marshall<\/strong>.\u00a0 What&#8217;s even more impressive is <strong>Vera<\/strong> did it with a <strong>broken arm<\/strong>.\u00a0 For the record, I&#8217;m not a huge <strong>Vera<\/strong> fan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Bart Palaszewski<\/strong> looked impressive in his <strong>KO victory<\/strong> over\u00a0 <strong>Tyson Griffin.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Donald Cerrone<\/strong> was even more impressive in his <strong>submission victory<\/strong> over the very tough<strong> Dennis Siver<\/strong>.\u00a0 When is <strong>Cerrone<\/strong> going to get a <strong>title shot<\/strong>?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">A slimmed down <strong>Roy Nelson<\/strong> TKO&#8217;d\u00a0 <strong>Mirko &#8220;Cro Cop&#8221; Filipovic<\/strong> right into retirement.\u00a0 Does anyone really think we&#8217;ve seen the last of <strong>Cro Cop<\/strong>?\u00a0 Do we now call him <strong>Roy <\/strong><em>Not As Big Country<\/em><strong> Nelson<\/strong> ?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Cheick Kongo<\/strong> handled <strong>Matt Mitrione<\/strong> and that really surprised me.\u00a0 I wonder why <em>Meathead<\/em> didn&#8217;t go after <strong>Kongo<\/strong>?\u00a0 Too much respect? \u00a0Was he worried that <strong>Kongo<\/strong> would <em><strong>Pat Barry<\/strong><\/em> him?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Nick Diaz<\/strong> whooped <strong>B.J. Penn<\/strong> right into retirement.\u00a0 [Does anyone really think we&#8217;ve seen the last of <strong>The Prodigy<\/strong>?]\u00a0 <strong>Diaz<\/strong> now has a <strong>title shot<\/strong> against <strong>GSP<\/strong> since <strong>Carlos Condit<\/strong> agreed to step aside.\n<p>After his win last night, <strong>Diaz<\/strong> took the mic and called out <strong>GSP,<\/strong> saying <strong>GSP<\/strong> faked the injury that prevented him from fighting on the same card against <strong>Carlos Condit<\/strong>.\u00a0 <strong>Diaz <\/strong>had been dogging <strong>GSP<\/strong> for some time now and apparently the strategy worked.\u00a0 <strong>GSP<\/strong> asked <strong>Dana White<\/strong> for the chance to fight <strong>Diaz<\/strong>.\u00a0 It looks like the fight will happen <strong>Super Bowl<\/strong> weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Love him or hate him, everyone has an opinion of <strong>Nick Diaz<\/strong>.\u00a0 Perhaps <strong>Dana White<\/strong> said it best, <a href=\"http:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/mma\/news;_ylt=AsmB97MJUAvxMJa4FDZyMJM9Eo14?slug=ki-iole_diaz_stpierre103011\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>\u201cPeople love real fighters and this kid is a real fighter.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UFC 137 was last night and it turned out to be an interesting night of fights.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go right to<\/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-5958","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\/5958","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=5958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5959,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5958\/revisions\/5959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}