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http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Report ... -Rio-31464


Should be a good one, nice to see Okami get a title shot. Think Anderson wins though.

Had assumed this for a while. Really needed to be there in order to draw.

Wouldn't be surprised if Aldo ends up on this card as well, especially since Wandy is already booked for the month before, taking the Wandy vs. Belfort rematch off the table.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a Big Nog (retirement?) fight here. Possibly vs. Cro Cop, even though it looked like he wouldn't be fighting in the UFC again.

There's also been talk of some Gracie involvement, whether it's Royce, Renzo, or one of the younger ones.

Good for Okami. He deserves it.

REDDzone wrote:Good for Okami. He deserves it.

Okami really does deserve it, he's been waiting patiently and hasn't complained even though he's been passed over time and time again. That said, I can't help to feel underwhelmed with this fight after having Silva come off crazy wins against Sonnen and Vitor. This doesn't excite me

Yeah, Okami's case is a tough one. He's had the 'win' against Anderson Silva to help his cause, but he's repeatedly fell short against top competition.

He just about got a shot at one point (I think either Cote or Leites stepped in for him). Then when he came back, he lost and had to go to the back of the line, again. He was also slated to get a title shot at a time when Silva had cleared out most top contenders and was taking fights at 205 to stay busy. By the time he came back from injury, there were new contenders around, with better resumes.

He had twice made a run only to lose in a top contender match, first to Franklin, then to Sonnen, and only recently did he break the pattern when he beat Marquardt.

he spider will rock this dude

Shogun/Forrest 2 will be on this card,

http://mmaweekly.com/maurcio-shogun-rua ... witterfeed

Hmmm...

I can get behind that. The rematch was going to happen at some point, now seems as good a time as any.

CPT wrote:Hmmm...

I can get behind that. The rematch was going to happen at some point, now seems as good a time as any.

I'm kinda rooting for Griffin. I don't want his win to be considered a fluke, plus he is such a likable guy.

Brazil 2, world 0.

i like Forrest a lot too so it will be rough to root against him. i'm hoping for a 3 round war on both sides, no losers there.

I picked Forrest the first time he fought Shogun, and I am picking him again here. I just think it is a tough stylistic fight for Shogun.

to me Forrest is the master of gameplans while being solid (not great) in every other aspect of the sport. but a healthy Shogun should do well against Forrest in the standup.

I would love it if the UFC were cool enough to let Antonio Silva and Jacare Souza fight UFC guys on the card. They don't need to put them in with anyone special but both guys are clammoring for more fights and both are Brazilians. Plus it would be a good way to introduce the UFC fans to Strikeforce fighters.

Silva is still alive in the tournament, and Jacare is the MW champ, so his contract is probably a little tougher to get out of. It's not that the UFC "isn't cool enough" to do it (though they may or may not be), but Showtime is going to be blocking any kind of move like that from what I understand.

Besides, the UFC has plenty of Brazilians to put on the card. Already have Silva and Shogun on there, they could add Aldo, Machida, Belfort, Alves, Big Nog, Lil Nog, Maia, Santiago...get even a few of those guys on the card and the Brazilian fans will be thrilled. Probably more so than if they could see Big Foot or Jacare.

That's a good point...and a huge list of names. They don't need every Brazilian in MMA to fight. They certainly don't need to mortgage other interests in order to fill-out the card. 7-8 nationals or something is a lot. And that has to include local talent that has not previously fought in the UFC.

That's how it's worked in Canada and the UK previously. And Brazil has more international fighters than either of those countries, a lot more.

Is Meca still around? Jungle Fights? I know the Nog brothers still have a Brazilian org.

Yeah, that's one thing that's kind of exciting about this event.

When they fill the prelims with local guys, there's a chance some of them will turn out to be total badasses. More so than any other location, I'd say.

For what it's worth, when I went to look up Edson Barboza, his wiki says he's fighting Gomi at UFC: Rio. It's just a wiki entry, and not confirmed by any other legit source, but that could be a cool fight. Pretty big step up though, even with Gomi not looking great lately.

Also saw that Luiz Cane vs. Stanislav Nedkov and Spencer Fisher vs. Thiago Tavares have been officially added to the card.

^ i also saw the gomi/barboza fight confirmed on some other site.

royce gracie was on hdnet and said he has a meeting with zuffa in toronto next week. it was basically implied by him that he wants to fight matt hughes again. it wasn't actually stated, but the hosts brought it up and he was pretty ho-hum. i hope that fight does not happen for royce's sake.

It was pretty clear Royce was calling out Hughes when he said the fight he wanted was obvious, and he was old so implied he wanted an older fighter, and then at the end basically said he disliked Hughes.

He's going to get hurt again.