UFC 87

[CPT]

I figure it's about time to start a thread about the next UFC event, this coming Saturday, August 9, UFC 87: Seek and Destroy. Most people know the 3 big fights, but here is the whole card:

Main Card:
* -Georges St. Pierre vs. Jon Fitch
* -Kenny Florian vs. Roger Huerta
* -Brock Lesnar vs. Heath Herring
* -Demian Maia vs. Jason MacDonald
* -Manny Gamburyan vs. Rob Emerson

Preliminary:
* -Cheick Kongo vs. Dan Evensen
* -Andre Gusmao vs. Jon Jones
* -Steve Bruno vs. Chris Wilson
* -Tamdan McCrory vs. Luke Cummo
* -Ben Saunders vs. Ryan Thomas

The top 3 fights are all good matchups, but I have to say, I'm not that excited about GSP vs. Fitch. It's #1 vs. #2 at Welterweight, but to me it doesn't feel like that kind of a fight. Maybe I just need a good preview show to pump me up.

Huerta vs. Florian is a fight I've been looking forward to for a while. Huerta can prove he is legit with a win over Florian, and Florian can be put at or near the top of the line for a LW title shot with a win over Huerta. With Huerta's comments about the UFC paying fighters, contracts, and all that stuff coming out this past week, this fight becomes even more interesting for me, because it makes the fight even more important for Huerta. There's a lot of leverage in negotiations at stake for him in this fight.

Lesnar vs. Herring should be fun. I don't see it lasting long, but if it does, it will be ugly. I'm just intrigued to see Brock Lesnar again, after his debut raised more questions than it answered about his potential for MMA. And Herring is no easy opponent. I think they should have given him Kongo, who still has some name value, but would get eaten by Lesnar, imo. Herring is probably a better matchup for Lesnar than Mir was, although HH may be a better fighter than Mir overall.

I also like the 4th matchup on the card: Jason MacDonald vs. Demian Maia. Your lower level gatekeeper vs. up and coming potential star fight. I like those. MacDonald isn't a top tier guy, but he's solid and experienced, and is probably Maia's toughest opponent to date. I expect Maia to take it, but I'm looking forward to seeing it.

The rest of the card is kind of weak, but there could be some good fights in there, we'll see, If Manny wins his fight, and Nate Diaz beats Josh Neer next month (should be good), I'd like to see them fight each other, but in general I'm getting a bit sick of TUF loser vs. TUF loser fights on the main card of PPVs.

[Headliner]

The top fights are worth the price, for me at least, anyway.
* -Georges St. Pierre vs. Jon Fitch
* -Kenny Florian vs. Roger Huerta
* -Brock Lesnar vs. Heath Herring
* -Demian Maia vs. Jason MacDonald

GSP is my favorite.
KF vs RH is going to be a fantastic fight.
i'll pay for Brock every time
Jason MacDonald is a Nova Scotia boy, so i gotta route for him. He's getting old at 33, but like you said, he plays the gatekeeper role, which he's done very well with.

Should be decent. Im going to the bar to watch it this time.

[Cammo101]

I'll take...

St. Pierre
Florian
Lesnar
Maia
Gamburyan
Kongo
Jones
Wilson
McCrory
Saunders

Don't sleep on Saunders, this kid can bang.

[cowboyronnie]

Their worst card in years, IMO.

Total garbage beyond the first 4 fights. And. like mentioned. wrestler vs wrestler + pro wrestler vs pro wrestler.

[CPT]

Their worst card in years, IMO.

Total garbage beyond the first 4 fights. And. like mentioned. wrestler vs wrestler + pro wrestler vs pro wrestler.

You can't be serious.

[El Hardee]

I'm looking forward to seeing Maia, his Jits is world class from what I've heard. The dudes at my gym are always talking about how sick his Jits is. Hopefully that transitions well into MMA. Huerta/Kenflo is going to be the early candidate for FOTN, and hype machines are always fun to watch (Lesner). All in all it is a pretty solid card, I will be spending the 44.95.

The Picks:

GSP TKO's Fitch in the 3rd via GNP.
KenFlo over Huerta by sub (Rnc)
Lesner tko Herring GNP
Maia sub over Mccdonald (tri)

[jTF2]

outside of 4 fights.. not very interesting.

[CPT]

It's not like we get to see the whole card on PPV anyway. The 4 fights at the top are pretty good, and we should talk about those.

Or am I not alone about not being that excited for GSP vs. Fitch?

[SpReEfOrAlL]

It's not like we get to see the whole card on PPV anyway. The 4 fights at the top are pretty good, and we should talk about those.

Or am I not alone about not being that excited for GSP vs. Fitch?

Im not too excited about it. It will be either GSP tooling him, or Fitch laying on him for a decision.

[Cammo101]

I think this one of the most interesting cards of the year. The top 2 170 pounders in the world fight in the main event, one of the best up and coming heavyweights fights a solid veteran, and 2 top 10 in the world lightweights are fighting. The depth of the card after this fights is somewhat questionable, but Maia, Kongo, Gamburyan...make it interesting enough considering the triple main event.

[Cammo101]

I picked every fight right except the Gamburyan fight. Not too shabby. All in all this was a solid card. KenFlo, Lesner, and GSP looked great tonight.

[The-Insider]

All in all this was nothing short of dominance by Pierre. I thought it would end in the first round but Fitch survived the beating. Before the fight I couldn't breathe though.. was way too nervous.

You can tell Fitch put in blood, sweat, and tears in preparing for this bout, but Pierre was just the better man tonight.

At least we know one thing with GSP, when things get tough (and they did...) the tough gets going.

Penn-GSP 2 is going to be nothing short of a war.

[K1NG]

Their worst card in years, IMO.

Total garbage beyond the first 4 fights. And. like mentioned. wrestler vs wrestler + pro wrestler vs pro wrestler.

Turned out to be one of the better events of the year IMO.

[kdawg32086]

So who's next for Lesnar. I'm thinking they should give him Kongo and Gonzaga for his next two fights. Lesnar has the hype right now and making him look credible might actually make the UFC a serious amount of $$$.

Was disappointed in Gamburyan. He was beating Diaz in TUF Finale before he got hurt but it seems like he's regressed while Diaz has progressed.

Florian beating Huerta was expected. Huerta has heart but he just needs to get the skills developed.

I was really disappointed with Maia/impressed with McDonald tonight, regardless of the final outcome.

And the main event.....i don't think any true welterweight can beat GSP. I'm looking forward to December with Penn-GSP II. Now that Penn has cardio, I think he wins.

[Chach]

GSP rolls around at close to 190 pounds. I know BJ is bigger than 155 but GSP has all the tools to kill almost anyone and the skills to do so in so many different ways. It's going to be a great fight and BJ has a chance but I think that GSP is going to be too much.

Lesnar is friggin garbage. Lay and pray is so boring. But he's just so massively huge and he is a tremendous athlete that if he worked on his game, he could potentially be amazing but if he is just going to lay on a guy and throw some hammer fists or sneak in some hooks while laying on a guy, I don't want to see him fight because he was boring as hell. I was barely psyched for the GSP-Fitch match because Lesnar totally killed the flow of the event. All the other main card fights were exciting and I enjoyed and Lesnar just bogged things down. If he develops his game and can make himself into an exciting fighter then I'll jump on the wagon but until then, I'm really going to dislike seeing him fight. mahalo
~Chach~

[CPT]

Good show.

I really enjoyed the Maia/MacDonald fight, especially the first round when they were trading pretty dangerous submission attempts. MacDonald is a tough fight for anyone, but it looks like Maia is on his way up the ladder. It will be interesting to see who he gets matched up with next.

Florian vs. Huerta was actually a bit disappointing to me. It seems whenever a fight is hyped as a potential Fight of the Year, it usually falls well short of those expectations. It wasn't a bad or boring fight by any means, but Florian controlled it from bell to bell, and he did it with more of a defensive/reactive style instead of trying to "finish fights" like he claims. Impressive showing for Florian though, and reveals Huerta to be a notch below the top guys at 155. I think if Griffin beats Sherk, he will get a title shot, but if Sherk wins, Kenny may be next in line. That being said, the title looks to be tied up for the next little while with the Penn/GSP superfight, so maybe there will be some more fights in between for both guys. Hell, I wouldn't mind seeing Griffin vs. Florian for a title shot, come to think of it.

I totally disagree with Chach about Lesnar. For one thing, I like watching him fight because it seems like anything can happen at any time....which is the case with any fight, but with Lesnar, it seems more likely that you could miss the finish if you blink. Anyway, I thought he looked awesome, from that first shot that sent Herring reeling, to his barrage of ground and pound (not lay and pray, and yes, there is a difference). He kept ending up on Herring's back, which is not the best spot for GNP, especially when he was probably a bit gun-shy because of strikes to the back of the head. It makes it hard to strike from behind, because if you punch down and your opponent turns his head and you hit him in the restricted area, apparently it's your fault, so you have to pick your spots, which he did (though he was warned again about strikes to the back of the head). And I honestly think his arms are too big to slide in there for most submission attempts from that position. He beat the piss out of Herring....a guy doesn't look like that after a fight when he's been lay and prayed (see the very same Heath Herring vs. Jake O'Brien). This all being said, Lesnar still has a lot to learn, and looked lost at times (he looked like he didn't know WTF to do when he was just standing there with that standing guillotine attempt). He should have had an easier opponent than Herring after losing his debut, but since he beat him handily, it's tough to go backwards now. Luckily Chieck Kongo won, so matching those two up wouldnt look like a step backwards for Lesnar, even though it's a much easier fight for him IMO.

And what can you say about GSP. Very impressive performance. I pretty much thought Fitch was done toward the end of the first, so all credit to him for hanging tough and going the distance. With that said, he really had nothing for GSP, and that says a lot, because he was (maybe still is) the clear #2 in the world at WW. I'm happy that the fight with Penn looks to be happening soon though. The only guys left for GSP to fight are Alves and Sanchez, so the winner of that fight clearly gets the next real title shot.

[cowboyronnie]

Lesnar is friggin garbage. Lay and pray is so boring.

He wasn't in Herring's guard for a second.

That fight may have gotten a little redundant near the end, but I'm super stoked imagining how far Lesnar can go and the match-ups that can be. I loved it!

[Shaazzam]

http://www.sportsnet.ca/mma/blogs/2008/ ... _gameplan/

I've asked myself a thousand times since my fight Saturday why I fought Demian Maia on the ground, and I don't have an answer for it. That wasn't the gameplan. We trained that if the fight goes to the ground, that I would work to get into a position to get the fight back up on the feet. And I just didn't do it.

[Headliner]

good card.
Jason Macdonald is my favorite opening fight/midcard fighter by a mile. He's never going to win a title, but he's a great barometer for other fighters, and solid all around.

Lesner is pure entertainment. He still has a lot to learn, and needs to keep his ego in check, but he has a ton of potential. Its a shame he's not 28 as a opposed to 31. But heavyweights don't age at the same rate as the lower weight fighters.
Kongo vs Lesner is a solid next fight for both guys and it sounds like thats pretty much a lock.

The one thing that surprises me (and obviously his opponents) is the pure strength of Lesners strikes. He's knocked down his opponent in the first punch both fights. The guy is throwing sledgehammers.

And im psyched for GSP vs Penn. That's going to be an amazing fight.

[K1NG]

I lost respect for Kongo. I know Lesnar isn't the most modest fighter but he's used to the acting and hype of fighting with his time in the WWE. But Kongo's demeanour after his match was terrible. I hope these two do indeed matchup, and you can bet I'll be rooting for Brock.