J-Mac on MMA: The Athlete’s predictions
Posted February 24, 2012 6:48 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
This week I bought one of the MMA magazines that had Ben Henderson on the cover because I find him very interesting. In the article on him, he was talking about winning the UFC lightweight title and then defending it 14 times.
Now that’s a statement. I’m sure he’s just confident in himself and I don’t think he’s underestimating Frankie Edgar (the champion and his opponent on Saturday in Japan). He definitely shouldn’t be underestimating Edgar.
This is a tough fight. If there’s one fighter who’s never going to go away, it’s Edgar. We saw that against Gray Maynard. Twice.
This guy takes a tremendous amount of punishment and stays in the fight. It’s quite unique. I’ve never seen someone withstand so much and just stay in there.
Mind you, I don’t know if it’s the best quality to have if you’re talking Edgar and his health and career 10 years from now. But it’s fun to watch as a fan and even more so as a fighter, because as a fighter you know the amount of shots and the kind of punishment you take and how hard it is to continue to battle through it and battle back from it.
Which leads into my picks for Saturday’s UFC 144 main card in Japan.
Frankie Edgar vs. Ben Henderson
Although you can never write Edgar off, I’m going to go with Henderson in this one. People talk about him having a big size advantage. I don’t know if it’s going to be an issue. Maynard is a big lightweight but he didn’t dwarf Edgar by any means, and Edgar had no trouble handling his attempts to overpower him.
In the aforementioned article Henderson said he would prefer to be called Benson and not Ben, so from now on will refer to him as Benson. I think he’s going to neutralize Edgar. He’s not going to turn into a boxing fight and trade with him. Benson is going to get the fight into the clinch and use his scrambling abilities and takedown defence to wear Frankie out and win the fight. But I think it’s going to be a good one.
Quinton Jackson vs. Ryan Bader
It’s funny because Rampage talks so much about how he enjoys fighting in Japan, and he has this different take on how the fans appreciate a good fight and they don’t really care if you win or lose.
I think the North American fans should take a page out of the Japanese books. It never ceases to amaze me at any given time how you can log on to an MMA webpage or chat room and there’s fans on there talking about how badly certain people suck. These guys who are literally keyboard warriors (although I hate to use the term) but they just sit there, they’ve never trained a day in their life, never even been in a fight over lunch money or anything like that, and they’re trashing UFC fighters. It makes me laugh.
So it’s refreshing hearing Rampage talk about the fans and how they don’t do any of that. Does that mean he won’t feel as much pressure to go out and win? Perhaps.
That being said, I’m not sure Bader has a lot to offer Rampage. Jackson is hard to take down, he always comes back and he has the hard knockout power. I’m going with Rampage. Plus, he’s used to fighting in Japan. I know when I went to Korea with Denis Kang, it was a big adjustment with the time zones, and Jackson is obviously already used to that so it’s somewhat of an advantage.
Mark Hunt vs. Cheick Kongo
I think Kongo is just too big and too conditioned for Hunt. He’s a good striker, he was a K-1 fighter. I think that Kongo always has the ability to stand on the outside and pick Hunt apart. He has a big size advantage, with his height and reach and he knows how to use it well.
Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Jake Shields
It’s Akiyama’s first time dropping down to 170, and Shields is looking for a big comeback after the loss to Ellenberger. I think Shields will outwrestle Akiyama, take him down and submit him. Shields is used to fighting at 185, so there won’t be any size advantage for Akiyama, who was always an undersized middleweight anyway.
Yushin Okami vs. Tim Boetsch
Since dropping to middleweight Boetsch has been overpowering guys, but Okami is a huge middleweight. Still, I’m going to go with Boetsch. I think there’s too much pressure on Okami to perform. It’s an interesting fight though.
Hatsu Hioki vs. Bart Palaszewski
I’m going to go with Bart. He’s always in there to bang, and he’s good on the ground too and hard to put away.
Anthony Pettis vs. Joe Lauzon
This is a funny one. There’s been a lot of talk on the internet about this one, the two battling back and forth with their words. There’s no love lost. Lauzon is great on the ground, as we saw against Melvin Guillard. Even though Pettis is great standing up he doesn’t have the speed and power that Guillard had and Lauzon was able to get him down and pull out a submission. I’m picking Lauzon.
On a side note, I saw that Dan Hardy is going to fight Duane Ludwig, which is giving Hardy exactly what he wants. He was complaining that he was fighting guys who were just trying to take him down. Well, you wanted a kickboxing fight, here you go. This is what you want. Ludwig is just going to stand there and as his nickname indicates, “Bang.”
So Dan, if you don’t win this one, there’s no more excuses. That will make it five losses in a row, including a standup fight tailor made for you.
