Like people are saying, this one is tailor-made for the Iceman. Chuck has been handling wrestlers of Rashad's caliber for years...with ease. This will be no different. Evans struggled against Tito, whom Chuck destroyed. Rashad's best bet is to use his head movement and whatever Keith Jardine told him to try to disorient Liddell. But Liddell, who seemed focused as ever against Wanderlei Silva, should be fine.
Dan Henderson vs. Rousimar Palhares
I'm not too bullish on Hendo here. He's still an elite player in MMA, but he took the fight with Palhares without even knowing who Palhares was. Another problem: Palhares is a ground wizard, which happened to be Henderson's downfall against Anderson Silva. Palhares shocks the world here.
Matt Hamill vs. Rich Franklin
I like Hamill a lot, but Franklin is one of the best fighters of all time. Let's not forget that. He'll be solid against Hamill, working effectively on the ground, keeping the fight on the feet, and eventually knocking out the Ultimate Fighter standout.
Martin Kampmann vs. Nate Marquardt
I know Marquardt is the technical favorite, but for me, it's a straight pick 'em. Marquardt has the experience and the strength, but there's something about Kampmann that has me nervous about picking against him. My brain says Marquardt, but I'd never put money on it.
RedSweat has a great new piece on the guy with the world's largest MMA collection. Here's a small snippet:
Saying that 38 year old Jeremy Couball is obsessed with MMA would be an understatement.
The Southern Cali native has what is likely the largest collection of MMA memorabilia in the world. His astonishing collection mainly consists of UFC and Pride memorabilia but also contains various other items from other organizations.
The roots of Couball's infatuation with MMA go all the way back to September 9, 1994, when Jeremy and his father witnessed UFC 3 in Charlotte, NC.
Jeremy's spectacular collection, estimated to be worth in excess of $70,000 at the time of this article, all started when he got his hands on a UFC 27 poster. The rest is history.
MMAPayout.com has learned that Countdown to UFC 88 drew 701,000 viewers Wednesday night on Spike. That is the second highest rated Countdown special of the year, trailing only Countdown to UFC 83, which drew 782,000 viewers. This was only the second countdown special all year to break the 700,000 level and suggests a strong PPV performance for this card.
MMAPayout.com projects PPV buys based on a formula that compares historical trends between Countdown viewership and pay-per-view buys. Our formula projects that UFC 88 will draw 590,000 buys (with a margin of error of +/- 30,000 buys).
The UFC officially announced during Friday's weigh-ins that a welterweight match between Matt Brown and Dong Hyun Kim, which had been scheduled for the preliminary portion of the card, has now been promoted to the televised portion of tonight's UFC 88 the pay-per-view broadcast. The bout will air as the show's opener.
Hurricane Ike -- a Category 3 storm with sustained wins of 115 miles per hour that could threaten South Florida by the middle of next week -- forced the postponement of WEC 36 on Friday in Hollywood, Fla.
The event, originally scheduled for Sept. 10, was moved to Nov. 5
1. Chuck Liddell vs Rashad Evans is not a compelling headliner.
Commenters are split between those who think Rashad has no chance and those who think Rashad's only chance is to win a decision by evading the fight. While there's a very high likelihood of a Liddell win resulting in a title shot for Chuck, there's almost no chance of Rashad getting a title shot with a win. The only intrigue in this fight is whether or not Father Time is finally catching up with Liddell.
2. The Couture announcement stepped on the hype.
Its pretty unusual for a promoter to spend most of the week before a major event promoting an event months down the road. But that's what Dana White spent the week doing. I don't blame him, the Couture/Lesnar fight will be a huge record setting PPV, and the timing of the announcement was forced by the realities of legal matters and negotiations. Nevertheless, all the hype for Couture/Lesnar was time spent not hyping Chuck vs Rashad.
3. Despite featuring several name fighters, the undercard is very weak.
You'd think that an undercard with former headliners Rich Franklin and Dan Henderson plus TUF star Matt Hamill, former MW title challenger Nate Marquardt and UFC perennial Karo Parisyan would have some oomph. But it doesn't. Primarily IMO because Franklin and Henderson should be fighting each other but instead Franklin's trying to move to 205 and Henderson is fighting for his UFC career against a relative unknown.
The contracts that Fedor has at this point in time would allow for such a fight to take place, and specifically the Randy fight, so we're free to make that happen if the opportunity presents itself.
...[A]nd the UFC knows that. That's not a secret and we've always been very open that the Randy-Fedor fight is something special. It's not your ordinary contract fight, as far as any fight can be ordinary.
The upcoming Ultimate Fighting Championship show in England has lost one of its marquee fighters. MMAWeekly.com has confirmed that Thiago Silva has been forced out of his upcoming bout with Lyoto Machida at UFC 89 on Oct. 18 due to injury.
Thiago Silva has been very impressive in all of his UFC fights. He still sports an undefeated record in the Octagon, holding wins over fighters like Houston Alexander and Antonio Mendes.
MMAWeekly.com confirmed with sources close to the fight that Silva has been dealing with a back problem that will keep him out of the bout.
With the loss of Silva, the UFC will likely try to find another solid opponent for Machida as the fight was slated to be one of the bigger bouts on the Spike TV broadcast.
No word as of this time who will replace Silva, but the UFC still has more than six weeks until the fight, giving matchmaker Joe Silva plenty of time to work on a replacement.
There's only one man who will be available for the job: Mauricio Rua.
A last-minute back injury has forced welterweight contender Karo Parisyan to withdraw from his UFC 88 bout with Yoshiyuki Yoshida. Saturday's UFC 88 card (pay-per-view 10pm ET / 7pm PT) will continue with nine bouts.
Coming up at UFC 88, Martin Kampmann has a huge fight against Nathan Marquardt. With four straight victories (over Jorge Rivera, Drew McFedries, Thales Leites, and Crafton Wallace), Kampmann could see himself in the middle of the title picture with an impressive victory.
Looking at the current roster of UFC middleweights -- is there really a top contender out there? Of course, one of the main reasons there isn't a top contender is that Anderson Silva has convincingly beaten most of them.
Patrick Cote gets the next shot, but does anyone give him much of a chance? After that, there's Yushin Okami or possibly Paulo Filho and that's only if Filho would ever agree to fight his training partner and friend.
Therefore, Kampmann finds himself in a pretty good spot. With a big victory against Marquardt and possibly one more (maybe against Filho if the WEC and UFC middleweight divisions come together), Kampmann could get a match with the UFC's top fighter in Silva. Of course, those are two very difficult fights for Kampmann to win.
