UFC 100: The Five Bullet Point Preview

It's pretty safe to say that we are the media saturation point with UFC 100—the most-covered event in the history of MMA. But everyone has to get their two cents in and we are no different.

But instead of making you dredge through yet another preview/prediction piece, I will harken back to what I did for UFC 99 and provide you The Five Bullet Point preview of UFC 100 - five talking points per fight that you can spout off at whatever party you're at tonight watching the event.

Enjoy!

UFC Heavyweight Championship Unification: Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir

• Saturday night will mark only Lesnar's fifth professional match, amazing all things considered.

• As a member of the University of Minnesota, Lesnar won the 2000 NCAA heavyweight wrestling championship after placing 2nd the year before.
  
  
• Of his 15 career fights to date, Mir has fought only twice outside the UFC and after losing two of three, Mir comes into Saturday on a three-fight win streak.
  
  
• Mir first won the Heavyweight crown by breaking Tim Sylvia's arm in the first round at UFC 48 in June 2004. He was later stripped of the belt after a well-publicized motorcycle accident.
  
  
• Mir is 30 years old, while Lesnar coincidentally turns 32 on Sunday.
  

UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre vs. Thiago Alves

• This will be GSP's third official defense of the Welterweight gold, but technically the fourth if you count his unification title win over Matt Serra at UFC 84 (he was the interim champ at the time).
  
  
• GSP has a who's who of victories in his 18-win ledger including Matt Hughes (twice), BJ Penn (twice), Sean Sherk, Frank Trigg and Jay Hieron.
  
  
• The 25-year-old Alves comes into Saturday on a seven-fight win streak.
  
  
• Alves has a T/KO percentage of almost 63% (10 of 16) in his wins.
  
  
• The two have four shared opponents: Josh Koscheck, Matt Hughes, Jon Fitch and Karo Parisyan. Fitch is one of Alves' three losses (GSP defeated him), while Hughes is one of GSP's losses (Alves TKO'd him).

Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping

• Since coming over after the PRIDE purchase, Henderson is 2-2 in his latest UFC run with wins in his last two. He won the Middleweight tournament at UFC 17 back in 1998 with wins over Allan Goes and Carlos Newton.
  
  
• In his last 10 fights, Henderson has won five by decision, just two by T/KO and none by submission.
  
  
• Bisping has only lost once in his career, a split decision to Rashad Evans as a light heavyweight at UFC 78.
  
  
• The England-born Bisping hasn't fought since October, defeating Chris Leben unanimous decision.
  
  
• It's expected the winner of the bout will get a shot at the UFC Middleweight Championship, currently held by Anderson Silva.
  

Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Alan Belcher

• Akiyama will make his UFC debut Saturday night after spending his career in Japan with K-1 and DREAM.
  
  
• The 33-year-old Akiyama has a 12-1-0-2 record with his only loss coming back in March 2005.
  
  
• Belcher has fought eight times in the UFC with a mark of 5-3.
  
  
• Belcher has won four of his last five, two by guillotine choke submission.
  
  
• Akiyama was a multiple-time judo champion before his MMA career began.

Jon Fitch vs. Paulo Thiago

• Fitch is tied with Royce Gracie for 2nd most consecutive UFC wins of all time with eight.
  
  
• Fitch is 9-1 in his UFC career with his only loss coming to Welterweight Champion GSP at UFC 87.
  
  
• Thiago is undefeated in his young career, having fought 11 times since June 2005, with a submission percentage of almost 55%.
  
  
• Thiago has just one UFC match on his record, recording a first-round TKO win over Josh Koscheck at UFC 95.
  
  
• Fitch has gone the distance in five out of his last seven fights.
  

Featured on the undercard and hopefully getting some PPV love depending on how the main card goes:

• Mark Coleman vs. Stephan Bonnar: The Hall-of-Famer vs. the TUF 1 Light Heavyweight finalist who desperately needs to win. Hopefully, this will be the final go-round for Coleman.

• Mac Danzig vs. Jim Miller: TUF 6 champion Danzig needs an impressive win here after two straight losses.
  
  
• Jon Jones vs. Jake O'Brien: Jones is a light heavyweight talent that you should familiarize with. A few more big wins and he won't be fighting on the untelevised portion of the card for long.
  
  
• Dong Hyun Kim vs. TJ Grant
  
  
• C.B. Dollaway vs. Tom Lawlor
  
  
• Matt Grice vs. Shannon Gugerty
  

Josh Nason - josh [at] ropesringandcage [dot com] - has published MMA, wrestling and boxing blog Ropes, Ring and Cage.com since 2007. He has been a contributor to Fight Magazine since January 2009 and Bleacher Report since 2008.