Questions That Will Be Answered at UFC 102

For the first time ever, the UFC will hit Portland, Ore., with a stacked fight card headlined by two MMA legends.

It’s UFC 102 live from The Rose Garden Arena, headlined by UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture and former UFC and PRIDE Heavyweight champion Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira.

The event will be a homecoming for Couture, who lived in Oregon for most of his career, founding the world famous Team Quest with Matt Lindland and Dan Henderson.

The Portland fans will certainly be in his corner, but will it be enough to defeat the legendary Nogueira?

That question, along with several others, will be answered this weekend. Let’s take a look at what else fans can expect.

Will this be the last time we see Randy Couture in the Octagon?

The main question fans seem to be asking is whether or not Couture will officially hang up the five-ounce gloves after his main event bout with Nogueira this Saturday night.

Father time has always been on Couture’s side, and he has made a career out of proving everyone and their grandmothers wrong.

However, after getting beat down Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots style at the hands of current Heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar, some believe it may be time for the 46-year-old to call it quits.

It’s obvious those fans do not remember that before getting TKO’d, Couture was actually winning the fight against Lesnar.

Let’s face facts, people: Couture is one of the smallest heavyweights in the division, and Lesnar is the largest behemoth in the weight class. Losing to a freak of nature like Lesnar is like losing a fight to a grizzly bear, and there is absolutely no shame in that.

Couture seems to only lose when up against bigger wrestlers who can manhandle him around the cage as if he were a prison mate. Nogueira may be the larger fighter, but he doesn’t have overwhelming power and relentless takedowns.

Expect Couture to keep this fight on the feet and rough “Minotauro” up with dirty boxing from the clinch to earn a unanimous decision victory.

As far as retirement is concerned, Captain America still has some fight left in him. A likely scenario would be a drop back down to Light Heavyweight to challenge either Lyoto Machida or Mauricio “Shogun” Rua for the 205-pound strap.

Can Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira still take a beating?

The name “Minotauro” is much more than a nickname, and Nogueira truly is a mythological creature.

For years, he has made a career out of being the Brazilian version of Rocky Balboa. You could run this man over with a truck and he would keep moving forward. Heck, you could smash a sledgehammer over his jaw, and it would not be enough to knock him out.

He has taken brutal beatings from the likes of Bob Sapp and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic and still managed to come back and catch them in a beautifully executed submission hold. Sapp is a 300-plus-pound powerhouse, and at one point in the fight, he picked Nogueira up as if he were a child and slammed him brutally on his head.

A mortal man would have rolled over unconscious, but as previously mentioned, “Minotauro” is no mortal man.

This is why fans everywhere were so incredibly shocked when Frank Mir did the unthinkable and knocked Nogueira out back in their interim title bout at UFC 92. It was the first time Nogueira had ever been finished in a fight, but one should take into consideration that Nogueira was suffering from a brutal staph infection and probably shouldn’t have been in the octagon that night.

That being said, after taking countless beatings over the years from some of the world’s toughest men, Nogueira’s iron jaw isn’t what it once was.

It wouldn’t be all that surprising if Couture finishes Big Nog, but Nogueira should put up a better fight than in his last bout.

Can Keith Jardine weather the storm?

Nicknamed The Dean of Mean for his menacing appearance, Jardine is actually one of the nicest guys in the world when he’s not inside the cage.

However, once that octagon door shuts, Jardine goes into Techno Viking mode, battering his opponents with brutal body and leg kicks. Just ask UFC Hall-of-Famer Chuck Liddell about Jardine, and he will tell you exactly how devastating he really is.

Jardine turned The Iceman into the Weltman with sinister kicks while all the while maintaining a menacing grin on his face. Getting hit with one of Jardine’s leg kicks is the equivalent of allowing Albert Pujols to take a power swing at your thigh with a baseball bat.

Not only is Jardine an excellent striker, but he also has MMA wizard Greg Jackson as his head coach to develop flawless game plans to ensure him victory. He also trains with elite level fighters like UFC Welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre, Nate Marquardt, Rashad Evans, and Shane Carwin on a daily basis.

With everything mentioned above, you would think that Jardine would be the greatest Light Heavyweight out there.

Sadly, he isn’t even close.

His Achilles heel lies in his inability to weather an early storm. Those who have bull-rushed Jardine from the opening bell have usually knocked the blonde beard right off his face—see Houston Alexander and Wanderlei Silva.

However, Jardine did take some heavy shots from Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and managed to survive to the final bell, but one must consider Jackson did not bull-rush Jardine like Alexander and Silva did.

Thiago Silva is one of the most aggressive fighters out there, so it will be interesting to see if Jardine will be able to weather the storm against this Brazilian wrecking machine.

Does Thiago Silva have the cardio?

If Silva is able to follow the same game plan of those who have previously knocked Jardine out, then officials will have to carry The Dean of Mean out of the area on a stretcher while The Brazilian looks into the camera to do his signature “cut-throat” gesture.

On the other hand, Silva might not be able to finish Jardine off early, and the fight will be pushed into later rounds. Silva has only seen the third round once in his career, so he may begin to fade away if unable to finish Jardine early on.

Jardine has the cardio of 10 men, er, 10 Vikings, so the longer the fight goes, the better chance Jardine will have of getting his hand raised.

Who will take one step closer to a middleweight title shot?

In a bout that is likely to produce more fireworks than any other matchup on the card, top middleweight contenders Demian Maia and Nate Marquardt will clash for a chance at earning a title shot with Middleweight champion Anderson Silva in the near future.

Maia is comparable to a modern day version of Royce Gracie, only he is so much more versatile and dangerous. His style of Jiu-Jitsu seems to be the most effective for MMA competition, and the proof is certainly in the pudding.

Just take a look at his record. He is 10-0 with eight submission victories, and he has earned submission of the night honors in all five of his UFC bouts.

Many people are expecting Maia to leave Portland with one of Marquardt’s limbs in a doggy bag.

Well, those fans can keep dreaming.

Not only is Marquardt the more well-rounded fighter, but he’s also bigger, stronger, and more explosive.

Maia certainly has the deadlier submission game with his anaconda-like positioning on the ground, but Marquardt’s ground game is at a very high level as well and isn’t likely to get caught.

Marquardt will use his wrestling ability to keep the fight on the feet, where he will hand Maia a Mortal Kombat-style beat down to put on a striking clinic en route to a late TKO stoppage.

From there the seven-time King of Pancrase will either earn another shot at Silva’s title or he will take on another contender in Dan Henderson to determine a real number one contender.

Has Chris Leben truly evolved?

Through his stint on the inaugural season of "The Ultimate Fighter," Leben has become somewhat of a cult favorite among fans.

He’s a hard-headed, in-your-face southpaw that always comes to fight, and it’s a style that has both worked for and against him in his UFC career.

He’s been able to score some rather impressive knockouts over Jorge Rivera, Jorse Santiago, Terry Martin, and Alesio Sakara, but he has come up short against elite level fighters like Anderson Silva and was countered all night long by Michael Bisping.

Ever since relocating to Hawaii, Leben claims to have a newfound focus on training and claims he has evolved into a more complete fighter. As much as you want to believe him, it still remains to be seen if he truly has evolved, because he seems to look the same in every fight.

Against an All-American wrestler like Jake Rosholt, Leben will be forced to show us these newly-evolved skills, because Rosholt is going to take Leben down at will.

If Leben truly has improved as a fighter, he will be able to avoid getting smothered by Rosholt. But if not, Rosholt will basically lay on him like a human blanket to earn the decision victory while Portland fans curse him out from the stands.