UFC 113: Josh Koscheck Vs Paul Daley: Preview & Prediction

Welterweight bout:

 Josh Koscheck (16-4-0)

vs.
 Paul Daley (23-8-2)

Fighting Styles:
Koscheck – Wrestling/Kickboxing
Daley – Muay Thai/Boxing/Wrestling

*This is one fight on the UFC 113 card, click below to see all previews *

UFC 113 - Machida vs Shogun 2 - Preview and Predictions

Koscheck				Daley
20 matches	16 W	4 L			23 W	8 L
By knockout	5	1		By knockout	18	1
By submission	6	1		By submission	1	5
By decision	5	2		By decision	4	2
				Draws	2

Josh ‘Kos’ Koscheck has an impressive record of 16-4 and all but four of his fights have come inside the octagon, meaning Kos posts a 12-4 record in the UFC but never has held a belt in his weight-class, let along get a shot at the belt… it’s craziness. 

Koscheck was one of the fighters on the originals ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ reality show and advanced to the semi-finals where he lost to Diego Sanchez via split decision (he has since faced Diego at UFC 69 and beat him by unanimous decision).

In my eyes, Koscheck has been screwed. When GSP lost the belt to Serra, the UFC used Koscheck as a stepping stone for GSP so he could immediately get back and compete for the title. Don’t get me wrong,GSP is my favourite fighter and quite frankly, if never got hit by a lucky punch by Serra… would have a longer win-streak than Anderson Silva.

Either way, Koscheck at some point should have gotten his shot at the belt, considering he’s beat FrankTrigg, Diego Sanchez, Anthony Rumble Johnson and just because 3 of his 4 losses have come againstGSP, Thiago Alves and Paulo Thiago shouldn’t automatically eliminate Koscheck from a contenders spot.Give him the chance and have him lose a fight while competing for the Welterweight Championship.

Screw Koscheck vs Daley, lets see Kos vs GSP 2 but this time for a title, instead of GSP completely andutterly destroying Dan Hardy over five rounds (I still don’t think Hardy got a punch in). Many fighters havelost to the three fighers Koscheck has fell victim too and lets be honest, they’ve had a title shot.

Koscheck is a well rounded fighter with his 16 victories being spread out with a equal number of knockouts, submission and decisions and considering that he is one of the best fighters in the welterweight division in the world, I don’t expect Paul Daley who is ranked somewhere between 5th-10th to give Koscheck much of a battle.

Watch out for a Koscheck submission as he most recently at made Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson tap in the 2nd round viarear-ranked choke but the fight came with much controversy as people thought (including JoeRogan via Twitter) that Koscheck faked being poked in the eye. Either way, with five-of-his-eight losses coming via submission, watch for Daley to tap-out May 8th in the Bell Centre.

Paul ‘Semtex’ Daley is a British born fighter, who at the age of 27 has fought for EliteXC, Cage Rage,StrikeForce, Maximum Fighting Championship, Cage Warriors and Pancrase before signing with the UFC.

Out of his 33 fights in the professional career, only two of them have come in the Octagon while the rest have come in other organizations and prior to joining the biggest organization in the world. Daley hasn’t had many fights against notable fighters either. He had fought Jake Shields at EliteXC: Heat back in October 28 and lost via armbar submission in the 2nd round.

Many didn’t think Shields was anything special in EliteXC and StrikeForce but when he recently owned, andI mean owned, Dan Henderson, no one should be surprised Daley lost to him as well. If you missed the Shields-Henderson fight, enjoy the after fight brawl that Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller started by [clicking here].

Anyways, back to Daley, after Shields he fought UFC veteran and Canadian John Alessio and won by technical knockout. Duane Ludwig is the other notable fighter Daley has fought outside the UFC and beat. In the fight before his UFC debut, as well as in his UFC debut and since, ‘Semtex’ has been impressive in all fights ending them all in the first round (all within six seconds of each other).

First, at WFC 8: D Day he had a TKO of Junior Barata at 2:29 of round one which solidified his UFC contract and did the exact same to Martin Kampmann at 2:31 of the first round. Most recently, Dustin Hazelett fell victim at 2:24 of round one with surprise-surprise… a knockout. The fight with Hazelett was at a catchweightof 172 lbs and earned Daley knockout-of-the-night.

As easy as Daley has made it seem, he has been tossed around mentally with first thinking he was fighting Brian Foster at UFC 103 but when Mike Swick got injured, he stepped up and took on Kampmann instead. At UFC 108, extremely similar to his debut, Daley was expecting to fight Carlos Condit but Condit suffered a severe cut on his hand and had to withdraw from the card so in came Hazelett.

Having you opponent change weeks before the fight can mess with your head but Daley has done a fabulous job adapting to it. He’s known for a while now he’ll face Koscheck and for the first time, he will be overwhelmed and not know how to adapt to the fighter he’s trained to fight now for the months.

TheCoach’s Pick: KOSCHECK via Submission