UFC 121: A Breakdown of the Main Card, The De Souza Special (Part 1)
MMA Junkie reported yesterday afternoon that the confirmed date for UFC 121: Lesnar Vs. Velasquez will be the date of October the 23rd from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
Unquestionably, the card will go down as one of the promotion's most stacked event cards of all time, as even top-tier talent finds itself struggling to make the main card.
Everyone knows for sure who will be stacking up the main card.
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In addition to Brock Vs. Cain, the welterweight debut of Jake Shields is set to take place then as well as the former Strikeforce Middleweight Champion faces Martin Kampmann in what might be one of the year's most anticipated welterweight bouts.
Student will also meet Teacher in Anaheim as Matt Hamill will face his toughest challenge yet when he faces his coach from the third season of The Ultimate Fighter, Tito Ortiz.
Also slated for the card are Paulo Thiago's clash with Diego "Nightmare" Sanchez and a tough test for Brendan "The Hybrid" Schaub in the form of Gabriel "Napao" Gonzaga.
What can you expect to go down when October 23rd rolls around?
That's my cue to enter.
A bounce back Vs. A rise up
For Gonzaga, it's more than a victory over Schaub at stake.
The former UFC Heavyweight Title contender has been a fairly changed man since he knocked out Cro Cop at UFC 70 for that shot at Randy Couture.
If anything, I'd have to say he's been a bit inconsistent.
He's KOed Cro Cop, only to lose to Couture in a bout for the belt, and he lost the bout after against Fabricio Werdum only to bounce back with a win by a mounted Americana on Justin McCully and a KO of Josh Hendricks.
He then lost to Shane Carwin at UFC 96 after temporarily hurting him in the first round, and while he did rebound with a win over Chris Tuchscherer, he also suffered a tough loss to Junior Dos Santos at the UFC's first "Live on Versus" event.
Brendan Schaub, on the other hand, has been consistent in his past outings since his first career loss to Roy Nelson at the finale of the very first Heavyweights-only season of The Ultimate Fighter.
He's KOed Chase Gormley and Tuchscherer since that loss to Nelson, and it's brought him to Gonzaga in Anaheim.
The boxer and BJJ expert from the Greg Jackson camp will have to contend with the BJJ ace wtih strong Muay Thai skills, though it's possible that Schaub won't have too much of a problem if the fight hits the ground.
Granted, Gonzaga is a black belt whereas Schaub is a purple belt, but that doesn't mean Gonzaga will easily decimate Schaub.
No fight is ever easy, especially in the UFC's largest division.
Diego's Nightmare Come True?
When Diego Sanchez announced that his fight after the loss to BJ Penn was going to be a Welterweight fight against John Hathaway, questions started to arise as to how smart the decision to jump was.
What the fight with Hathaway at UFC 114 proved is that despite popular belief, the Welterweight Division in the UFC isn't what it once was.
The faces are different, and as Hathaway did prove in an impressive performance, the presence of faces unfamiliar to Sanchez before the move to lightweight will now mean that Diego will have to contend with threats that he wouldn't have had much trouble with against Jon Fitch or Josh Koscheck or Nick Diaz.
Now, Sanchez is lined up against a man who is dangerous on his feet and also dangerous on the ground as well.
When Paulo Thiago debuted at UFC 95 in London, he'd scored seven submission wins, plus a unanimous decision win wtih a TKO win due to injury in the mix.
Before Koscheck, he hadn't knocked anyone out, but it all changed when he landed that uppercut on Koscheck.
The hype had begun, as no one can say that Josh Koscheck is a can that just anyone can crush.
Heck, he's fighting in a rematch against GSP, so obviously Koscheck has done something right in his career besides beating Paul Daley.
As for Thiago, he proved himself a threat after knocking out Koscheck, but the hype came to a halt after a unanimous decision loss to Jon Fitch at UFC 100.
After losing a decision, he won a decision against Jacob Volkmann and then made himself 2-1 against the welterweights of the American Kickboxing Academy by submitting Mike Swick in round two of their UFC 109 fight.
Then, Martin Kampmann took him three rounds and won a unanimous decision that wasn't really close by any means.
Now, he's going to be across the cage from one of the original Ultimate Fighters.
Can Thiago be finished from anywhere that wants it?
I think it's possible — he's back with Greg Jackson, as his Twitter says, and remember the spot where Thiago's at now: he needs a win to remain a top name in the UFC after dropping two, yet he's still an exciting and relevant figure in the division.
That's more than a spot that Diego knows very well. That's a spot that Diego is actually back in with his loss to Hathaway.
Thiago and Sanchez are two exciting welterweights with the ability to finish wherever they want the fight to go, but like with a majority of fights, cardio could come into play for both men.
While it's not a question for either man, it could boil down to whoever can show their truest heart in fifteen minutes, and both men will need to amp up that aspect in order to have a shot at victory.
Either man could get a KO win as they're both capable of doing, but Thiago's going to be tough to rock, and while he may rock Sanchez, I don't believe Sanchez will be an easy opponent to finish.
Someone's going to walk out a definite winner, but the fight won't end quick.
At least by the end of the fight, though, nobody will say that the winner didn't earn it.
A former champ with a bulls-eye already on his chest
Jake Shields Vs. Martin Kampmann... what do you say about that, other than "DAMN"?
Maybe some people don't quite see the hype in this fight, but Jake Shields, the HOTTEST middleweight free agent of this year, is fighting for the UFC against a UFC welterweight.
There's no open-door policy with the UFC and Strikeforce, there's no "dual contract agreement" that says Shields can do a year with Strikeforce and a year with the UFC, and there sure as hell wasn't an OK for Shields to face other middleweights like what there was with Alistair Overeem back when the man had first won the Strikeforce Heavyweight belt.
No, that's not at all what happened.
Jake Shields was released, cut, or whatever you want to call it, but he departed from Strikeforce and signed with the UFC as a welterweight earlier this summer.
Not to fault Scott Coker for putting himself in a spot where he'd have to crown an undisputed 185-pound champ without having to put Shields in the bout, because lest we all forget, Clay Guida, Tyson Griffin, and even Paul Daley all fought at least once for Strikeforce before they were scouted and signed with the UFC.
Shields is major, though, because while Griffin and Daley never held a belt in Strikeforce, Guida is really the only other person in the UFC right now to have held a belt in Strikeforce.
Of course, Guida never fought a Shinya Aoki like Gilbert Melendez did, but enough of my trademark in-article digression.
Shields was the Middleweight champ of Strikeforce and even shared a place in the promotion's welterweight class alongside Nick Diaz, so that he was a former champ who vacated his own belt to come fight for the UFC makes his signing a big deal.
Of course, the wrestler and Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu specialist, who has a victory ovr Dan Henderson to his credit as of this past April, will have to contend with a fighter who is well rounded in just about every aspect of the game when he makes his first UFC appearance in Anaheim.
After all, Martin Kampmann can do more than just knock his opponents out.
He can submit them, he can take them down, and if Shields is bold enough to think his striking is superior to Kampmann's, then he can expect that Kampmann will be capable of taking more than a few good shots.
Shields had better not worry about a one-two combo landing on Kampmann because that's going to more-than-likely land him on the canvas eventually.
What he does have to do is akin to what Kampmann did to Thiago in his last fight: Shields has to take down and control Kampmann on the ground, but also he has to use his Jiu-Jitsu in order to keep Kampmann from having a strong use of his long limbs.
If he makes it a strikie-fest, he's giving Kampmann enough leeway to connect with some bone-jarring strike or another en route to a victory that might see Kampmann moving a fight closer to a title shot.
Running Full Circle
One of the two takes I've done previously was a take on the Matt Hamill-Tito Ortiz fight that unquestionably should set off some fireworks while also answering questions about Tito's age and Hamill's staph infection (if it still exists by October).
The only real difference between the two besides experience in the cage is the Jiu-Jitsu that Hamill possesses.
What this basically means is that while Hamill would be more likely to finish Ortiz after securing a mount on Ortiz, he could very well use either his Wrestling or his BJJ to control Ortiz on the ground, or if Hamill works enough ground-n-pound to at least damage Ortiz, he might be able to set up a submission.
What Hamill may want to do though is keep his guard as tight as he can, because Ortiz does like to do work inside the guard whenever he gets a chance.
He didn't put ground-n-pound on the map, but he mixed it in with his wrestling — akin to how Mark Coleman did in the early days of the UFC — and controlled his opponents on the ground with it in years past, even scoring a few KO wins along the way.
Likewise with Tito, he may do well to not keep the fight on the feet for long against Hamill, as Hamill is able to end the fight with moves from a left hook to a right head kick.
Knowing how the pre-fight hype might shape up, though, I'd say expect fireworks here
The Baddest Motherf**ker On The Planet
I don't know if any more hype needs to be added to this fight.
I've already contributed once and once again, and I think everyone knows where I stand on the fight.
If you stand on the opposite side of the fight, then I applaud your choice and I respect it.
I don't have a reason to think that Brock can't beat Cain, but I honestly do feel that Cain should at least be given a chance against Brock.
Besides, what if Cain does decisively beat Brock?
Certain things do tend to happen in MMA, and they're not always what we anticipate.
While some would argue that Lesnar's win at UFC 116 was anticipated, the Arm Triangle that Lesnar used to get the win wasn't.
A lopsided decision win for Lesnar would have been more anticipated than a submission win for Lesnar.
The submission wasn't anticipated at all, but it happened.
Who's to say Cain beating Brock can't happen either?
Anything can happen. It is MMA, after all.
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