UFC 122 Fight Card: What Krzysztof Soszynski Must Do to Beat Goran Reljic

It's amazing how a fighter can evolve from what he was during a season of The Ultimate Fighter.

In recent memory, only Season 8 of The Ultimate Fighter was coached by two heavyweight fighters—specifically one Antonio Minotauro Nogueira and one Francisco Santos Mir.

On Mir's team were a number of unique characters, but one of the more experienced members of the team—and the season—was a man known as "The Polish Experiment" who was born Krzysztof Soszynski.

The name is pronounced like "Christoph" if you haven't been able to figure it out by now.

He was one of the more experienced members of the overall Season 8 cast, and unquestionably something of a favorite to make it to the finale.

He didn't make the light heavyweight final, but after the show ended, he went on to make something of an impact.

The impact, which is most famous for reaching Stephan Bonnar, whom he has controversially beaten and not-so-controversially lost to in his past two fights, has led him to Goran Reljic and the challenge he'll face this Saturday at UFC 122.

With a Team Quest guy like Soszynski, you may not expect a BJJ artist who has finished off 10 of his opponents in his career, but Reljic can definitely expect a guy with some good punching power, some solid boxing, an aggressive pace that only a handful of light heavyweights can handle and some pretty good wrestling.

On the other hand, Reljic is a brown belt in BJJ and a kickboxer—one that has never been submitted or knocked out in his career, but who has lost his past couple of fights by decision.

Let the record show that Reljic's past two losses—a unanimous decision to C.B. Dollaway at UFC 110 and a split decision loss to Kendall Grove at UFC 116—are the only losses of his career, so he's never been finished, but he has been out-pointed to an extent or two.

If Soszynski doesn't land a few shots to the dome or take down Reljic and use that infamous Team Quest ground-and-pound offense to set up for one of his signature submissions, he can still win a decision over Reljic just by coming in the more well-conditioned fighter and by neutralizing the strengths of the man that Kendall Grove once called "Baby Cro Cop."

Reljic's strength, you would think, is his kickboxing, but he's a brown belt with five career victories out of a total of eight career wins that have come by submission.

Even if he can't get a finish on Reljic, Soszynski can still spoil the light heavyweight return of Reljic if he can just use his wrestling to neutralize the ground abilities of his opposition.

With no area left in which to mount any significant offense, Soszynski could handle Reljic for three rounds, maybe less, but he'll be able to work more of an active offensive game and walk away with a hard-fought win that is likely to come by yet another decision, thus sentencing Reljic to the proverbial "chopping block."