Keller's Take
KELLER: Notebook - Final Countdown to UFC 139, Keller Predictions, Should Wanderlei Retire if He Loses, Poll Results
Nov 19, 2011 - 5:17:17 PM KELLER: Notebook - Final Countdown to UFC 139, Keller Predictions, Should Wanderlei Retire if He Loses, Poll Results

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BY WADE KELLER, MMATORCH SUPERVISING EDITOR

-MMATorch readers, by a wide margin (51 percent) over all other options, believe Urjah Faber will beat Brian Bowles tonight by judges' decision. The next pick by MMATorch readers is Faber to win by tapout (18%), with most thinking it'll happen later in the fight. Overall, so far in voting, only 24 percent are picking Bowles to win.

-In the Cung Le vs. Wanderlei Silva poll, Cung Lee has pulled far ahead of Silva, with a full 45 percent expecting Cung Le to score an early KO, with another 16 percent expecting a late KO. There are some Silva believers, though, with 33 percent picking him to win, mostly via early KO, which makes sense given his style.

-Dave Meltzer wrote a very good profile on Cung Le, who at age 39 is debuting in UFC tonight. Most of you reading this know his background, but this is still worth a read as Dave is from Le's home base area and drew a great picture of the path he's taken to get to tonight. (LINK: Legend Le brings action-hero style to the UFC.) If Cung Le loses, will this be his last fight in UFC. "People ask me if this is going to be my last fight,” he said. “If I thought it was, I would have signed a one-fight contract. I signed a six-fight contract. I’m taking them one at a time, but if all goes well I’m looking at making that decision after finishing the contract.”

-Wanderlei Silva says Cung Le is tough to train for: “He is a really good fighter,” he told Yahoo! Sports. “I saw his fights. I study his tapes and it’s so hard to find some guys to fight like him. But we’ll bring in some guys from Tae Kwon Do, from all the other martial arts and try to make a game plan for the fight with him.”

-I'm picking Bowles via judges' decision, Cung Le via ref stoppage in round two (but I could easily see Silva overwhlelming him out of the gate, too), and Henderson over Rua via TKO late. All three are tough to pick as there are a lot of questions that just can't be answered about these fights and fighters until the fights take place in a few hours. We will learn a lot about all six fighters in tonight's main events by the end of the show. Get more predictions on the Shogun-Henderson fight in the Roundtable posted earlier today on the MMATorch Main Listing. Henderson is the favorite among the staff. In our reader poll, 62 percent are picking Henderson, most by KO, and the rest are picking Rua, most by KO. In fact, 78 percent of readers believe this will end by KO, not tapout or judges' decision.

-I posted this question to MMATorch Facebook Fans earlier today: If Wanderlei Silva loses by KO tonight, should UFC book him for any more fights, or has he reached the Chuck Liddell stature as someone with more offense but no chin left, and paying him to fight more could be dangerous for his long-term health and lead to more inevitable KO losses? Dave Hassard wrote: "If Silva loses by KO, the UFC should force him to retire!! Employee him in a similar role as Chuck, let him use his stature in the sport to promote the UFC internationally!!!" Spengebab Squorponts followed up: "Exactly what Dave said. Give him a role as a commentator for the Brazilian fans or something. Or be the spokesperson for UFC Brazil. A guest coaching sport or something on the next season of TUF would be great too." Join in the discussion here: www.facebook.com/mmatorchfans.

-On our Facebook Fan Page (www.facebook.com/mmatorchfans) late last night we posted some new art from our exclusive commissioned artist, Grant Gould (www.GrantGould.com). Check out the latest art on MMATorch or our Facebook Fan Page of Urijah Faber, Dan Henderson, and Shogun Rua, adding to his drawings of Junior Dos Santos and Cain Velasequez from last week. He also created for us a sequence of the steps he goes through to create this fantastic art for MMATorch - a nine frame progressive sequence of the various stages he goes through to create the art starting with hand inking, scanning, and then doing his magic in Photoshop. For those who are into this type of thing, it's cool to see how a top-level pro artist creates his work.

-Join us for live coverage and post-show features all night and all weekend. Thanks for your continued support of MMATorch! Check out both our website (MMATorch.com) and Apps (free on iPhone, iPad, Android, and Amazon). We also have a weekly podcast in iTunes. Just search MMATorch.

-After tonight, it's right into breaking down Jon Jones vs. Lyoto Machida, Frank Mir vs. Mintauro Nogueira, and Tito Ortiz vs. Antoni Rogerio Nogueira coming up on Dec. 10 at UFC 140 in Toronto, Ont. We'll have original news analysis and feature articles every day between now and UFC 140, so check back every day for more.