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By: Shawn Ennis, MMATorch Senior Columnist There will be a lot on the line come Saturday night in Vegas. The main event alone is obviously reason enough to be interested in a card that is otherwise at least intriguing. But we'll get to that later. Today I'll give you my take on the undercard: What's going to happen, how much you'll enjoy it, and what it all means. Then tomorrow I'll throw my two cents at the behemoth matchup that is Couture-Lesnar.
Hazelett vs. McCrory: Amir Sadollah is sidelined with an infection this weekend, so we're going to start off with Dustin "McLovin" Hazelett taking on Tamdan "The Barn Cat" McCrory. This is a nice matchup of two very young fighters that could well be around for a very long time. Both men are just 22 years old, and both sport a .667 record in the UFC. Hazelett, with an 11-4 record, is coming off a brilliant submission of Josh Burkman at the TUF 7 Finale, while McCrory's victory over Luke Cummo went the distance at UFC 87. While both fighters are well-rounded, Hazelett is surely the more dynamic of the two. He is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt under Jorge Gurgel with powerful striking. McCrory, for his part, is very long and rangy, perhaps a bit more raw than Hazelett. I'm taking Hazelett in this one, but it should be a heck of an entertaining fight.
Prediction: Hazelett by submission in round 2.
Potential Entertainment Value: I'd be surprised if this one ended up being less than three stars. It looks to be a barnburner.
Potential Ramifications: I don't see either of these guys going anywhere any time soon, but considering Hazelett's showing against Josh Koscheck and Burkman, he could be on the fast track to contention with some big wins. The road to there starts here, though. As for McCrory, a loss here shouldn't hurt him too much if he can bounce back against solid competition next time out. He's got a loss to Ryo Chonan, which is nothing to be ashamed of, but of course racking up too many losses (regardless of competition) could land him on the smaller circuits for a time. We will see.
Quarry vs. Maia: Nate Quarry is 2-0 since his return to the Octagon after an almost two year absence. After a knockout of Pete Sell and an infamous decision victory over Kalib Starnes, Quarry will face a decidedly tougher challenge in the undefeated jiu jitsu wizard Maia. Maia made his most notable mark on the middleweight division in August with a submission victory over Jason MacDonald in what was a grappling clinic by both fighters. This figures to be a coming out party for Maia if he can withstand Quarry's striking long enough to get the fight to the ground. That's no easy task, as Quarry defends takedowns well and also tends to punish those who attempt them. Maia's striking is largely unproven and his takedowns can tend to be sloppy, rush-in-and-grab-the-waist type of things. He'll have to survive a whirlwind in order to get the fight where he wants it. If he gets it there, though, I don't expect the fight to last long after that point. We haven't seen much of Quarry's ground work in the UFC, but it stands to reason that Maia will outclass him on the floor – Maia has actual world-class BJJ skills, and not the kind that Mike Goldberg spouts about Travis Lutter. I don't expect Quarry to be able to keep it standing forever, though he will be able to for a little while, and he won't be able to keep Maia at enough of a distance to do any real damage.
Prediction: Maia by submission in round 2.
Potential Entertainment Value: I don't expect many fireworks out of this fight until it goes to the ground. What you'll probably see is Maia grabbing Quarry around the waist and hanging on until he's able to drag his man to the floor and submit him, while Quarry tries to push Maia's head away and land elbows. The first round could be a dud, followed by a quick submission in the second once Maia is successful in his bid to change levels.
Potential Ramifications: Everyone likes Nate Quarry, and he's good enough to pick up wins over mid-level fighters. The question remains whether he can put together enough wins against top-caliber competition to get back into title contention. If Maia can pull off the win, he'll likely get a big fight against a top-level opponent, and be one or two fights away from a shot at the title.
Gonzaga vs. Hendricks: Gabriel Gonzaga was touted long ago by some (okay, me) as the future champion of the UFC heavyweight division. He's a monster of a man with fantastic jiu jitsu and cinder blocks on the ends of his arms. But after his world-shaking knockout of Mirko Cro Cop, Gonzaga would come up short in his next two fights. Of course, while there's no shame in falling to the ageless wonder that is the Heavyweight Champion, Gonzaga was less than impressive in his cardio-challenged giveaway against Fabricio Werdum. Gonzaga won the first round, then gassed in the second, essentially handing the fight to Werdum on a silver platter. He followed that up with a quick, predictable submission win over Justin McCully at UFC 86. As for Josh Hendricks, all I know about him is what I saw in a 2005 loss to Tom Murphy and a 2006 win over the 1-7 Rick McChristian. (Thanks, YouTube.) Also most of his wins are by submission. I know nothing about Josh Hendricks. With that out of the way, I still believe in Gonzaga. He's simply got too much talent to fade away. That having been said, he can't take Hendricks lightly here. Case in point: look what happened to Fabricio Werdum himself just a couple of weeks ago. We've seen it over and over again – you take a debuting fighter lightly, you can lose very easily.
Prediction: Gonzaga by knockout in round 1.
Potential Entertainment Value: No telling. It all depends on how good Hendricks is and how Gonzaga has prepared for the fight. Either way I don’t think it lasts long.
Potential Ramifications: It says a lot that they're putting Gonzaga on the main card against a debuting fighter. That's the telltale sign of a guy that they're willing to push as a title contender. If Gonzaga wins, especially convincingly, I expect him to be back on track for a title shot. In fact, I wonder if we might see Gonzaga-Carwin or Gonzaga-Velasquez. I'd pay good money for either of those ones, friends. And you know what? If Hendricks wins, I wouldn't be surprised to see him up against one of those two either.
Florian vs. Stevenson: Here's your co-main event, and it's billed that way for a reason. Florian and Stevenson have this in common: they both have only one loss in the UFC lightweight division (Florian is 6-1 and Stevenson is 5-1), and both losses have come at the hands of the lightweight champion (Florian to Sean Sherk and Stevenson to BJ Penn.) They also both want another shot at the gold, and with a win here they just might get it, or at least take a big step in that direction. Kenny Florian has rattled off five straight wins since his loss to Sherk two years ago. He has excellent Muay Thai and a sneaky good submission game. Florian would seem to have no holes in his game…except for that one thing against Sherk, where he was soundly outwrestled. Part of that had to do with Sherk's sheer size, but the fact remains that he was manhandled. And thus we come to Stevenson, who uses his wrestling to get into dominant positions and beat his opponents. Stevenson doesn't have the best standing strikes, but he can hold his own. He also has a very dangerous and tight guillotine that is virtually inescapable when he sinks it (you can ask three of his last five opponents.) Stevenson also has a very good chin, having been knocked out only once in his 37 fights (by Jens Pulver in 1999.)
Prediction: Florian by TKO in round 3.
Potential Entertainment Value: No way this one is boring. It's got Fight of the Night written all over it. I think Stevenson will make a fight out of it for sure, and could very well pull off the win. But Florian's reach should be too much for him to overcome, and unless he can get in top position on the ground, I don't know what he can do to Florian. I don't see him being able to take Florian down a lot, and if he does I don't think he'll be able to get into the position he wants. And even if he can get on top of Florian, he'll have to watch out for submissions from the bottom and especially elbows. But you can be sure that neither man will gas out, and this will be a great fight from start to finish.
Potential Ramifications: If Florian wins, I would imagine he gets a title shot. The only thing standing in his way is the same thing in the way of Thiago Alves at welterweight: time. With the Penn-St. Pierre rematch coming at UFC 94, it's going to be a while until either belt is up for grabs again. Should Stevenson get the nod, he'll likely have to win at least one more fight anyway, as he just lost to Penn in January of this year. Even so, this is an important fight for Stevenson to show that he can hang with and beat top level lightweights.
Finally, here's some quick picks for the untelevised undercard:
Dos Anjos over Stephens : submission in round two
Robinson over Bocek : submission in round one
Gurgel over Riley : decision victory
Thomas over Brown : submission in round three
Once again, I'll be back tomorrow or Thursday with my breakdown of the Lesnar-Couture title fight, but for now you can check out any number of breakdowns by my colleagues here at the Torch.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
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