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Well after a week of quiet reflection, Saturday will bring us UFC 116 and the crowning of a new #1 heavyweight in the world for the first time in nearly eight years. If Lesnar vs. Carwin wasn't already the biggest heavyweight fight in UFC history, Fedor Emelianenko's shocking upset loss to Fabricio Werdum last Saturday made sure of it. With Wanderlei Silva pulling out of his fight with Yoshihiro Akiyama last week this has become a one fight card, with the UFC banking on the main event drawing more than a million pay-per-view buys on its own.
At least here at the Torch you can always count on two battles worth paying attention to. At UFC 115 two new champions were crowned, with Rich Hansen taking MY prediction title and Dom762 putting a whoopin' on Shaun Godric Louis to capture the betting crown. They'll both defend their titles for the first time at UFC 116 against Ryan Wankel, a double #1 contender. Good luck to the three of you. I'll be in the pool with the rest of the common folk. Let's take a look at the lineup.
PREDICTION CONTEST
I'm pretty sure everyone knows how this works by now, but just in case... Basically you pick the winners of each fight, including method (e.g. KO, submission, decision) and round. The winner is the one who picks the most fights correctly. Ties will be broken by who had the most number of rounds and methods correctly predicted. In case anyone is wondering, only rounds and methods in fights where you predicted the correct winner count.
Brock Lesnar (-145) vs. Shane Carwin (+115)
Yoshihiro Akiyama (-205) vs. Chris Leben (+165)
Chris Lytle (-215) vs. Matt Brown (+175)
Stephan Bonnar (+190) vs. Krzysztof Soszynski (-250)
Kurt Pellegrino (+150) vs. George Sotiropoulos (-180)
Brendan Schaub (-300) vs. Chris Tuchscherer (+240)
Ricardo Romero (-185) vs. Seth Petruzelli (+155)
Kendall Grove (+130) vs. Goran Reljic (-160)
Dave Branch (+235) vs. Gerald Harris (-295)
Daniel Roberts (-185) vs. Forrest Petz (+155)
Jon Madsen (+145) vs. Karlos Vemola (-175)
BETTING CONTEST
As you can see, there's a number attached to each fighter. That number represents how much money you can make off each fighter. The way it works is, if a fighter has a positive number he's an underdog. The positive number means if you were to bet $100 dollars on him, you would make the amount of the positive number. For example, if you were to bet $100 on Carwin and he won, you would make back the hundred you bet, plus $115 for a total payout of $215.
If the fighter has a negative number, that number represents how much you would have to bet to make $100 on the fighter. For example, if you bet $145 on Lesnar and he won, you'd make back the $145, plus a $100 profit, for a total payout of $245.
Each contestant has $1000 in theoretical money. You can bet it on as many fighters as you'd like, but you have to bet on at least three. The most you can bet on a single fighter is $500, and bets have to be in multiples of $100.
I'm setting a deadline of 6 p.m. (EST) Saturday to get all of your picks in. The betting lines are courtesy of bodog.com.
Note: In the event that one of the #1 contenders fails to show for their title shot, the champ will defend against the next best performer from the previous contest. You've been warned, so bring your A game everybody!
As always you can submit your picks one of three ways: by emailing me at matt6buckeye@hotmail.com, posting them on the message boards, or by leaving them in the comments section right down there. Good luck!
ALERT: Every Tuesday night, listen to the MMATorch Livecast from 9-10:30 p.m. ET or listen now to the most recent shows by clicking here. Listen live this coming Tuesday as Jamie Penick, Rich Hansen, and Matt Pelkey discuss the latest MMA happenings. Online listen at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mmatorch or call into the show at 646-716-8090 to either just listen or participate.
"There's still a large contingent of people, that they just want to see these guys almost die, or the other guy almost die and come back, and sometimes fights are like that. Certainly they are. But sometimes you get technical masterpieces too, and to hate a beautiful, technical fight - you're not really a fight fan...
Diaz has a granite chin, possesses perhaps the best recovery in the sport, his pace and conditioning are second to none and he sets records with the volume of his punches almost every time he steps into the cage. Nick Diaz is simply designed to fight the way he fights, and not many other fighters are...
"There was a lot of poison going on around there and I'm really disappointed because we had a good thing going. It was a good thing and I think people's egos got in the way. Well, not people just Javier, his ego got in the way, and too many cameras in the gym and him trying to build himself up and his brand, his AKA brand...
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