THE TORCH: THE #1 WORLDWIDE BRAND IN COMBAT ENTERTAINMENT COVERAGE - OVER 250 MILLION VIEWS & LISTENS PER YEAR REREACHING MORE FANS EVERY WEEK THAN ANY OTHER INDEPENDENT SOURCE • VIA THE WEB, MOBILE, PRINT NEWSLETTER, AND ITUNES
The wait is almost over. Its been over a month since "the biggest heavyweight fight in UFC history", but we're only two days away from "the best card in recent UFC history". The loss of Thiago Silva put a minor dent in the card, but the main card has remained intact and carries an unspoken "USA vs. Brazil" theme.
All five main card bouts pit an American versus a Brazilian, and I gotta say, its not looking good for Uncle Sam. At least, that's what Vegas is telling me. The Dos Anjos-Guida and Fitch-Alves fights are more or less pick-ems, but that's the only positives for the Americans. The Brazilians are solid favorites in the other three match-ups. We'll take a closer look at the card in a minute, but first we need to see what the Torch has at stake at UFC 117.
At UFC 116, both Prediction Champ Rich "Blowtorch (hey, that's actually kind of a bad ass fighter nickname)" Hansen and Betting Champ Dom762 defended their respective titles against challenger Ryan Wankel. They move on to Saturday to face new challenges, Hansen against Cambo "Rambo" Nelson and Dom762 against Robert (he of the one name, like Madonna or Jeff). Good luck to our champions and challengers, and good luck to the rest of us in the pool vying for the next title shots. Let's take a look at that aforementioned card, shall we?
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.
Anderson Silva (-525) vs. Chael Sonnen (+350)
Jon Fitch (-120) vs. Thiago Alves (-110)
Clay Guida (-125) vs. Rafael Dos Anjos (-105)
Matt Hughes (+135) vs. Ricardo Almeida (-165)
Junior dos Santos (-325) vs. Roy Nelson (+250)
Tim Boetsch vs. Todd Brown*
Dustin Hazelett (-115) vs. Rick Story (-115)
Stefan Struve (-185) vs. Christian Morecraft (+155)
Johny Hendricks (-525) vs. Charlie Brenneman (+325)
Ben Saunders (-265) vs. Dennis Hallman (+205)
Rodney Wallace (+500) vs. Phil Davis (-800)
*No betting line is available for this fight, so it'll be off the betting board, but still be sure to send a prediction on the fight, as it'll still count in the prediction contest.
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 $250 on Nelson and he won, you would make back the hundred you bet, plus $250 for a total payout of $350.
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 $325 on Dos Santos and he won, you'd make back the $325, plus a $100 profit, for a total payout of $425.
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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