By Michael Owens
The last and biggest UFC event of 2013 takes place in Las Vegas tomorrow night. Two headline fights – including the most anticipated rematch in the sport’s history – top a stacked card to end possibly the greatest year in MMA history. If these fights live up to their billing, we could even have a few more contenders for an already crowded fight-of-the-year list.
UFC Middleweight Championship: Chris Weidman vs. Anderson Silva
This is it. Possibly the biggest rematch in the history of the sport, the chance of redemption for the best fighter of all time and the potential for a new king to cement his crown.
The shocking outcome of the first fight has built anticipation for this New Year’s rematch to a state of hysteria and made it very difficult to predict.
Most people behind Weidman are looking at the first fight to qualify their prediction. There is no doubt he won the first round of that fight and there is even less doubt that he packs the kind of power to stop the fight. However, many picks for Weidman have overestimated his successes from July.
Weidman was supposedly dominant on the ground and he did shoot for a kneebar, but Silva easily escaped. On the feet, Silva was doing anything he wanted until the KO blow. He was doing anything he wanted, despite acting like a jackass.
The outcome of this fight – in my opinion – depends entirely on Silva’s approach to the fight. If he recaptures the aggressive spirit that saw him obliterate Forrest Griffin, Yushin Okami and Stephan Bonnar he will easily win this fight. He is more accurate than anyone who has ever stepped into the Octagon and packs the kind of deceptive power that can melt even the most iron-chinned opponents. If Weidman tries to make the fight a wrestling match, he has the ability to stay out of danger, escape from the bottom or even throw up submissions.
But make no mistake. If Anderson approaches this fight with anything less than 100% commitment, he risks leaving the cage without the belt yet again. With that said, all signs point to a motivated former champion, which means I struggle to predict anything but a stoppage victory for The Spider.
UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship: Ronda Rousey vs. Miesha Tate
The evening’s other title fight promises to be a lot more cut and dry than the main event. Ronda Rousey has won each of her amateur and professional fights by armbar in the first round and I expect that streak to continue.
The champion looked more vulnerable than ever in her last fight with Liz Carmouche, who took her back and posed a legitimate threat with a choke. Rousey did well to shake her challenger off and then her size, strength and technical advantage to wrap up another successful foray into the cage.
Despite the vulnerabilities she showed in the Carmouche fight and her tendency to turn away from punches she should add another arm to her collection.
Miesha Tate has more experienced striking, but there is not a lot of power behind her wild punches. She was able to land on Rousey in their first fight and against Cat Zingano, but she never really seemed to hurt them. She also has better wrestling, but Rousey’s strength and grappling acumen were enough to negate that back in March last year.
Miesha has a lot of tools and is definitely one of the better 135lb female fighters in the game, but it would take a braver man than me to predict anything other than a first round armbar from Rousey for the 11th consecutive time.
Heavyweight: Josh Barnett vs. Travis Browne
This is one of the toughest fights to predict at UFC 168. Both men hit incredibly hard and have shown their ability to take extraordinary punishment.
I’d expect striking exchanges to be fairly close, drawing audible reactions from the crow due to their velocity and impact. Barnett will probably try and clinch up with Browne and use the cage to get him to the ground, but I would not place any huge confidence in him having any sustained success with that game plan thanks to the Hawaiian’s under-appreciated takedown defence.
I expect Browne to move laterally and stay out of Barnett’s range, clinch and therefore the most dangerous positions he could possibly find himself in. If he can explode into striking exchanges and get back to the outside in short order he will give himself the best chance of walking away with a decision win. However, his best laid plans could quickly go awry if ‘The Warmaster’ can drag the fight to the mat and use his suffocating top-position attack.
Lightweight: Fabricio Camoes vs. Jim Miller
This fight is absolutely the easiest fight to predict on the card. Jim Miller is a long-time UFC top-10 lightweight with 11 wins in the Octagon. While he won’t be troubling any 155-pound champion any time soon, he’s going to give anyone outside the division’s elite absolute fits. His grinding offence, which is rooted in wrestling usually overwhelms the man on the other side of the cage.
Fabricio Camoes is two fights into his second UFC run. He has a 1-2-1 record in the promotion. He is a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt, but he had been overwhelmed on the ground in both of his UFC defeats. This does not bode well against a ground-fighting steamroller like Miller who can lift attacks from an arsenal of submissions or ground and pound.
Miller by stoppage in the second round.
Featherweight: Diego Brandao vs. Dustin Poirier
A fight right in line with the best of the UFC tradition of opening a PPV with a lightweight action fight, Poirier and Brandao will deliver violence to open up tomorrow’s main card. Both fighters pack power in both hands and an enterprising grappling attack. They each like to go for the finish relentlessly, although that can be just as much of a detriment to their prospects of victory.
Brandao threw caution to the wind in his fights with Dennis Bermudez and Darren Elkins, making for some exciting MMA. However, only a last-ditch armbar saved him from defeat in that TUF finale and he ran out of steam to end up on the wrong side of a decision against Elkins.
Poirier has had his mentality switched to ‘kill’ in each of his UFC fights, but that cost him against the more technical brawling of Cub Swanson and The Korean Zombie. On the other hand, that same fighting style has overwhelmed pretty much everyone else he has fought. Even the ultra-durable Erik Koch could not stop ‘The Diamond’ from taking two rounds.
The first round of tomorrow’s fight could go down as a late contender for round of the year if both men throw all caution to the wind as expected. As the fight progresses the man most likely to take over is Poirier. Brandao seems to have improved his cardio in recent fights, but not to the point where he will be able to handle such a game opponent. I think the TUF winner will hang on for the full 15 minutes, but lose via unanimous decision.
