Metal Reviews

Lamas is a tank. Out grappled Hioki in his last fight, dominates Koch on Saturday. Now he wants the winner of Aldo-Edgar. Will be cage side this weekend.

Dana White fully expects former heavyweight champion Josh Barnett to be back in the UFC sometime this year. Barnett put on his Facebook page: "looks like my next battlefield will be in the UFC."

Dudes nickname is Warmachine and he walks out to Slayer or Bolt Thrower. He's pretty cool, except for the steroids.

Good heavyweights are hard to come by so he's welcome. Also, metal!

Apparently Anderson Silva wants to fight Cung Le in April.

Did I not call that shit like 2 weeks ago?

YES.

Lots of big fights announced:

Michael Bisping vs. Alan Belcher
Nate Diaz vs. Josh Thomson (former Strikeforce champ)
Jim Miller vs. Pat Healy (former Strikefore title challenger, went 6-1 in SF)
Roy Nelson vs. Cheick Kongo
Phil Davis vs. Vinny Magalhaes

I love fight announcements.

That Nelson Kongo match could be career deciding for both of them.

Anybody doing picks? It is fight week.

I, unfortunately, will miss UFC 156 this Saturday. But, that's what technology is for, it will be recorded and viewed once I return from my booze jaunt.

Aldo, Evans, Overeem, Maia, Benavidez.

I would love to see Lil Nog beat Rashad, but I don't see it happening.

That. No, McCall over Benavidez. And hell, Fitch over Maia possibly.

Many say it's one of the greatest fight cards in UFC history. It's a card with some great fighters on it, unfortunately not that many great fights. I feel like Evans and Overeem will destroy Noguiera and Big Foot. Big names but not that exciting.

Aldo-Edgar is pretty awesome though, Frankie Edgar is a warrior. I think Aldo will beat him but Frankie always puts up a fight. He might be limping out of there though. Fitch and Maia is pretty interesting, not sure if it will translate into a fun fight to watch but it's at least interesting and not as easy to call as the previously mentioned fights. Fitch will win though, the way he always does, by another ground and pound decision. McCall and Benavidez should be pretty good, I'm thinking McCall in this one but I'm not sure.

Aldo, Evans, Overeem, Fitch. Easy money. And maybe McCall.

Seriously. I perked up seeing the names and then I thought about it for a bit.

Fitch will not ground and pound Maia. Fitch will get submitted, just like Chael Sonnen did against Demian.

Expanded: Maia's jiu-jitsu is on another level. Whenever he fought a talented grappler at middleweight, which are much bigger stronger guys than Fitch, Maia makes them tap. The only way Maia loses this is if Fitch keeps it standing and wins a boring decision. On the ground? Maia is a beast and will submit Fitch. Erick Silva almost submitted Fitch twice and he's not the level of grappler of Maia.

My 0.2 cents

I hope you're right... I just see Fitch as the kind of guy with the experience and know-how not to get caught, or battle through it somehow. Maia is on another level completely than just about all other fighters though, so if anyone can do it it's him.

Go Maia.

I point to the Rick Story fight to show how dangerous is on the ground. Now yes, Story is not Fitch, and I don't expect it to end so nastily and early, but Maia off of his back is as dangerous as a Nogueira. If no more so. Maia will be all for Fitch taking him down and laying on top of him in his guard. Watch for Maia's butterfly guard, I bet he uses it quite nicely against Jonny.

Now obviously Fitch is no slouch either, you only get to his level by being good, but he's never fought a jiu-jitsu guy like Demian Maia.

My god, I hope I'm right.

does Maia fight at middleweight often? would he ever fight Anderson Silva?

He dropped down to welterweight after losing to Chris Weidman. Has fought twice, and is 2-0 since dropping down. I highly doubt he ever returns to middleweight.

He already fought Silva once, but we are not gonna talk about that one...

Lets just say it wasn't Andersons finest hour.

ha I missed a fair bit then between UFC 73 and now

I missed four of five of those. Damn.

I feel like McCall having the two mounts, the takedown and the penalty on his side, I think he should have got the decision.

I did not expect Fitch to get owned like that. Twas fucking awesome.

Overeem didn't look bad, but he didn't look great like I expected him too. Cocky son of a bitch deserved that. Seriously, Velasquez being the beast he is right now would tear him a new one. Which I would kinda like to see after that performance he pulled last night.

Is Rashad done for now?

Aldo needs to move up a weight class. He's like Jones in that his arms are just too long for that division. He throws fists without ever giving people a chance to get inside on him. Edgar did a few times, but Aldo shook it off quite well. Those leg kicks early on were nasty.

I feel like Overeem and Rashad should have won had they just employed a moderately well thought out gameplan. Rashad could easily have out-wrestled Nogueira and Overeem could easily out-strike Bigfoot and not put himself in harms way the way he did.

Aldo is a beast and Edgar has the heart of a lion, things we already knew. Great fight. And I'm glad I was wrong about Maia and Fitch, Maia dominated his ass.

So Maia didn't get the submission, but he dominated. God damn I'm good. Too bad Overeem is a cocky asshole.

And Lil Nog!!!

And man, Edgar is a gamer. He should have had a few warm-up fights before Aldo, IMO.

Lastly, it's fight week! Picks?

I'll do mine later in the week. But I'll pick Renan Barao right now.