By Brett Okamoto
ESPN.com
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The UFC has granted Quinton Jackson’s request to fight in Japan in February.
The former light heavyweight champion will meet Ryan Bader at UFC 144. UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta confirmed the matchup to ESPN.com.
READ MORE via The UFC has granted Quinton Jackson’s request to fight in Japan in February – ESPN.
I was watching the UFC fights with my girlfriend Saturday night, and when Tito Ortiz beat Ryan Bader, for the first time in several UFC’s, I jumped out of my chair and said something along the lines of “F— YEAH!” a couple of times while pumping my fist.
I have nothing against Ryan Bader, but I was definitely glad to see Tito Ortiz get a win.
I’m excited about tonights fights! UFC 126 should be a good one. Here are my quick picks.
Although I’d like to see Vitor Belfort win tonight, my gut is telling me he’s getting TKO’d. So…
Anderson Silva over Vitor Belfort
Rich Franklin over Forrest Griffin (decision)
Ryan Bader over Jon Jones
Miguel Torres over Antonio Banuelos
Donald Cerrone over Paul Kelly
Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto over Demetrius Johnson
Gabe Reudiger over Paul Taylor
Kyle Kingsbury over Ricardo Romero
Kyle Kingsbury over Razak Al-Hassan
Jorge Rivera over Rob Kimmons
Chael Sonnen over Yushin Okami
Antoni Hardonk Vs. Pat Barry - I am excited about this fight.. should be interesting. Somebody is getting kicked. I’ll go with Pat Barry for the win.
Eric Schafer over Ryan Bader
Anthony Johnson over Yoshiyuki Yoshida
Spencer Fisher over Joe Stevenson
Josh Neer over Gleison Tibau
Ben Rothwell over Cain Velasquez
and… Lyoto Machida will defeat Shogun Rua.
The official fight line-up for The Ultimate Fighter finale show that takes place on December 13th:
The Ultimate Fighter wasn’t on last week due to the holiday, but this week they showed two episodes back-to-back to catch us up.
I think at the beginning of tonights episode, the narrator Mike Rowe called Ryan Bader “Bryan”.. not that it matters, just what I noticed. I also think Nogueira calls him Bryan sometimes.
Anyway, first fight of the show is Ryan Bader vs. Eliot Marshall. Gawd what a shit fight, imo. Bader score tons of takedowns, but did ZERO with any of them, I kept expecting him to ground-and-pound, but he didn’t do shit. Sure, he controlled the fight, and won, but damn. I sure hope we don’t see him win like that much more. He literally looked almost asleep laying & praying on Eliott’s chest.
Phillipe Nover defeated George Roop, as expected.
Vinny submitted Krysztof Soszynski with an armbar. I was hoping Krysztof would win this, but now I really hope Vinny submits Ryan Bader quickly at the finale, or we’re in for a long boring fight with Bader on top avoiding submissions. However, if Bader had been fighting Vinny earlier instead of Eliot Marshall, he would have been submitted already. Where Marshall was having trouble pulling an omoplata, Vinny won’t have a problem. As soon as Bader is just being lazy in Vinnys guard and puts his hand on the mat, Vinny will get the omoplata and at least take control — in other words, I don’t think Bader will be able to lay-and-pray to control Vinny like he did Eliot Marshall, but we’ll see.
And finally, it was nice to see Junie Browning choked to submission.