Saturday, August 26th, the Ultimate Fighting Championship will be holding their 62nd PPV event in Las Vegas, Nevada. The top two fights will be:

Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell (-C-) vs. Renato "Babalu" Sobral for the Light Heavyweight Title

Forrest Griffin vs. "The American Psycho" Stephan Bonnar

The odds are as follows:

Liddell -325
Sobral +250

Griffin -275
Bonnar +215

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"You gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite?" - Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs

Let's look at Griffin vs. Bonnar first. These two met in the finals of the 1st Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV, and Griffin got a unanimous decision. They have identical career records at 12-3 apiece. Griffin is a little more well-rounded, but the majority of his wins have come by submission. Bonnar, on the other hand, is primarily a submissions specialist, as he only has 1 win by KO in his career.

Griffin lost a tough fight to Tito Ortiz (although many experts feel that he was robbed on the cards). Bonnar, meanwhile, has been average on several Ultimate Fight Night cards.

My Pick: Griffin wins. He's faced a higher level of competetion since the last time they fought, and he's going to want to make a statement after his questionable loss to Ortiz. Still, that -275 doesn't look very tempting. I'm not putting anything on this one.


Next up is the Light Heavyweight Title match between "The Iceman" and "Babalu." Liddell is the champ and a feared puncher, while Sobral is mainly a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guy. They've met once before at UFC 40, with Liddell getting the win after a 1st round KO from a head kick.
If Liddell defends his title, he'll be matched up in November against Wanderlei Silva, the Light Heavyweight Champion of PRIDE (which would be the first inter-promotional match between the two companies).

My Pick: Liddell wins. The UFC wants Liddell to win and move on to fight Silva in November, so they hand-picked an opponent for him. Liddell is solid on the ground, plus he's a devastating striker with amazing takedown defense. He's won his last 5 fights by KO. Sobral, on the other hand, prefers wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (which would account for the fact that he has 14 wins by submission and only 2 by KO).
I see this one being an early KO win for Liddell, with Sobral going for the takedown, Liddell sprawling to defend, and then beating the living hell out of Babalu. Can you say tune-up fight?
That -325 line doesn't look too appealing, but I'm so confident in Liddell's victory that I'm going to raid the ol' coffee can and pull out my "rainy day" money, of which I'm going to wager $1625 to win me a cool $500.

Good luck, everybody. I'll post the fight results on Sunday.

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"You gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite?" - Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs

Cousin Forrest in a big way. Liddell gets the tough nod.

Mike, so you really think that Liddell is in for a tough fight?

__________________
"You gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite?" - Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs

Here are the results:

Forrest Griffin wins a unanimous decision, 30-27

Chuck Liddell beats Babalu with a KO in 1:35 of the first round.


I am officially $500 richer.




Total 2006 Winnings: $775

__________________
"You gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite?" - Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs