Headlining UFC 161 is Dan Henderson vs. Rashad Evans. It’s the first main event I will purchase for every other fight on the card, except for the main event.
Not only will it probably be a five round snoozer, but it will be a nice break from all the potential destruction delivered beforehand from the likes of Pat Barry, Roy Nelson, Tyron Woodley, and Maricio Rua.
All the above fighters bring the heat, and vicariously are extremely relative within the rankings of their division. I believe all five men listed above will deliver a KO against their respective opponents on June 15th at UFC 161, and here’s how I see it going down.
Mauricio “Shogun” Rua (21-7) will knockout Antonio “Lil Nog” Nogueira (21-5) round 1
Sure shogun is on the relative downhill side of his career, but don’t mistake his inability to string more than a win together in the last two years as a factor when it comes to his next fight against Lil Nog.
While Lil Nog is boasting a strong two fight win streak against big names in Rashad Evans and Tito Ortiz, Shogun has been exchanging wins and losses with names who are still at the top of the division (ie: Jon Jones, Alexander Gustafsson, Dan Henderson, Lyoto Machida). Not only does shogun own the stronger resume hands down, but his berserker style is still more polished than Lil Nog’s.
Both men play right in to the other’s fighting style, both will come forward, exchanging blows, and Shogun will be the last man standing after round one.
Roy “Big Country” Nelson (19-7) will knockout Stipe Miocic (9-1) in round 1
Once again, if styles make fights and two brawlers equal one early KO, so will Big Country serve up Stipe on a silver platter in the first round. Roy loves to turn technical fighters in to hesitant brawlers. He roles in, lowers his head while throwing jabs, and throws his right hand over the top to drop his more athletic and technically gifted counterparts.
Most importantly, he’s gained an insane amount of momentum and confidence through dropping 5 of his last 6 opponents. From earliest to most recent, the list reads Mirko Filipovic, Dave Herman, Matt Mitrione, and Cheick Kongo.
Stipe is far from defenseless in this one, yet coming off a one round knockout to a man who was neatly folded up himself by Nelson (Stefan Struve tko’d Miocic at UFC on Fuel 5 and was previously KO’d by Nelson in 39 seconds at UFC – Fight Night 21), he will be hard pressed to continue pushing forward himself. Instead he will find himself backing up and getting clipped for his troubles in the process.
Pat “HD” Barry (8-5) will knockout Shawn “The Savage” Jordan (14-4) in round 1
These two are hard to call on paper. One will definitely get put away though, and if I had to guess which one will have the edge, it’s definitely HD. Barry ran through Shane Del Rosario with a staunchly murderous intent at the TUF 16 Finale last December.
In his post-fight interview he joking admitted he was having flash backs of his loss against Cheick Kongo, of whom he had also had pretty much put away, right before Kongo through a shaky hook, immediately ending Barry’s night.
If anything is guaranteed in the UFC these days, it’s that comfortable fighters usually don’t last long. It’s the one’s that understand how easy it is to drift silently in to the night and out of the spot light for good, that have a shot at staying there.
Barry might only get one chance to clip Jordan and swarm in for the finish, but when he does, don’t blink.
Tyron Woodley (11-1) will knockout Jake Shields (27-6-1) in round 1
Disqualified for a snoozer win against Ed Herman for steroids, combined with an entire career of out wrestling all his opponents, and the one time he was recently TKO’d by Ellenberger at UFC – Fight Night 25, Shields is not going to match up well against Woodley.
Woodley is a wrestling based fighter as well. Of course it was hard to tell in his last two fights. The first one was a fourth round KO loss to Nate Marquardt who took his belt in Strikeforce last July. But it almost went the other way in the first round when Woodley almost shocked the world by dropping Marquardt. The last one was his absolute domination of Jay Hieron at UFC 156 last February, by nauseating volumes of strikes in the first round.
He came out throwing his entire power behind every lunge, and that was against Hieron who wasn’t someone to take lightly. I can’t imagine how carelessly he will throw himself at Shields. One thing he knows is that Shields can out wrestle him, but can’t finish him standing.
With that in mind, Woodley is going to have gone from losing his Strikeforce belt, to stringing a two fight win streak together in arguably the toughest division the UFC has to offer. Not bad.