Saturday, February 5th, live from the Mandalay Bay Events Centre in Las Vegas, Nevada is UFC 126: Silva vs. Belfort. This UFC pay-per-view is headlined by a bout for the Middleweight Championship of the World.
The Champion is Anderson “The Spider” Silva. With his elite striking skills and jiu-jitsu black belt, he cleared out the Middleweight division and was seemingly unstoppable. That is, until he faced Chael Sonnen. For five and a half rounds, Sonnen took the champ down at will and beat him up via ground and pound. Then, with less than three minutes left in the fight, Silva locked in a Triangle Choke/Arm Bar making Chael Sonnen tap. In losing, Sonnen showed the world that there are holes in the game of the pound for pound king.
The life of challenger, Vitor Belfort is a movie waiting to happen. In 1997, at 19, Belfort was the youngest man to ever win in the UFC. Dubbed “The Phenom”, he steam-rolled over opponents winning the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. Then he battled injuries and heart break as his sister was kidnapped in 2004.
To this day, she is still missing. One time rival and UFC Hall of Famer, Randy Couture reached out to Belfort and started training him at Xtreme Couture.
Rejuvenated, he moved down to the middleweight division and has been unstoppable ever since. Knock out wins over Terry Martin and Matt Linland, as well as knocking out former middleweight champion, Rich Franklin at a catch weight of 195 lbs.
Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort are two of the best strikers in MMA. Both possess lights out power, so it’ll be the accuracy of Silva versus the speed of Belfort. My prediction: I don’t see this going five rounds. Silva by TKO in the second round.
The Co-Main event features two men who were key in making the UFC as popular as it is today. In 2005, Forrest Griffin won The Ultimate Fighter reality show, then went on to win the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. Rich “Ace” Franklin was the Middleweight Champion and was the face of the UFC. Now these fighters meet and only the winner stays relevant. The fight between up and comers Jon “Bones” Jones and Ryan “Darth” Bader is about the future. Winner moves into the Top Five of the division.
Here are my full predictions.
Main Card: Silva over Belfort via TKO in Round 2; Franklin over Griffin via Unanimous Decision; Ellenberger over Rocha via Unanimous Decision; Jones over Bader via TKO Round 1; Torres over Banuelos via submission Round 3.
Preliminary Card (Airing on Spike TV), Cerrone over Kelly via submission Round 2 and Mendes over Omigawa via Unanimous Decision.
Preliminary Card: Ruediger over Taylor via submission Round 1; Yamamoto over Johnson via KO Round 1; Romero over Kingsbury via submission Round 2 and Pierce over Roberson via Unanimous Decision.
I’ll be tweeting throughout the event. Follow me at www.twitter.com/BigMarvShow
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