MMAPredictions

Muncie Indiana’s own Jason Gilliam has been selected to take on Chris Lytle in this coming weekend’s UFC 73: Stacked. Gilliam’s prior and only UFC experience came in his March 2007 fight against Jamie Varner, who defeated Gilliam by rear naked choke in the first round. However prior to that fight Gilliam was undefeated, with most of his prior fights coming from Extreme Combat Challenge and King of the Cage shows.

Make sure you predict for UFC 73 here before predictions close down one hour before the event begins!

- Caleb

It’s one thing to be the baddest, meanest MMA predictor while you’re here on MMAPredictions, but what about elsewhere? Make people “recognize” wherever you are online with the new MMAPredictions Widget!

Here’s mine:

Important: yours will not display my smiling gob, but your own user icon from here on the site. It’ll also automatically display your prediction accuracy and rank here on MMAPredictions!

How do you get it? Easy. If you’re logged in, just head to your user profile by clicking on your name in the upper right corner of the page. The code is in provided in your user profile. If you’re not logged in, you can grab the code for your widget (or anyone else’s) just by going to the user profile you’re looking for in the MMAPredictions User Directory.

Where can you put it? Just about anywhere! Here are some ideas:

• your blog
• your MySpace page
• your FaceBook page

If you’re a student and your school gives you a little space online where you can create webpages, they look especially sharp on your university’s .edu pages.

- Caleb

The UFC has announced yesterday that UFC 75 in London will now contain a match between Cheick Kongo and Mirko CroCop.

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This is the UFC’s third European event in recent years, which will likely build on the success of UFC 70: Nations Collide held in Manchester and UFC 72: Victory in Belfast. Other fights on the card include Rampage Jackson against Dan Henderson, and the SpikeTV reality show competitors Matt Hamill versus British fighter Michael Bisping.

- Caleb

When we invited a set of six VIPs to make their predictions on the weekend of June 15, we offered that we would donate $250 to the winner’s charity of choice. (I know, it’s not a lot, but it’s something.)

Jude Samuel, who runs the European Fight Network and is registered here on our site as bjjeu won the competition among the six invitees, and we’re proud to announce that a $250 contribution is being made to The Great Ormond Street Childrens Charity in the name of The European Fight Network.

Great Ormond Street Hospital treats more than 90,000 patients each year - children who are suffering from the rarest, most complex and often life-threatening conditions. They receive the best medical care that money can buy, but the NHS funding cannot meet these ever-rising costs, and that’s where the hospital’s charity, GOSHCC, steps in.

Congratulations to Jude, and MMAPredictions hopes that the humble contribution helps the little fighters of Great Ormond Street Hospital.

- Caleb

The UFC has announced that UFC 74 will now contain a match between Josh Koscheck and George St. Pierre.

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This card is shaping up to be another solid event, with Randy Couture against Napao and Joe Stevenson versus the Armory’s Kurt Pellegrino.

- Caleb

It’s funny. We’re often made to believe, especially in the United States, that bigger always means better. Why get a 16 ounce soda when you can upgrade it to 32 ounces for almost nothing? You won’t drink it all, and certainly don’t need it, but we’re told that bigger is just inherently better.

Most knowledgeable mixed martial arts fans would agree that as a whole, there is not really any comparison between MMA’s version of the supersized, the heavyweight division and well, any other division. It offers less bang for the buck on almost all counts. To be sure, it does contain an interesting and exciting fighter like Fedor Emelianenko. Yes, he is exciting. Yes, he is dominant. But can you name three or four other fighters in the heavyweight division who you can describe that way?

Here’s a quick breakdown of the different weight divisions for those who need a recap:

• Flyweight: under 125 lbs.
• Bantamweight: from 125 lbs. to 135 lbs.
• Featherweight: from 135 lbs. to 145 lbs.
• Lightweight: from 145 lbs. to 155 lbs.
• Welterweight: from 155 lbs. to 170 lbs.
• Middleweight: from 170 lbs. to 185 lbs.
• Light Heavyweight: from 185 lbs. to 205 lbs.
• Heavyweight: from 205 lbs. to 265 lbs.
• Super Heavyweight: over 265 lbs.

Currently, no large MMA promotions use the Super Heavyweight division nor the Flyweight division. World Extreme Cagefighting, aka the WEC, does hold matches for featherweight fighters.

In considering which division holds the most excitement for fans, one has to back up for a moment and ask what weight grouping has the most talent to draw from? As there are less humans who walk around over 200 pounds, it’s less likely one will find a really large and talented number of people in that division who choose to train MMA for a living. So what weight groups have the largest pool of people to draw from? The average adult male is about 5′10″ tall (at least in the USA), and when healthy is around 170 pounds. It is around these numbers that a much larger number of people can be found in mixed martial arts, because there’s a much larger number of people like this doing, well, just about anything. There’s just more of them.

With the most talent to draw from, lower weight classes like the lightweight division will be the showcase for the best mixed martial artists as it is in boxing. For a while, fans did not even have the option to watch fights in major organizations at this weight. After a long hiatus caused when Jens Pulver walked away from his UFC lightweight title belt, the UFC brought back the lightweight division. Luckily we can now find the agile, and skilled fighters again in action in many places.

Urijah Faber	Chris Horodecki	Hermes Franca

What do you think? Is the lightweight division where we’ll likely see the best MMA action? Speak your mind in the comments below or on our MMA Forums! Oh, and to be fair, yes, I too get the biggest soda offered to me. It doesn’t make sense, but I do.

- Caleb

So I was walking down the streets of Chicago today and some guy came up to me and was like “Hey Nostradamus, can you help me with my MMA Predictions next week? I heard you went a perfect 8 out of 8 on your Ultimate Fighter Season 5 Finale picks!” And I was all “Sorry son, but inside info is going to cost you. Gimme ten bucks.” He didn’t bite so we settled on a pack of skittles and a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew. My advice to him: ”Always pick the guy with the coolest intro music, especially if it’s Def Leopard”. He bought it. But I think the joke was on me cuz the Mountain Dew was flat and didn’t even have one of those cool orange caps where you can win some prize that you don’t even care about.

Anyway, I woke up this morning thinking about Saturday’s fights and what a weird turn of events it was. It got strange when Gray Maynard slammed Rob Emerson and knocked himself out in the process. I immediately thought of Matt Hughes’ first fight with Carlos Newton. I don’t care what anyone says, Hughes was out like Lindsey Lohan in the front seat of her Benzo. Except Matt was able to swat away the tweety birds and Maynard wasn’t. Regardless, the end result was a ‘No Contest’, so a rematch has to be in the works for Maynard and Emerson. They are both warriors and I can’t wait to see them fight again. A real life ‘Do Over’.

Speaking of rematches, I can’t wait to see the rematch of Nate Diaz and Manny Gamburyan. I guess it’s not official but I guarantee it happens. If you think I’m delusional, then you need to look at my prediction history. Can you say “8 for 8 - IN YOUR FACE!”? No seriously though, Nate is a stud and fought well but I think Manny deserves a rematch. And the UFC would be wise to set up dual rematches between Nate and older brother Nick Diaz against the Armenian duo of Manny and Karo Parisyan. Could you imagine the draw that card would bring? Anyone want a side bet on the event name and results? I’m going with ‘Family Feud’ and I will take the Diaz brothers in a sweep! As a matter of fact, if the top predictor for the prior month beats me on that card, I will change my user icon to whatever you want for two weeks! Now obviously it can’t be anything vulgar but should you win, the creative and / or devious among you will find a way to make me look stupid for sure. Bring it suckas!!!!!

A fight card including these fights is on the way, I guarantee it!

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Nate Diaz vs. Manny Gamburyan

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Nick Diaz vs Karo Parisyan

Your new friend,
- Luis

Wow! What a night. In the main event, BJ Penn got his revenge over Jens Pulver with a rear naked choke in round 2, and Nate Diaz defeated Manny Gamburyan when Gamburyan’s shoulder was dislocated.

MMAPredictions Command Center

Lots of exciting fights, but a wacky night at the MMAPredictions command center (which if comparing would be hard to tell the difference from the NASA command center). The bout between Gray Maynard and Robert Emerson, which ended in a no-contest, threw our system for a bit of a loop. (Remember that when a fight ends in anything other than a win or loss, our site doesn’t acknowledge it. We could set it up to do so, but I am not sure how fun it would be for most people to try to predict a no-contest ending for example.)

Aaaaaaaaanyways, I know that when I look at the event page for the Ultimate Fighter Season 5 Finale, it tells me I correctly predicted 8/8 fights, but that my prediction accuracy was only 88%. I don’t know whether to be mad at Gray Maynard and Robert Emerson or thank them for pointing out a bug on the site. The little voice in my head reminding me that these twos’ fists have a ton of practice connecting with faces is convincing me that I will kindly thank them for their help making this a better site.

Thanks for hanging in there as we iron out the kinks. (Hey, we’ve only been “live” for about 10 days now!) While we hammer out those bugs here on the site, make sure you let your friends know to come on over and join in the fun…

Always open to suggestions and comments if you’ve got them,

- Caleb

Congratulations to MataLeao, who predicted last night’s Shamrock vs. Baroni card so well, getting eight of the nine bouts predicted correctly. It was a tricky card and that is very impressive. MataLeao, your forum signature “Number 1 in the hood, G” is fitting and you are number one in this hood for sure.

Wanna see some detailed numbers on how folks predicted? On the detailed results page, we see that the average person only got 44% of the fights correct! That is four out of the nine! On that page you can also see where the best predictors come from! (Welcome to our first user from Sweden!)

Let’s talk about how the site will calculate who the top predictors are moving forward. You all can see that on our MMAPredictions Top Predictors page that it says, “You must have predicted 1 events in order to qualify as a Top Predictor” at the top. After this weekend, it will read “You must have predicted 4 events in order to qualify as a Top Predictor.”

Why? Because it’d be really lame if someone registered for the site, predicted one card with 100% accuracy and never returned to the site and stayed at the top of the list forever. That would blow. So we have to make it a little more competitive by increasing the number of events someone has to predict to be in the top rankings here. Sound good? Cool.

Other things that you may have a question about: group prediction accuracies only take into account the predictions made while someone is officially a member of the group. So that means if I predicted last night’s fights, then I accepted the invitation to join my friend’s prediction group, then none of my predictions will go towards the group’s total. If we didn’t have that rule in place, then you could get someone with a long string of really good predictions behind them join a group, and then his / her presence would artificially push up the group’s prediction accuracy. We have to try to prevent folks from gaming the system like that.

Personally, I did really badly last night. I got 33% of the card right! I listened to Josh Gross on Sherdog’s audio show Beatdown when he said he thought Joey Villasenor would beat Murilo Rua. But I take responsibility for crappy predicting overall.

Hey one last tip - the easiest way to keep in the loop about news and updates here on the site like the details here in this post is to subscribe to our RSS feed. If you’re not familiar with that, it’s kind of like having the news from the site come to you instead of you having to come here to see it. Once you get into RSS feeds from your favorite sites, you’ll be hooked, trust me

Good luck to everyone on your predictions for the Ultimate Fighter Season 5 Finale predictions tonight!

- Caleb

Luke Stewart def. Jason Von Flue – TKO (Strikes) 3rd Round (2:17)
Mike Pyle def. Aaron Wethersppon – Unanimous Decision (3 Rounds)
Edson Berto def. Victor Valenzuela – Submission (Heel Hook) 1st Round (:47)
Paul Buentello def. Carter Williams – KO (Punch) 2nd Round (:10)
Murilo Rua def. Joey Villasenor – TKO (Strikes) 2nd Round (1:05)
Josh Thomson def. Nick Gonzalez – Submission (Rear Naked Choke) 1st Round (1:42)
Cung Le def. Tony Fryklund – TKO (Strikes) 3rd Round (:25)
Frank Shamrock def. Phil Baroni – TKO (Rear Naked Choke) 2nd Round (4:00)
Paul Daley def. Duane Ludwig – TKO (Strikes) 2nd Round (:42)

Tomorrow night the fifth season of Spike TV’s The Ultimate Fighter will culminate in Las Vegas. Here are the biggest questions on my mind about the Ultimate Fighter Season 5 Finale.

• Can BJ Penn redeem his 2002 loss to Jens Pulver? No surprise that this is the number one fight on the card in fans’ minds. Pulver and Penn were the coaches on TUF Season 5 and the tension between the two was evident throughout the season. Both appeared to be genuinely not at ease in the others’ presence, and their encounter on Saturday evening in Las Vegas will be a welcome release for their pent-up stress towards each other. What better way to clear the air (and maybe avenge a loss) than to fight in front of millions, right?

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  BJ Penn and Jens Pulver

• Will the absences of Nick Diaz from Nate Diaz‘ corner and Karo Parisyan from Manny Gamburyan’s corner affect the fighters in their encounter? Nick Diaz is a UFC veteran and is Nate’s older brother, while Karo Parisyan is also a UFC veteran and is Manny Gamburyan’s cousin. Both have been barred from cornering their family members in what is likely to be the biggest fights they will see in their careers: Nick Diaz was barred by the California State Athletic Commission for a substance abuse infringement earlier this year and Gamburyan’s coach Gokor Chivichyan has barred Parisyan from assisting that evening.

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  Nate Diaz and Manny Gamburyan

• Can Andy Wang redeem himself? Wang, who was given his black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu by grappling prodigy Baret Yoshida, lost significant inertia in his popularity during his fight on TUF Season 5 against Brandon Melendez when he refused to use his ground skills, against the advice of his coach BJ Penn. Will Wang put his significant grappling skills to use this time against his opponent Cole Miller? Will he overcompensate with too much ground work this time in reaction to his prior performance? I don’t think Wang needs to win tomorrow to win back some fan appreciation (though it would help), but if he displays the range of his capabilities it will do him a lot of good.
  
• Will Allen “Monstah” Berube’s Maine accent prove as fatal to his fighting career as it has been to Tim Sylvia’s? If the accent doesn’t hasten his ushering from the octagon, his opponent Leonard Garcia probably will. Garcia impressed many with his brutal encounter against Roger Huerta earlier this year. Berube’s brief stint in the octagon on TUF 5 did not elicit much fan excitement. But who knows? Anything can happen in the octagon, including fan endearment to a wicked New England accent. In theory.
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Do you have anything that’s weighing on your mind about tomorrow night’s fights? Leave them in the comments below, and don’t forget to get your predictions for tomorrow night’s fights in!

- Caleb