UFC 124

Georges St. Pierre vs Josh Koscheck

The trash-talking bad boy Josh Koscheck is looking to take the Welterweight Title from the current kingpin, Georges St. Pierre, and he’ll be doing it on enemy territory. You can forget about their last fight  more than 3 years ago as Koscheck was in the midst of becoming a fledging well-rounded fighter in the sport.  Koscheck has transformed himself from a wrestler-only fighter to a dynamic knockout artist that has racked up several big wins. Now that their coaching stint is done for TUF 12 it’s now for them to face off.

In my book GSP is the #2 pound for pound fighter (A. Silva being #1), and he has fought and beat guys who are one of the top practitioners in each in the varied martial art aspect of the sport; Jon Fitch/Matt Hughes (wrestling), Thiago Alves (Muay Thai), Karo Parysian/Matt Serra/BJ Penn (Judo and BJJ). So Josh Koscheck will not bring anything that GSP has not already faced. To beat GSP you have to be better than him in every aspect of MMA. If Koscheck wants to win he’s going to have to wait for GSP to make a mistake and catch him with a KO or a submission something that is very unlikely to happen.

Thiago ‘The Pitbull’ Alves vs John Howard

Whether you’re a casual or a hardcore fan this bout will surely be a fantastic fight. Thiago Silva and John Howard are two fighters with tremendous power that loves to stand a slug it out. This kind of fight will likely end in a brutal KO/TKO  and is one of the candidates for knockout of the night, if not, fight of the night.  But for tomorrow night I give the edge to the Pit Bull. He has more technical striking and has been in the cage with the top fighters in the Welterweight Division.  If Howard wants to win he’ll need to KO him (easier said than done) or take the fight to the ground from the get-go use wrestling to control Alves on the ground like GSP and Fitch did. There really isn’t any strategy for these guy to really come and execute. It’s all about who’s going to get knocked out first.

My Picks:

Georges St. Pierre beats Josh Koscheck
Sean McCorkle beats Stephan Struve
Jim Miller beats Charles Oliveira
Joe Stevenson beats Mac Danzig
Thiago Alves beats John Howard
Mark Bocek beats Dustin Hazelett
Dan Miller beats Joe Doerksen
Ricardo Almeida beats beats TJ Grant

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