UFC 105 video preview for 'Couture vs Vera' on Nov. 14 (Extended)

In terms of marketable fights, yeah it looks like crap. But I’m amazed sometimes how cards that look like junk on paper, end up having some really entertaining fights.

106 was a sick card until Brock got sick, 105 was a dreadful card until Randy and Swick signed up, now they’re both a lot closer in quality. I’d still rather see 106 live, as the prelims for 105 are dreadful and Tito-Forrest will be a good fight because of their history and popularity/notoriety but I’m a lot more hopeful for 105 than I once was.

Randy by UD
Swick by KO R2
Kang by UD

Fight announcements***

Strikeforces next Showtime event December 19.
Fight card:

Jacre vs. Matt Lindland
King MO vs. TBA
Robbie Lawler vs. TBA
Scott Smith vs. tBA
possibly Diaz vs. Heiron

King Mo’s Debut, Lindland vs. ‘Jacare’ Proposed for December
October 27, 2009 07:56 PM

Strikeforce is gearing up for a busy November, but the organization already has plans in place for their year-end show as well. Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker said on this week’s edition of The MMA Hour (which will be featured later this week on MMA FanHouse) that the organization’s next big Showtime event will take place on Dec. 19 from the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif.

Coker also mentioned that recent Strikeforce signee, “King” Muhammed Lawal, is scheduled to make his debut on the show, but no opponent has been signed just yet.

Also proposed for the event, according to Coker, is a middleweight match-up between another two Strikeforce rookies: Matt Lindland and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza. Coker said that bout has yet to be made official, though.

FanHouse recently reported that Scott Smith and Robbie Lawler are also

why do people feel the need to defend the crappy cards that are put out sometimes? u have stock in the ufc or something? no you dont, its a private company… this card blows, just accept that fact and get off the ufc’s nuts already… possibly decent fights are swick/hardy, bisping/kang, and paul taylor is always in exciting fights… rest of the card looks pretty weak, bunch of tuf quarter/semi finalists…

True that Mongoman. Don’t judge a book by its cover…

Fight News***

Dana wants to give a rematch to shogun’s title on January 2nd. Shogun has alreday agreed to the date. UFC is waiting for Machida to let them know if he is healthy enough to fight on January 2nd!

shogun deserves to fight an unhealthy machida because he already beat the top condition one!!!!

why would he be unhealthy. maybe those kicks did hurt and put him in more danger than his lame reply in the other thread said. if hes still hurt 2 months from now let alone 2 weeks then shogun definately had him in danger.

Brendan, I’ve been one of the fiercest critics of this card but I’m slowly warming up to it mainly because of the Swick-Hardy fight, we might even get an appearance by GSP to congratulate the winner and set up the slaughter/title fight.

However I don’t get how you can bash guys like Wilks, Pearson and Winner who actually have potential to be good fighters and the former 2 taking on very good competition for their first post TUF fights in Brown and Riley yet you like Paul Taylor, a guy who has fought the same way in every single appearance since UFC 70. He is a mindless slugger who goes to a decision every fight and never mixes up his striking or shows any grappling skill. If you’ve seen one Taylor fight you’ve seen them all. If he wasn’t British he would not be in the UFC.

@brendan

Hey man you can feel about it however you want. If you don’t want to watch the free card out of protest that’s your prerogative.

I watch fights cuz it’s fun. Not every card is a blockbuster, if I don’t feel like it’s worth the money I won’t buy it. But I’m always up for the free stuff. :)

SHOGUN GOT SCREWED!!!!!!

The real question is why does Britain care about Captain America? (it was really hard not write paycheck). Seriously why don’t they give up the age shill – we get it he’s old. Vera trains with Nogs so he’ll know how to battle couture. Let’s just hope he doesn’t choke as usual under the bright lights. Also I hope Bisping comes out all tentative and gets put out by Kang (another choke artist). And for some reason, I wanna see Hardy swick up Mike. John – what are you thinkin about this fight? Value wise that is for Hardy?

off topic but Josh Koscheck has announces via his twitter that he will be fighting in the co-main event at UFC 106

cant wait for my boy captain paycheck to kick veras ass

Anyone else get the Nielsen survey on UFC.com

matt its vs Anthony Johnson. Mania will probably break the news later today.

I was expecting a gritty vet with the chin to push him -a lytle/davis type of fighter. Kos is definitely a step up but we’ve seen the Alves fight. AJ isn’t as technical as Alves and doesn’t have bottom game to nullify if he gets taken down. But his power should be an equalizer. Cardio will decide this fight though more than technical details IMO.

anyone else think that bisping is going to get out-wrestled in this fight?

i have seen some of kangs shots and they are top notch, i can see him controlling bisping all fight

kang is under rated overall and is mainly under rated in his wrstling

Kos-AJ it is, good fight hopefully Rumble will bother to make the weight this time.

NNR, I’ve always been a Couture fan, I respect his attitude and work ethic. I know his age is talked about too much but it’s still impressive for a 46 year old man to still be competetive against top competition. I’m happy that we get a chance to see Randy fight in the UK before he retires, he may have had too many title shots but anyone who can win the belt multiple times in different weight classes is an MMA legend, like them or not.

As for the fight Randy is too good a wrestler for Vera, his clinch work is suspect against a bigger and stronger fighter as Sylvia proved when he nullified Brandon in their awful fight. His wrestling also isn’t that great, Werdum had no problem taking him down, and he’s not shown the same explosiveness on the feet since KO’g Mir. Even against Jardine, a glass chinned fighter with a poor guard, he failed to do much and got outpointed.

Against Randy he will choke once again and will be tentative with his kicks in case Couture catches them and takes him down. Gonzaga broke Randy’s arm with a kick and was still taken down so Vera won’t throw the brutal leg kicks that are his strength and this will allow Randy to get into range, clinch with Brandon, use some dirty boxing to beat him down and break him mentally, then take him down and ground and pound him en route to a decision.

Because of the Machida-Shogun rematch it looks like Randy will have to do more than beat Vera to get a title fight. I’d match up the winner of this fight with the winner of Rashad-Thiago and give the winner of that fight the next shot or possibly against Anderson Silva in a superfight.

Kang by submission. His jits is pretty damn good, even though he’s got some submission losses recently to Mousasi (give him a pass) and Belcher (uh… no excuse)

Guys, can someone tell me what did happened in the last 5 weeks? I missed a lots of news and I’m trying to catch up… but I just learn that Alves will fight Fitch. We got 3 events next week… Soko, Big Foot and Curran are with Strikeforce now? What happened with Silva/Barnett for the Sengoku title? Forrest/Tito…WTF? AJ/KOS? I just saw the awesome card of DREAM/FEG’s Dynamite 2009… wow! What else that I missed?

welcome back Alpha! Brock pulled out of UFC 106 due to illness and will now fight Carwin at 108! Oh and Tito is already making excuses in case he loses to that bum Forrest!

NNR: I think Hardy is a very nice value bet against an extremely overrated Swick, who hasnt fought anyone in 9 UFC fights. I think Hardy improves tremendously from 1 fight to the next. NNR, since when has Vera been training with the Nog’s?

John – Big Nog started training at his gym when he was in Cali getting ready for Couture. Him and Munoz were his main wrestling coaches. I think they’ll return the favor to him and let him get in there with black house.

David – I think your breakdown of the fight is correct. The only thing is i think Vera isn’t as bad as you think in the clinch wrestling wise. The Werdum fight doesn’t say anything because as far as takedowns from the clinch – werdum can work everything. His shots are horrible but his game is good. The only thing that i am counting on is his power. Couture’s chin is kinda suspect right now. Big Nog isn’t known for his power and got multiple knockdowns mainly because he was working long combos. I think Vera can use that same strategy to force couture to work from the outside. Leg kicks might also make the difference too. Three round fights kinda take away the significance of cardio. Couture can’t LNP guys into gassing. The thing with couture is if you can stay at the center of the cage you win (assuming the person has a decent to average guard.) If he gets you to the fence then you lose.

Thank bud… of course Tito already making excuses, he was making some for Coleman so it’s nothing new. With all his talking about how he beat him (forrest) last time, he better not lose this one though.

Only thing I disagree with there is swick beating Hardy, Hardy can be just as vicious as Swick and I say that fight will finish, can’t see it going the distance and I think Hardy will take it via tko.