UFC 123: Rampage vs. Machida

[Troy]

UFC 123
Official Fight Card

Main card
Light Heavyweight bout: Quinton Jackson vs. Lyoto Machida
Welterweight bout: Matt Hughes vs. B.J. Penn
Middleweight bout: Gerald Harris vs. Maiquel Falcão
Light Heavyweight bout: Phil Davis vs. Tim Boetsch
Lightweight bout: George Sotiropoulos vs. Joe Lauzon

Spike TV card
Middleweight bout: Aaron Simpson vs. Mark Muñoz

Preliminary card
Welterweight bout: Karo Parisyan vs. Dennis Hallman
Lightweight bout: Darren Elkins vs. Edson Barboza
Lightweight bout: Tyson Griffin vs. Nik Lentz

​

This is Jackson's second fight, after his fight against Rashad, of his new six fight contract that he signed back in March. Machida in his last fight he fought Mauricio Rua where he lost his UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. Machida in my opinion should be too strong for Jackson. Machida will want to get back in title contention and should be too quick for Jackson.

Hughes vs Penn will be the deciding fight as currently they are 1-1. Penn moves back up to welterweight this fight and understandably so because he has now lost twice to Frankie Edgar and if you can't beat the champion you may as well try another weight division. Hughes is on a three match winning streak so he should be favourite but I just can't see him beating Penn.

The fight that I am most looking forward to is George Sotiropoulos fighting Joe Lauzon. George is Australian and therefore is awesome, he is currently 6-0 in UFC by my count and hopefully can add another win here. Lauzon will be very difficult to defeat though as he has a great record in UFC as well. I can see the finish being by submission and don't think it will go to the judges.​

 

[Troy]

This PPV is happening right now.

George Sotiropolous just defeated Joe Lauzon by submission (kimura) in the second round. This moves him to 7-0 in the UFC and if he can win his next fight he must deserve a title shot against Frankie Edgar.

My picks for the rest of the main card fights are Phil Davis, Gerald Harris, BJ Penn and Machida.

 

[Troy]

In the end it seemed like a really good PPV.

Phil Davis won, by kimura as well which is odd since before then it had been a very long time since the last kimura finish on a PPV. BJ Penn destroyed Hughes in 21 seconds, Penn was a completely different animal for that fight and he really went for it. Hughes will probably retire now unfortunately on the worst possible finish he could have had to his career. Big boost for Penn and he needed this after his previous fights.

The mainevent was a split decision to Rampage. From what I have read, I haven't watched the match, it seemed like Machida should have picked up the win. But in saying that he shouldn't have left it to the judges.

 

[Deezy]

Machida got ripped off, he was hitting Rampage at will when he was exchanging and Rampage was swinging at air. Hardly a win for Rampage, who got dropped twice.

Matt Hughes should've never tried to strike with BJ and paid for it.
Can't wait for Fitch to get his hands on BJ, and Fitch him badly.

Phil Davis is the next Jon Bones Jones, and will be groomed to a LHW title shot.