I’ll be the first to admit it; I have been out of the MMA world for about a year or so. Not because I lost interest, or because I became addicted to Dancing with the Stars and could no longer face my buddies to watch a UFC fight, but because I moved to Mexico to work as a missionary.

The Mexican people love all kinds of sports, as long as they are soccer or pro wrestling, if it does not fall in to one of those categories, most people could not care less. In a country where the national soccer team’s stadium holds over 100,000 fans that have been known to throw bottles, rocks, sticks and bags of urine at the opposing team and their fans, one would think that a sport like Mixed Martial Arts would be at least a little bit more popular than experimenting at a new taco stand. When people find out that I have had two fights, and am still training for another one, their eyes light up and ask if I have ever met John Cena, or Ray Mysterio. Once I explain the difference of MMA and WWF, they ask if I watched Smack Down last night.

In recent months they have been showing re-runs of UFC fights on Saturday nights. This would be great except for the fact that I have no TV. I either have to go to someone’s house and hijack their TV or hope that the taco stand I go to is playing it on their 7 inch black and white TV. The most recent fight I saw was the UFC debut of now Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva against Chris Leben from June of 2006. Needless to saw my knowledge of recent MMA news is limited at best.

I must admit, I have never seen Brock Lesnar fight, nor Lyoto Machida, and the only fights I have seen from Kimbo Slice either involve a shaky video camera in someone’s back yard or his 14 second fight against Seth Petruzelli, who by the way found out he was fighting against Kimbo Slice when he came to the arena the night of the fight. I don’t know why there is so much hype surrounding him I heard he was on the last season of The Ultimate Fighter, but none of the cable companies in Mexico carry it.

As far as I know, UFC 109 has not yet happened, so here are my picks:
I’m going to stick with my original choice and say Couture pulls it off, I can’t say why. I think it is because he was the Champion when I first got started training and therefore I thought he was the coolest thing since Vanilla Ice. Or maybe it is because we were both born in the same town, I don’t know. He is coming off a win after a bit of a dry spell, which means he will either be hungry for a win, or in a depressed hangover of self doubt and shame. Coleman just hasn’t had a win since 2006, although he did beat Mauricio Rua by breaking his arm, I’m still going to say Couture.

I’m choosing Nate Marquardt over Chael Sonnan for two reasons, ok maybe three. 1, I have never heard of Chael Sonnan. 2, the pre fight pictures on the UFC website…. Need I say more? Marquardt looks like someone I would be afraid to sit next to on an airplane. Oddly enough I would be perfectly fine sitting next to him on a cross country bus ride as I’m sure we could have a chuckle or two exchanging hilarious stories from the boy scouts and out favorite flavor of laffy taffy. The final reason I pick Marquardt is because of his impressive variety of submissions, he even has a win from a flying knee. How cool is that.

Matt Serra and Frank Trigg are both burned in to my memory; I will always remember watching Shonie Carter knock the taste out of Serra’s mouth with a spinning back fist. If I can’t ever be a great fighter in the UFC, I at least want to be someone else’s highlight reel. Serra is coming off two straight losses so he should be as hungry as an anorexic high school cheerleader for a win. I can only remember Frank Trigg for his two losses to Matt Hughes by Rear Naked Choke. I pick Serra because he wants the chance to loose to George St. Pierre again.
Melvin Gaillard has more fights than a school yard bully, he should have no problem taking Ronys Torres’ lunch money, but not before giving him a wedgie and stuffing him into a locker.

This prediction might shock everyone, but I’m going out on a limb to say that Rolles Gracie will win by submission, some sort of choke perhaps.

I really don’t care about the rest of the fights on that card, Mike Swick against Paulo Thiago; I imagine a 3 round fight going to a decision where they both have to be stood up by the ref for lack of enthusiasm. These fights tend to look a lot like the Cleveland Brown’s Offensive line, where it is a lot of bumping in to each other and apologizing. The other, less likely ending is a quick ending KO, but both of these guys are great strikers, which usually means they will try to take the other guy to the ground to avoid fighting against his strengths. At least that is what I would do, but I did loose both of my fights so what do I know.

I miss the early UFC fights where a guy like Tank Abbott could step off his bar stool, take his shirt off and kick the ever living crap out of some Karate guy who always seemed to believe their gi gave them super powers. Don’t get me wrong, today’s fighters are much more rounded and probably better, but being able to watch such unevenly matched fights brought me great joy. Bj Penn against Calo Uno, Phil Baroni against Dave Menne, some of my favorite fights to watch again and again