The main card kicks off with a veteran vs. prospect battle that is sure to tell us a great deal about the future potential of Schaub and how much remains for the former Pride superstar Cro Cop.
After earning a three-pack of victories since dropping the TUF 10 Finale to Roy Nelson, Schaub has emerged as one of the few prospects within the heavyweight ranks. A technically sound, one-sided win over perennial gatekeeper Gabe Gonzaga in October has bumped the former football player into the biggest fight of his career, and a victory over Cro Cop could catapult him to even greater heights.
There is a lot to like about Schaub, overall and in this fight specifically. He is a superior athlete who is surrounded by a tremendous team of coaches and partners, working primarily with Trevor Wittman at the Grudge Training Center in Colorado, but also benefitting from that groups working relationship with Team Greg Jackson and his crew in Albuquerque. Schaub will have a definite speed advantage over Cro Cop, as well as a five-inch reach advantage which could certainly play a part in the outcome.
A true legend in the sport, it’s hard to know what to expect out of Cro Cop in this one. He comes in off an uninspired performance against Frank Mir at UFC 119, and has not fared well against top-end competition over in his two stints with the UFC. He’s just 4-4 in eight trips inside the Octagon, his biggest victory coming over Pat Barry last summer.
While he has proclaimed himself healthy and eager to climb the heavyweight ladder, that is the same speech we heard from Cro Cop heading into the fight with Mir and look how it turned out. Until he shows that the killer instinct and lethal striking that made him a superstar in this sport has indeed returned, Cro Cop is merely a faded former star trading on his highly-recognizable name to me.
I hope he proves otherwise, but I’m not sure he will.
Dan Miller (14-4-0) vs. Nate Marquardt (30-10-2)
In the grim aftermath of the massive earthquake that devastated Japan, Yoshihiro Akiyama withdrew himself from his meeting with Marquardt, opening the door for Miller to jump from the opening bout of the evening to the middle of the pay-per-view broadcast. I’m sure he’d like it to be on different terms, but jumping at this opportunity is certainly the right thing to do.
The older brother of the New Jersey-based Fighting Miller Brothers has put together a modest two-fight win streak after suffering three consecutive losses through his UFC 114 fight with Michael Bisping. Those three losses exposed Miller as a good-but-not-great middleweight, a grappler with mediocre hands who is in trouble when he can’t get the fight to the ground. Seriously, when you lose a stand-up contest to Demian Maia, you’ve got some work to do.
That being said, Miller has shown improvement in his last two fights and could surprise here.
Much like Joseph Benavidez earlier in the evening, Marquardt is stuck in a state of purgatory after losing to Yushin Okami at UFC 122. While the bout propelled Okami into the #1 contender slot in the middleweight ranks, it left Marquardt in limbo; a fighter who has failed in his two most recent attempts to earn a second title shot against Anderson Silva, but who remains too talented to routinely face the middle of the middleweight pack.
This is a chance for Marquardt to make a statement, to come out and put on a strong performance against a late replacement who many believe is a notch below his level. If he’s able to do that, Marquardt will keep himself in the upper tier of the title contenders in the 185-pound division, while coming up shorts keeps him stuck in purgatory for the foreseeable future.
Jim Miller (19-2-0) vs. Kamal Shalorus (7-0-2)
With Dennis Siver upsetting George Sotiropoulos at UFC 127 last month, Miller has a chance to cement his place atop the list of lightweight contenders with a win over Shalorus in his home state. Of course, Sotiropoulos was looking to do the same thing in his homeland too, and we all remember how that turned out.
Strange parallels aside, the younger half of The Fighting Miller Brothers from New Jersey has put together a six-fight winning streak and somehow managed to amass a 14-1 record over his last 15 fights without many people really noticing. The epitome of blue-collared, there is nothing flashy about Miller’s track record or his performances in the Octagon, but that doesn’t change the fact that the only two men to defeat Miller thus far are set to rematch for the lightweight title later this year.
Like his Australian counterpart Sotiropoulos, Miller is facing an underrated opponent capable of spoiling his plans in Shalorus. A powerful wrestler who throws overhand rights and lefts with violent intentions, the Iranian-born Shalorus fought his way to the top of the contenders list in the WEC before the organization was absorbed by the UFC. Now, he’s ready to announce his presence on the UFC stage with an upset win over one of the division’s elite.
Siver’s upset over Sotiropoulos changed the picture atop the division, giving Miller the chance to make his case for the #1 contender slot in advance of the TUF 13 Finale fight between Anthony Pettis and Clay Guida. Of course, Shalorus can continue to muddy the waters with a win. This is why I love this sport so much; every fight has meaning.
Urijah Faber (24-4-0) vs. Eddie Wineland (18-6-1)
It’s quite possible that the winner of this bout will become the #1 contender for Dominick Cruz’s bantamweight title, and possibly a coach opposite “The Dominator” on Season 14 of The Ultimate Fighter. That last possibility is just a theory, but the first one is just about guaranteed, especially if Faber scores the victory.
The long-time face of the WEC, Faber makes his UFC debut in the co-main event in his second fight as a bantamweight. He looked extremely impressive dispatching Takeya Mizugaki via rear naked choke in his debut, and showed that he remains a tremendous all-around talent down a division. After proving to be unable to get by the elite of the featherweight division, the shift to the 135-pound weight class gives Faber a new crop of challengers to face, including the champion Cruz, with whom he has an unfriendly history.
Wineland is the forgotten man in this fight and the division as a whole it seems, despite having the first person in WEC history to wear the bantamweight belt. After a brief hiatus from the organization, Wineland returned to put together a 4-1 record over his final five fights with the WEC, vaulting himself into contention in the process. Still just 26-years-old, Wineland has the opportunity to throw a wrench in the UFC’s potential plans by pulling the upset here.
Should Faber win, a meeting with Cruz is unavoidable; he’s the only man to ever beat the bantamweight champ, a feat he accomplished back when Cruz competed at featherweight, and the two make no bones about their dislike of one another. That kind of ready-made animosity and drama sounds like the makings of an interesting season on TUF if you ask me.
Mauricio “Shogun” Rua (19-4-0) vs. Jon Jones (12-1-0)
Some may think I’m over-extending by calling this a potentially historic bout, but I truly believe that Jon Jones has the potential to be one of the all-time greats in this sport. In no way is that meant to diminish the accomplishments and potential of the defending champion, who I believe is one of the very best in the sport today, but you can’t focus solely on the present when the future is staring you in the face.
Right now, there isn’t a better 205-pound fighter on the planet than Rua. He earned the light heavyweight title with a scintillating knockout of Lyoto Machida a rematch that shouldn’t have needed to happen in the first place, and has seemingly returned to the form that earned him the same “Best Light Heavyweight on the Planet” title prior to his UFC debut.
That being said, there are obvious areas of concern for Rua fans heading into his first title defence. Taking on an opponent like Jones on short notice is a challenge, as his skill set is drastically different from that of original opponent Rashad Evans. Perhaps more importantly, Rua is returning to the cage for the first time since having another operation on his knee. The last time he was coming back from surgery, Rua looked exhausted in a very uneven and lackluster win over Mark Coleman at UFC 93.
On the other hand, Jones is coming off the biggest win of his career, a thoroughly impressive and dominant win over Ryan Bader just six weeks ago at UFC 126. He is the prototype by which all other prospects are currently judged, an unfair assessment as Jones is truly a one-of-a-kind blend of work ethic, creativity and athletic ability the likes of which we haven’t seen before.
Jones has yet to be truly tested inside the Octagon. While that could mean he’s bitten off more than he can chew in agreeing to fight the far-more experienced Rua on short notice, it could also be because the 23-year-old phenom is simply that good. We’ll find out when this one is over which of the two options is the correct answer, and in the mean time, we’ll get to enjoy a tremendous fight as we wait.
