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TitaniumJaw
04-15-2009, 01:09 PM
This Saturday, April 18th, 2009 from the Bell Centre in Montreal Quebec, Canada, UFC presents UFC 97: Redemption.

Charles David ‘The Iceman’ Liddell 21-6 v Mauricio Milani ‘Shogun’ Rua 17-3 – Chuck is currently ranked as the #5 Light-Heavyweight in the world and is the former and 4-time defending UFC LHW champion. He was a D-1 wrestler at Cal-Poly SLO, where he earned a degree in Accounting. Liddell has trained BJJ under John Lewis and is the golden boy of The Pit under John Hackleman. He also has been traveling to Florida to get additional training with American Top Team. Chuck’s amazing career has seen him defeat Jose Landi-Jons, Jeff Monson, Kevin Randleman, Guy Mezger, Murilo Bustamante, Amar Suloev, Vitor Belfort, Babalu Sobral (twice,) Alistair Overeem, Tito Ortiz (twice,) Vernon White, Randy Couture (twice,) Jeremy Horn, and Wanderlei Silva. Losses have come to Jeremy Horn, Randy Couture, Quentin Jackson (twice,) Keith Jardine and most recently got the piss knocked out of him by Rashad Evans.

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His unorthodox striking style, exceptional takedown defense, and excellent countering make him a very difficult opponent for anybody to fight and his knock-out power has been well demonstrated by his 13 TKO wins.

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Shogun, who at one time was the #1 ranked LHW fighter in the world, last suffered a loss to Forrest in September of 2007. He participated in this fight despite training with an injured ACL and re-aggravating it during the fight. He was also scheduled to fight against Chuck at UFC 85, but again, suffered an ACL rupture and had elective surgery to repair it and has been training since October. Shogun, a former model, has also fought and defeated some of the best in the business such as Evangelista Santos, Akira Shoji, Akihiro Gono, Yashuhito Namekawa, Hirumitsu Kanehara, Rampage Jackson, Lil Nog, Alistair Overeem X2, Ricardo Arona, Cyril Diabate, Kevin Randleman, Kazuhiro Nakamura, and most recently defeated Mark Coleman. Of his 17 wins, an astonishing 14 are by KO with his only submission being a kneebar on Randleman, and 2 decision wins. Shogun’s losses are to Babalu, Forrest, and an injury sustained in a loss to Coleman on his record, which he avenged in January. He holds a BJJ black belt under Nino Schembri and has a very dangerous guard to go along with his polished Muay Thai. Rua is also the winner of the 2005 PRIDE Middleweight Grand Prix, a tournament in which he destroyed Rampage, Lil Nog, Overeem, and Arona within about 4 months, to win the title.

Shogun has shown his conditioning and stamina to be a problem coming off of his injuries in the recent past. His fight with Coleman was pretty ugly and it really should not have taken 14+ minutes to dispose of a 44 year old fighter that hadn’t fought in over two years and was fighting about 20 lbs below his normal weight. The fight with Forrest proved the same as he started strong and ended by giving Forrest his back with less than a minute to fight. Chuck on the other hand has also had some problems as of late. As talked about as Chuck’s power is, he hasn’t had a TKO victory since 2006 and has lost 3 of his last 4. Always a fighter at heart, Chuck feels he can still compete with the elite fighters in his weight class. This is definitely going to fit the bill for this fight card as one of these two struggling warriors earns redemption. Chuck is favored, as Shogun is a former Chute Boxe fighter with aggressive Muay Thai, which fits perfectly with Chuck’s countering style. I don’t see it going that way. Shogun will use a patient gameplan and wait for an opening to get Chuck to the ground where Shogun will dominate positioning and do damage as Liddell just stands back up and eats shots on the breaks. Shogun wins the first two rounds and stays out of trouble in the 3rd to hand the Iceman another loss and a chance to contemplate retirement.

Middleweight Champion Anderson ‘The Spider’ Silva 23-4 v Thales Leites Lourenco 14-1 – Anderson Silva is the baddest man ever to work a McDonalds cashier.

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He trains with Lyoto Machida, Assuerio Silva, and the Nog Brothers at the Black House. He is on a nine fight win streak and has defended his belt four times (5 if you count Lutter not making weight) he was also the Cage Rage title holder, a belt which he took from the infamous Lee Murray, until the companies demise in October of 2008. He is also the unified title holder of the PRIDE and UFC Middleweight belts and is on the verge of breaking Jon Fitch and Royce Gracie’s consecutive UFC wins record. Anderson is widely regarded as the #1 ranked ‘pound for pound’ fighter in the world. He is a BJJ black belt under Big Nog and has unreal striking abilities, specializing in Muay Thai and murder.

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He lost his MMA debut to Luis Azeredo and also has losses to Daiju Takase, Ryo Chonan, and a DQ against top contender, Yushin Okami. His illustrious career has seen him become the first man in 20 fights to defeat Mach Sakurai. He also has wins over Roan Carneiro, Alex Steibling, Alex Otsuka, Carlos Newton, Lee Murray, Jeremy Horn, Jorge Rivera, Curtis Stout, Tony Fryklund, Chris Leben, Rich Frankiln (twice,) Travis Lutter, Nate Marquardt, Dan Henderson, James Irvin, and most recently Patrick Cote. Just days after his 34th birthday, he will take on the latest leap-frogger in the shot at the Spider sweepstakes, Thales Leites.

Thales has won his last five, although his last win over McFedries hardly warranted a title shot. His only career loss was a decision to Martin Kampmann in his UFC debut. He has secured wins over Gustavo Machado, Ronald Jhun, Jason Guida, Osami Shibuya, Jose Landi-Jons, Pete Sell, Floyd Sword (yes, that’s a real name,) Ryan Jensen, Nate Marquardt, and Drew McFedries. While he did come out with the win in the Marquardt fight, point deductions on Marquardt played a huge role and he was on the wrong end of a beatdown. Leites can stand and throw shots, but his bread and butter is his world-class BJJ, which has helped earn him the #9 ranking in the world at Middleweight.

Anderson is expected to completely dominate this fight. His striking is terrifying and his ground game is sound, although his takedown defense is questionable. Anderson has been put in bad spots on the ground, both against Travis Lutter and Dan Henderson, but was able to get out of trouble and inflict his own damage. Thales better hope the Spider that showed up against Cote travels to Montreal, full of showmanship and pizzazz, delaying the deadly strikes and giving Thales an opportunity to set up takedowns and find a rhythm. Silva has not fought to a decision since his win over Lee Murray back in 2004 and chances are Silva will come out anxious to display his aptitude for annihilation in his first trip to fight in the Great North and Thales will be the Spider’s latest prey.

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RileyTP17
04-15-2009, 07:11 PM
has unreal striking abilities, specializing in Muay Thai and murder

lol nice

Good write up, although your disclaimer is full of legal liabilities :P

I am undecided on most of these fights, but I agree that Kongo is probably going to make the smart move and take Hardonk down to avoid a stand up war. He seems to take the smart way these days. I am also picking Silva via murder as you so eloquently put it.

Malky
04-16-2009, 03:58 AM
I really liek these write ups. Chuck will win imo. Its hard not to bet against Silva but I have a feeling there maybe an upset on the cards, I want Hardonk to win but I think Kongo will take it.

Emericanaddict
04-16-2009, 08:46 AM
Wait are you telling me you HONESTLY think Shogun is going to be patient? When has he EVER been patient (Also if he is patient he beter work in some head movement while he is waiting around or he'll get KTFO) I'll tell you when NEVER.

That's not Shoguns style he just wont be patient. He and Wanderlei are alike and Shogun is jsut as stubborn and will go in with the same gameplan as allways to prove his style is more dominant. This as we know is a flawed perception but meh we'll see.

On top of that do you ACTUALLY believe Shogun will be able to take Chuck down?!? Randleman couldn't do it. Monson couldnt do it, Couture barely did it once but Chuck's scramble got him right back up and Tito coudlnt do it either. All insanely decorated wrestlers at the top of their divisions at the the time who couldn't get/keep Chuck down, yet you think Shogun who has little to no wrestling background is going to shoot in and take Chuck down?

My friend this is preposterous and though SHogun can win this fight he certainly wont be doing so by taking Chuck down. He couldnt keep Forrest down before he gassed and there is no way he can keep Chuck down because his scramble is insane. If anything I think Chuck will take Shogun down atleast once just to thorw something else in for Rua to think about before eating canvas after huge right hand tags him.

I know I sound biased and i am but im also baseing this in reality. Though Shogun can definitly win and in my dream last night he did but that ws just a dream lol.

Gotta say i agree with the Anderson/Thals part completely though i wouldt be surprised if an upset happened. It's jsut been too long with Anderson at the top for something crazy NOT to happen to him. IMO it will sooner or later. other than the Chuck vs Shogun one good write ups!

TitaniumJaw
04-16-2009, 11:33 AM
I know I should have had this in the write-up, but Shogun has little to no wrestling, but the majority of his takedowns are from the clinch with trips and throws. If memory serves me correctly he's been to the ground with everybody he's faced, and even though none of them have the same storied takedown defense Chuck does, they ended up there. Forrest was just too huge for Shogun to hold down, but the difference between this Shogun and that Shogun will be that he has had a good camp this time and worked on his cardio and strength. Something that hasn't happened in his last two as he suffered knee injuries and recovery periods. I'm guessing that this is gonna be Rua's real coming out fight to UFC fans, kind of how Vera needed two fights to really adjust to the weight class, Rua needed two to adjust to healing his knee and rebuilding his cardio.