Main event:
265 lbs: Fedor “The Last Emperor” Emelianenko vs. Brett “The Grim” Rogers

Odds: (-575 Fedor / +375  Rogers)

The main event of the evening pits consensus world #1 Heavyweight, “The Last Emperor”Fedor Emelianenko, against up and coming knockout artist Brett “The Grim” Rogers.  Rogers has been on a tear, destroying all 10 of his professional opponents so far including former UFC Heavyweight Champion Andrei Arlovski.  To say that Emelianenko is a step up in competition, though, would be understating it hugely.  If Rogers can knock out Emelianenko, it would be the biggest upset in the history of the sport, bar none.

Rogers, a huge heavyweight with huge punching power, is a physically imposing monster.  Put simply, if Rogers hits you with a power punch, you are going to sleep.  Technically, his handspeed is good and his punching is accurate.  The two big question marks for Rogers are his cardio and his ground game.  Only once in his professional career has he made it outside the first frame, and his takedown defense and submission defense have never been tested at all.  No doubt he does train in jiu jitsu and wrestling, but training is an entirely different scenario than being in the ring with the most accomplished Heavyweight MMA grappler of all time.

Emelianenko, widely regarded as the great Mixed Martial Artist of all time, is well deserving of his exalted reputation.  His only career “loss” came at the hands of a cut from an illegal elbow at the hands of Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, and to say that he avenged that loss would be like saying that the United States avenged the attacks on Pearl Harbor.  Emelianenko is ridiculously well rounded, having outgrappled the best grapplers in the world and outstruck the best strikers.  Clearly, he will enter this fight as an unprecedented favorite, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that this is a clear win for him. 

Against Kazuyuki Fujita, Fedor was visibly rocked by a right hand.  Granted, he recovered very quickly and finished Fujita with a choke shortly afterward, but Rogers also hits infinitely harder than Fujita does.  If “The Grim” can land a single clean power shot, the odds are fairly good that Fedor is going to get knocked out.  Of course, the same may well also be true in reverse.  The other consideration, although less important, is Fedor’s tendency to get cut.  If Rogers can open Fedor up, he might well earn a win.  I think that is less likely, though, because if Rogers lands clean enough to cut Fedor the cut will probably not be the reason the fight ends.

Ultimately, it is impossible to pick against Fedor in this fight.  His record of standup wins is at least as impressive as Rogers’ and he has a proven, world class ground game to go with it.  It’s entirely possible that Fedor could come out and knock Rogers out in the same spectacular fashion Rogers himself has finished all of his opponent.  It is almost entirely certain that Fedor can take Rogers down, and submit him, at will. 

Fight Prediction: Fedor by TKO from ground and pound, round 1.

That said, from a betting perspective, clearly Fedor is not very attractive considering that he is a huge favorite.  Rogers may well be worth a small bet, just because of his explosive knockout power.  If he predictably loses, you won’t lose much, but if he wins it could be well worth the investment.  Consider parlaying him in a small bet with sure-thing Gegard Mousasi to get even more mileage if he pulls off the upset.

185 lbs: Jason “Mayhem” Miller vs. Jake Shields

Odds: (-325 Shields / +250 Miller)

The co-main event of the evening is for the Strikeforce Middleweight Championship, recently vacated by former champion Cung Le.  Competing for the belt will be Jason “Mayhem” Miller and Cesar Gracie product Jake Shields, two of the best grapplers in the weight division.  Although Shields is naturally a Welterweight, the lack of competition for him on the Strikeforce roster has moved him up a weight class.  Fortunately, Miller is not a big Middleweight, so there will hardly be any size difference between the two.

Jake Shields, one of the most dangerous grapplers in the sport at any weight, has the ability to win on the ground any way it takes.  He can control his opponents with dominant positional control, he can soften them up with ground and pound and a smothering top game, or he can submit them from any imaginable position.  In his last fight, he calmly withstood some early aggression from Robbie Lawler before choking him out with a guillotine that looked too easy.  Shields’ stand up leaves a lot to be desired, but his ground game is so dominant that it rarely poses a problem for him.  Against Miller, he will probably look to utilize his wrestling, as he will be at a disadvantage in the standup and Miller is also an extremely talented grappler.

Jason “Mayhem” Miller is one of the most flamboyant personalities in the sport.  His interviews, ring entrances, and general demeanor are absurd and over the top.  Far from being all show, though, Miller has what it takes to back it up in the ring.  His solid standup and extremely good ground game make him dangerous to any opponent he faces.  If he can manage to keep this fight standing, he should be able to outbox Shields easily and either TKO him or earn the decision.  Of course, the same thing was true in his fight with Jacare, and instead of working his own gameplan he opted to try and submit one of the best BJJ black belts in the world.  Predictably, he failed, and ended up losing the decision.  In his interviews since that fight, though, Miller has admitted that his gameplan was extremely ill-considered.

The question is, then, whether or not Miller has the ability to keep Shields from taking him down and controlling him.  While I don’t think that there is anyone in the world at 170 or 185 who can completely keep Shields from working on the ground, Miller’s jiu jitsu is at least close to as good as Shields’, and he should be able to neutralize Shields’ advantage to get standups, not to mention sweeps and escapes of his own. 

Fight Prediction: I see Miller coming out ahead in this one in the end by unanimous decision by controlling the standup and neutralizing Shields’ ground attack.

205 lbs: Gegard “The Dreamcatcher” Mousasi  vs. Thierry Sokoudjou

Odds: (-500 Mousasi / +300 Sokoudjou)

In the evening’s second scheduled matchup, two of the world’s most explosive Light Heavyweights will go head-to-head in the form of “The African Assassin” Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou and Gegard “The Dreamcatcher” Mousasi.  In many ways, Mousasi has supplanted Sokoudjou as the “hot Light Heavyweight of the moment”, and a win here will only cement that status.  For his part, Sokoudjou desperately needs a win here to maintain some of the momentum he so excitingly captured in PRIDE.

Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, an accomplished judo player with dynamite in his hands, burst onto the international MMA scene with authority.  Fresh off a loss to Glover Texeira in WEC, Sokoudjou shocked fans by debuting in PRIDE with back to back destructions of Antonio Rogerio Noguiera and Ricardo Arona, two of the top 205 pounders on Earth at the time.  That momentum, which he gained so fast, was lost just as quickly, with embarrassing losses to Lyoto Machida, Luis Arthur Cane, and Renato Sobral coming in UFC and Affliction.  Now, Sokoudjou seems to lack a definitive place in the Light Heavyweight hierarchy.  Clearly, the potential that allowed him to send Noguiera and Arona’s heads into orbit is still there, but Sokoudjou seems incapable of putting his skillset together into an effective fighting style.  Unfortunately for him, Mousasi is not the kind of opponent that you use to figure out kinks in your game.

One of the most dynamic and explosive fighters in the world at any weight, Mousasi is capable of overwhelming opponents with both his potent, accurate standup and his top-level submission attack.  Over the last few years, Mousasi has fought many of the best fighters around his weight outside of the UFC, and he made all of them look extremely foolish.  His one common opponent with Sokoudjou is Babalu Sobral.  Sobral choked Sokoudjou out fairly easy, but was completely dominated by Mousasi.

Put simply, Sokoudjou is in over his head in this fight.  He may have shocked the world with two big knockouts, but now his opponents have figured out his blend of power punching and ineffective ground game.  Mousasi is just a superior fighter, in every aspect of the game. 

Fight Prediction: I expect fireworks in this one.  Mousasi by KO, round 1.

265 lbs: Fabricio Werdum vs. Antonio “BigFoot” Silva

Odds: ( -150 Werdum / +120 Silva)

The opening bout of the evening is a heavyweight clash between PRIDE and UFC veteran Fabricio “Vai Cavalo” Werdum and Elite XC and Sengoku veteran Antonio “BigFoot” Silva.  Werdum made a splash in his early PRIDE appearances, but saw his momentum sizzle out somewhat during his stint in UFC.  Silva, on the other hand, is riding a six fight win streak, but his level of competition has left something to be desired.

Antonio Silva, ironically known as “Junior” because of his massive size, is certainly physically imposing.  His height and reach make it possible for him to tag opponents with shots from a distance, and his weight and power make sure that those long-distance shots pack a wallop.  His size and punching power give him an advantage against most of the Heavyweight division, but from a technique standpoint Silva is not exactly a force to be reckoned with.  His standup, while powerful, is slow and not at all technical, while his ground game consists of being huge and top of opponents.  While he does have a few submissions in his career, he is hardly a top-level grappler, and will enter this fight giving up a huge amount to skill to Werdum in the grappling game.

Werdum, in some ways, is Silva’s opposite.  While he is fairly tall, his size is not particularly opposing, and he relies on solid technique to win fights.  Entering the sport as a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt, Werdum’s ground game has always been top-notch.  Since his time in PRIDE, though, his standup has also improved steadily.  It is unlikely he will be able to win any exchanges with the larger Silva, but it is equally unlikely that he will get totally overwhelmed on his feet.  The most important difference between the two, especially recently, is level of competition.  Werdum has been fighting the best in the world for most of his career, first in PRIDE then in UFC.  Silva, on the other hand, has fought mainly against b and c level competition, putting him at a distinct disadvantage.

In the end, the deciding factor in this fight is going to be Werdum’s ability (or lack thereof) to take Silva down.  Silva’s standup is not technically impressive, but he packs a serious punch and has the physical size to bully Werdum around.  If Werdum can get Silva to the ground, the huge gulf in technical ability will be more than Silva can handle, though.  Silva’s huge size does give him an advantage in stuffing takedowns, especially double legs, but Werdum is both skilled and wily. 

Fight Prediction: I expect Werdum to take some punishment early on in the fight, but eventually he will secure a leg trip, take Silva down, and lock on a submission, probably midway through the second round.

Here on this Episode of MMA Live they cover UFC 104, Machida vs. Rua, Velasquez vs. Rothwell, UFC 105, UFC 106, Lesnar vs. Carwin, and more.