Even though this card features a title unification bout, I’m not particularly worked up about the card this weekend at UFC 116, but that’s hardly the UFC’s fault. They originally had big names like Wanderlei Silva, Nate Marquardt, and the Ultimate Fighter 10 winner Roy Nelson, but a variety of things went wrong and they had to be replaced or moved to later events. Perhaps some of the biggest news regarding this event is Chris Leben filling in for the injured Wanderlei Silva and fighting on two weeks notice, after winning Knockout of the Night at the Ultimate Fighter 11 Finale on June 19.
As the event stands now, we’ve got 5 match-ups on the pay per view main card and 2 preliminary fights to be aired live on Spike TV, check your local listings for time and channel information. Here’s the lineup per Wikipedia:
Main card
- Heavyweight Championship bout:
Brock Lesnar (c) vs Shane Carwin (ic) - Middleweight bout:
Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Chris Leben - Welterweight bout: Chris Lytle vs. Matt Brown
- Light Heavyweight bout:
Krzysztof Soszynski vs. Stephan Bonnar - Lightweight bout:
George Sotiropoulos vs. Kurt Pellegrino
After a pedestrian 2-2 on my picks last week at Strikeforce, I hope to fare a little better this time around, although I’m going with quite a few underdogs. I’m picking Carwin over Lesnar, Leben over Akiyama, Brown over Lytle, Soszynski over Bonnar, and Sotiropoulos over Pelligrino.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.