Right now, the UFC 110 card looks like this :

MAIN UFC 110 FIGHT CARD

* Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Cain Velasquez
* Michael Bisping vs. Wanderlei Silva
* George Sotiropoulos vs. Joe Stevenson
* Ryan Bader vs. Keith Jardine
* Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic vs. Ben Rothwell

PRELIMINARY UFC 110 CARD

* Chris Haseman vs. Elvis Sinosic
* Stephan Bonnar vs. Krzysztof Soszynski
* C.B. Dollaway vs. Goran Reljic
* Chris Lytle vs. Brian Foster
* James Te Huna vs. Igor Pokrajac

» BET ON UFC 110 NOW AT BETONLINE AND GET UP TO 45% BONUS CASH

UFC 109 RESULTS

Randy Couture beat Mark Coleman by Submission (Rear Naked Choke) Round 2
Chael Sonnen beat Nate Marquardt by Unanimous Decision
Paulo Thiago beat Mike Swick by Submission (Darsce Choke) Round 2
Demian Maia beat Dan Miller by Unanimous Decision
Matt Serra beat Frank Trigg by TKO (Strikes) Round 1
Mac Danzig beat Justin Buchholz by unanimous decision
Melvin Guillard beat Ronnys Torres by unanimous decision
Rob Emerson beat Phillipe Nover by unanimous decision
Phil Davis beat Brian Stann by unanimous decision
Chris Tuchscherer beat Tim Hague by majority decision
Joey Beltran beat Rolles Gracie by technical knockout (strikes) in round two

“when I said Lorenzo was coming over here, I couldn’t do what he did,” said White. “It’s impossible. You can’t do this many fights and fly to China and all these other places. And do what he did.”

White marvels at the speed with which international penetration is growing.

“How fast he’s done this international stuff is staggering. I had a 10-year plan. It might be four years now.”

Today, Gray Maynard and Amir Sadollah took folks from SOHU.com through a UFC tutorial at the UFC Training Center, the home of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality series. Here is SOHU’s UFC page.

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Mark Coleman is the first one to tell people he underachieved at times during his career. But he’s quick to say he has no regrets. It was simply life getting in the way. Coleman, now 45, had to put his role as single father ahead of training in a lot of cases. There was no escaping to a training camp in far away places. His daughters, McKenzie and Morgan, now 12 and 10, needed him around.

“I’m a father first. I have two daughters, and I had to raise them. I couldn’t stand to leave them because I didn’t trust anybody with my kids. So I didn’t leave,” Coleman said. “I missed out on a lot of opportunities, a lot of training potential, but at the same time, I’d never give back what I got to see. I got to see them grow up, and there’s nothing more important than seeing your kids grow up because it happens so fast.”

Coleman felt his girls were old enough to understand that their father needed to make one more final serious run at MMA so he headed to Las Vegas in early December. Coleman lived at the Palace Station and trained at the TapouT Training Center.

“I kept telling them ‘Daddy’s got to leave soon’ and you could see the disappointment in their eyes,” Coleman said. “I made it clear, I gotta go. This is important for our future. They came around and said ‘go do what it takes, you can win this fight.’ ”

Coleman has been in constant contact with them but it’s not easy.

“They’ve been sending me Facebook messages. You know, it’s emotional. It’s hard to read them. They’re really a lot smarter than I thought they were. They’re really getting to me.”

Coleman won’t be bringing the girls to town for the fight, saying you only bring people who are going to war with you. He brought them to a fight once in his career back at PRIDE 33 and received a lot of criticism for bringing the 8- and 9-year-olds. He said they weren’t scarred and they still speak highly of the week. Coleman joked they even believe that Fedor Emelianenko cheated to win the fight.

It’s been a relief for Coleman to be away from all the distractions back home in Columbus, Ohio.

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NFL loudmouth and all-time worst GM, Matt Millen expressed some interest in MMA. He’s 52! And of course Jose Canseco is continuing with his quest to set up another MMA beating, this time at the hands Walker. He called out Walker on Tuesday. The possibility of that train wreck got plenty of play on the NFL Network and on ESPN, which irked UFC president Dana White.

At this point, if John Wayne Bobbitt, Spencer Pratt or Chuck Bednarik calls out Canseco, he’ll take the payday. Canseco loves the attention.

Canseco, 45, said earlier in the evening that he’s taking this fighting thing seriously. He’s 0-2-1 against Hong Man Choi, Danny Bonaduce and Vai Sikahema. Canseco wants to turn it up notch and claims Cesar Gracie is interested in working with him.

That seems a bit off the wall. Gracie has developed a great reputation working with guys like Gilbert Melendez, Jake Shields and the Diaz brothers, Nate and Nick. He’s going tutor Canseco? Really?

UPDATE: The Gracie Camp says they’re interested:

“Our camp has been contacted by a representative of Jose Canseco in regards to
his desire to fight former NFL player, Herschel Walker, in a future Strikeforce
show,” the Gracie team posted
to its website. “We have agreed to train Canseco should this matchup happen.
After having produced 3 of the current Strikeforce Champions, we are confident
we could make Canseco into a formidable opponent for a future Canseco vs Walker
fight.”

Canseco tweeted @josecanseco that professional training will make all the difference this time around. This is all well and good but are Strikeforce, Scott Coker and Herschel Walker entertaining any thoughts of taking this fight?

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New York, for those wondering, still hasn’t legalized our fair sport. New York has been working on legalizing MMA for years, and just now has the governor introduced legislation to legalize and regulate the sport. It took Wisconsin about five months.

My hope is that the regulation of MMA will lead Zuffa to host a Fight Night in Milwaukee. For some reason, Zuffa has given the Midwest the cold shoulder as of late. In 2008, the UFC visited Minneapolis, Minn., Omaha, Neb., Columbus, Ohio and Chicago. They returned to Columbus and the WEC came to Chicago in the spring of 2009. Since then, there has been no love shown to Midwesterners — home to many UFC and WEC fighters — save one WEC event coming up in Columbus. There hasn’t even been a hint of a Zuffa fight back in a Midwestern state.

What do you say, Dana White? Head to Wisconsin. Have some amazing cheese. Drink some good beer. Dance to the “Beer Barrel Polka.” Put the fights near Summerfest, and fighters will even get to see some great concerts while enjoying cheese and beer.

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He’s one of the top four fighters for Scott Coker’s Strikeforce. It’s not often the growing promotion gets a fighter at his peak in his 20’s. There’s a long story behind why Nick Diaz isn’t getting a shot anytime soon at UFC welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre. The 26-year-old from Stockton, California marches to the beat of his own drummer. When asked about Diaz calling out GSP (2:22 mark), UFC president Dana White almost sounded frustrated suggesting his hands were tied because of the fighter’s behavior between fights, with the media and away from the cage.

“The kid is very talented. And he probably should be in the UFC. But that kind of stuff has to stop.”

Diaz is a tough guy to manage.

“You have to follow certain rules and guidelines,” said White. “The last time Nick Diaz was in the UFC he got into a fist fight at the hospital.”

The story was that Diaz brawled with Joe Riggs at a Henderson, NV. hospital following their fight at UFC 57. Diaz actually fought three more times going 2-1 with wins over Gleison Tibau and Josh Neer, and a loss to Sean Sherk.

The biggest problem is Diaz’s long history of drug testing issues in Nevada and California. White said he has a good relationship with Nick and his brother Nate, who does fight for the UFC. Maybe there’s a shot for Nick to return down the road but it doesn’t sound like anything that’ll happen soon.

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They’re two of the best talkers in MMA but your chops can only take you so far if you’re not racking up W’s. It’s back against the wall time for both Frank Trigg and Matt Serra at UFC 109. Trigg lost his return fight to the UFC back in September while Serra has lost two straight but he’s also a former UFC welterweight champ and a participant on two seasons of “The Ultimate Fighter.” He’s in a little safer spot in terms job security over his opponent Trigg. If he’s not fighting, Serra also has a successful chain of gyms to fall back on. Meanwhile, Trigg faces an uncertain post-fighting future in the media. He’s joked that if he gets dumped by the UFC, he’s done fighting and he may have to work in the fast food business.

“He’s seriously depressing me,” joked Serra. “I don’t want to hear anything this guy’s saying anymore. The guy’s talking about working at a fast food place if this don’t work out. Dude! You’re not getting the pity win, bro. It’s not happening. I got a family too.”

Chuckles aside, Serra knows that Trigg has the ultimate motivation to win tomorrow in the first fight on the pay-per-view telecast.

“It freaks me out when he talks like that [but] he’s got his back against the wall so he’s a dangerous guy.”

Serra said fans shouldn’t write off Trigg because he suffered a quick loss versus Josh Koscheck at UFC 103.

“He’s tough. He wasn’t looking for no easy way out [of the Koscheck fight]. And he’s beaten out a lot of tough guys. I’ve prepared for a war but i think there’s a lot of pressure on him. He might have trouble pulling the trigger. I’m a cool dude in a loose mood. I’m gonna pull the trigger.”

Serra may also have a future in television. Maybe Dana White can pull some strings get Spike to bring back Comedy Central’s old “Man Show,” this time starring Serra and his trainer Ray Longo. Serra’s recent video blogs with Longo were hilarious.

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It’s an event loaded with familiar names: Couture, Coleman, Marquardt, Swick, Thiago, Serra and Trigg. It’s the second big event in a loaded MMA month, and that means it’s time for the Five Bullet Point Preview of UFC 109 . Let’s do it!

Randy Couture vs. Mark Coleman

• The one thing I don’t like about the promotion of this event is Dana White’s insistence that Couture is still a top light heavyweight and that if Coleman beats Couture, “he’s back”. I love Couture’s story, but White is trying too hard. He’s a top-five draw but a top-five 205′er? Doesn’t feel right to me.
• After an ungodly run of fights that involved championships, this is Couture’s third straight bout that won’t involve a belt; the first time he’s experienced this since 1999-2000. That’s amazing.
• After a two-year plus break from MMA, Coleman returned to the UFC in 2009 and has a 1-1 record in his comeback, dropping a TKO loss to Mauricio Rua at UFC 93 and a unanimous win over Stephan Bonnar at UFC 100.
• This isn’t exactly a newsflash, but both guys have strong wrestling backgrounds, so expect a lot of cage grappling and ground-and-pound. I can easily see a unanimous decision victory here as both fighters have shown a propensity to go the distance lately.
• Some final facts to mull: Couture is 46, while Coleman is 45…this is Couture’s third fight in the last six-plus months…this is the first time two active UFC Hall of Famers have fought each other.

Nate Marquardt vs. Chael Sonnen

• Sonnen definitely channeled some Frank Mir and made this fight important in the media with his continued trash talking toward Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva. I guess he forgot he’s fighting Marquardt. The winner will get a shot at the winner of Silva and Vitor Belfort for the gold.
• The 30-year-old Marquardt rolls into Saturday on a three-fight win streak, all ending via T/KO (Demian Maia, Wilson Gouveia, Martin Kampmann). The KO of Maia lasted all of 21 seconds at UFC 102 in August.
• Sonnen is a long-time WEC veteran who got brought over after their 185-pound division was eliminated. After being tapped by Maia, Sonnen has won his last two with decisions over Dan Miller and Yushin Okami.
• Despite having 15 wins by submission, Marquardt hasn’t made someone tap in two years and has evolved into more of a strike-first, tap-later type of fighter. Four of Sonnen’s last five fights have ended in a decision.
• Marquardt and Sonnen have fought a combined 74 times.

Matt Serra vs. Frank Trigg

• This is Trigg’s final shot and with a bad loss, the expectation is that he’ll be done in the UFC and will retire. Serra is also nearing the end of his career and while a great ambassador for the sport, you gotta think he’s down to his last few tilts in the Octagon.
• Trigg returned to the UFC in September 2009 after a four-year absence from the UFC, getting crushed by Josh Koscheck via via 1st round TKO. This will be his second fight since he’s returned.
• Even with a decade as a pro, the 35-year-old Serra has fought just 15 times and carries a 9-6 record into Saturday. Starting in 2005, Serra has been a special attraction-type fighter, competing just once a year.
• Before the bad loss to Koscheck, the 37-year-old Trigg had won his last four fights, three of them by decision. Serra also is mainly a decision fighter, having gone the distance eight times in his career.
• Similar to Couture/Coleman, both guys know how to work on the ground: Trigg with an extensive wrestling background, and Serra with outstanding BJJ skills.

Mike Swick vs. Paulo Thiago

• After coming justthisclose to earning a Welterweight title shot, Swick saw it all wash away in a decision loss to Dan Hardy at November’s UFC 105.
• Despite the Countdown show showing Thiago is a bad-ass outside the cage, his last two fights have been snoozefests with a decision loss to “Mr. Excitement” Jon Fitch and decision win over mega PPV-draw Jacob Volkmann.
• You’ll remember Thiago if you’ve seen the highlight of him KO’ing Josh Koscheck in the first round of UFC 95, his Octagon debut. Can we have that guy back, please?
• Koscheck was supposed to get his revenge against Thiago here, but had to pull out with an injury. Teammate Swick stepped in and Thiago now has his third fight against an AKA member. This is getting to feel like Daniel Russo against Cobra Kai or something.
• Since moving to welterweight, Swick was on a four-fight win streak before the Hardy loss and had finally seemed right at 170 pounds. How he appears tonight in the cage will be important, as there have been times when that weight cut looks like it’s decimated him.

Demian Maia vs. Dan Miller

• It’s the Chael Sonnen Appreciation Society fight, as both men have done battle with Marquardt’s opponent before.
• After racking up an 11-0 record and a reputation as a nasty submission machine, Maia got his bell run by (coincidentally) Marquardt in just 21 seconds at August’s UFC 102, exposing a flaw many people already thought was there.
• Miller (11-2-0-1) has been a 185-pound prospect for quite some time and joined the UFC in September 2008. He ran up a 3-0 record in the cage before losing a decision to Sonnen in May, a fairly long layoff.
• Both men are similar in styles and finish guys via submissions or decisions. I can easily see a 15-minute battle with plenty of sub attempts, counters, and people booing because it will all be on the ground. I doubt this one will open the show because of that threat.
• Both men are black belts in BJJ.

Josh Nason has published MMA blog Ropes, Ring and Cage.com since 2007. He is a contributor to FIGHT! Magazine and appears regularly on The Fight Show and Fight Network Radio. Follow him on Twitter.

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After wiping the slate clean for last Saturday’s Strikeforce: Miami event, my first as a full-fledged member of the Five Knuckles family, I put up an okay 4-2 record. Basically, I got the fights that were impossible to get wrong right, and went 0-2 with the fights that actually took some handicapping to predict.

Whatever, at least I didn’t talk myself into picking Wes Sims or Marloes Coenen or something like that.

Though this will probably be the highest my prediction percentage will ever get, the same size is too small to consider this anything more than dumb luck. Proving my mettle means making more predictions, so that is just what I’ll do.

Rolles Gracie (3-0-0) vs. Joey Beltran (10-3-0)

Gave this one away a little bit in The Weigh-In yesterday, but I don’t think anyone is actually expecting the guy taking the fight on super-short notice to come in and defeat the next generation of Gracie UFC fighters.

Following in the family tradition, expect Rolles to earn a submission victory in his UFC debut, spoiling the fact that Joey Beltran has one of the better nicknames out there. “The Mexicutioner” should get a second chance with the company just for being ready to take this fight so quickly…

Tim Hague (10-2-0) vs. Chris Tuchscherer (17-2-0)

It’s hard for me to not pick Tim Hague . In addition to being Canadian (like me), he’s been kind enough to speak to me on a couple occasions is a very personable and likable fellow (like me?) and has a respectable all-around game.

On the other hand, Chris Tuchscherer wants to prove to everyone that the only reason he lost his last fight was because Gabe Gonzaga kept kicking him in the pills. Unless the ref is willing to give you 45 minutes and an ice pack, you’re not coming back from multiple mashings of the man-bits, especially not against a quality heavyweight like Gonzaga.

Ultimately, a decision has to be made and I’m siding with the Canadian. Not because of our shared nationality, rather because he has the better all-around game and should be able to do enough to eek out a win.

Brian Stann (8-2-0) vs. Phil Davis (4-0-0)

I wouldn’t fault Phil Davis if he lost this fight.

Going from fighting relative nobodies to taking on a former champion on a two-fight winning streak in your UFC debut is a big step up. Fortunately for Davis, he’s facing an opponent who looks like the right kind of matchup for him on paper.

Though fights take place inside the cage and not on paper, this one should go the way many envision it, with Davis getting inside, wrestling Stann to the canvas and working hard to find an opening to end the fight. It won’t be a walk in the park, but “Mr. Wonderful” should remain undefeated.

Rob Emerson (17-8-1) vs. Philippe Nover (9-2-1)

Emerson has never really impressed me, and despite his unwavering belief in himself and insistence that Nover is too confident heading into this bout, my money is on the Filipino “murse” to get the win.

Nover has a more complete all-around game; while Emerson is solid in the stand-up, Nover matches him there and trumps him on the ground, where his BJJ will be the difference-maker in the fight.

Look at it this way: Emerson got beat standing by Rafael dos Anjos , not exactly a vaunted striker. Nover has the power to knock “The Saint” out and the submission skills to make him tap on the ground. One of the two will happen.

Melvin Guillard (22-8-2) vs. Ronnys Torres (14-1-0)

Tomorrow morning, a bunch of people are going to be talking about Ronnys Torres , at which point, I’ll remind them that I was talking about him at the start of the year when he made my 10 for ‘10 Prospects list.

Anyone that can compete at 155 and has a victory over light heavyweight (and Black House associate) Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante gets my attention. Add in that Melvin Guillard is extremely allergic to submission defense and  you have the makings for a minor upset in Torres’s long-awaited UFC debut.

Mac Danzig (18-7-1) vs. Justin Buchholz (8-4-0)

This feels like another TUF 6 fight for Mac Danzig to me, which is good, because he steamrolled through TUF 6 to get to where he is now.

Everything Buchholz does, Danzig does a little better. He’s bigger, stronger, a more sound technical fighter and has faced better competition.

In all honesty, I don’t know why many of us are so hard on Danzig. His fight with Jim Miller was a war, and his two losses before that are a questionable split decision with Josh Neer away from being the same as Nathan Diaz, and no one is calling for Diaz to get dropped.

Matt Serra (9-6-0) vs. Frank Trigg (19-7-0)

Every time people tell me that Serra is going to win this fight, I can only muster one word: Really?

Trigg’s wrestling is strong enough to defend any takedown attempts Serra has to offer, his boxing is solid, and, unlike Serra, he’s actually won a fight or two in the last two years.

Here’s the other thing: Matt Serra is in no way going to get cut if he loses this fight. He might hang’em up, but the dude is too much of a personality and character for Dana & Co. to drop him. Trigg, on the other hand, has been dumped before and might be dumped again if he loses this fight.

Who really has more to prove: the guy who can ride the greatest upset in MMA history into the sunset, or the guy who has been cut before and was almost cut after his last loss?

Demian Maia (11-1-0) vs. Dan Miller (11-2-0)

This one will be a lot more difficult than some of the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructional classes Maia’s taught inside the Octagon so far, but the end result is going to be the same: Winner, Demian Maia , by submission.

Miller has a great ground game of his own, which will make Maia work harder; think more like his fight with Jason MacDonald than his demolition of all three Team Quest members or Nate Quarry . We’ll certainly see the second round (I think) and perhaps even some of the stand-up Maia has been working on.

Tough draw for Miller, who will be looking at consecutive defeats after this one.

Mike Swick (14-3-0) vs. Paulo Thiago (12-1-0)

This one is easy, as I don’t pick Mike Swick. Ever. Never have, never will.

It’s nothing personal, I just don’t have the same affinity for a guy who has never beaten anyone higher up on the food chain than Ben Saunders . Running through a bunch of below-the-middle-of-the-pack guys isn’t that big an accomplishment to me.

Beat Thiago and we can talk. Until then, I’m picking the Brazilian to take his trilogy with AKA 2-1.

Nat Marquardt (29-8-2) vs. Chael Sonnen (23-10-1)

Sonnen is a grinder who relies on being the strongest wrestler in the cage. That’s how he beat Dan Miller, and that’s how he beat Yushin Okami .

Tonight, he’s not the strongest wrestler in the cage. Nate Marquardt is two-steps ahead of Sonnen in every category and shows why he deserves another shot at the middleweight title with a dominant win.

Randy Couture (17-10-0) vs. Mark Coleman (16-9-0)

Whoever wins the takedown / positional battle wins the fight.

In bouts like this where things are relatively equal, I don’t pick against Couture. He’s got the better boxing of the two, great takedown defense to counter Coleman’s shot, and enough skills off his back to keep himself out of serious trouble.

An upset for Coleman would be huge, but I don’t see it happening.

Punch Drunk Predictions
Record: 4-2-0

Preliminary Card

Rolles Gracie by Submission, Round 1
Tim Hague by Unanimous Decision
Phil Davis by Submission, Round 2
Philippe Nover by Unanimous Decision
Ronnys Torres by Submission, Round 1
Mac Danzig by Unanimous Decision

Main Card

Frank Trigg by Unanimous Decision
Demian Maia by Submission, Round 3
Paulo Thiago by Split Decision
Nate Marquardt by T/KO, Round 1

And in the Main Event of the evening…

Randy “The Natural” Couture over Mark “The Hammer” Coleman by Unanimous Decision.

Knuckle up - it’s Fight Night!

Originally posted at FiveKnuckles.com

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