Exactly one week after Jon “Bones” Jones became the new UFC Light-Heavyweight champion; the UFC presents Ultimate Fight Night 24, for free, on Rogers Sportsnet.
After going 5/5 and 4/5 respectively, at UFC 128, Rohoman and Sturino are back for their predictions on this free card.

Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (19-4) Vs. Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis (8-0)

Rohoman: Nogueira, who is coming off a dominant loss to Ryan Bader, was supposed to have an easy return to the Octagon – facing Tito Ortiz in the company’s first trip to Seattle. Instead, Ortiz suffered a cut during training, and Davis dropped his scheduled fight with Matt Hamill at UFC 129 in Toronto, for a main event spot against one of the legends of MMA.

On paper, Davis has perhaps the best wrestling in all of MMA… certainly in the 205lbs division. His submission game is tight too, as shown with his win over Tim Boetsch. Davis reminds me of Jon Jones and I think this fight will go very similar to Jones vs. Shogun from last week. If Bader could out-wrestle “Lil’ Nog” I think Davis has an easy time taking it to the ground and avoiding “Minitoro’s” fantastic Ju-Jitsu, while doing some majore damage through his ground-and-pound.

I don’t think Davis will be able to catch “Lil’ Nog” with a submission, or knock him out, so I’ll take him by a very dominant decision.

Prediction: Phil Davis by decision.

Dan “The Outlaw” Hardy (23-8) Vs. Anthony “Rumble” Johnson (8-3)

Rohoman: This will be the first time we’ve seen Anthony Johnson inside the cage, in well over a year. After having surgery, pictures and reports circulated that Johnson had ballooned up to over 200lbs… way out the 170lbs division he fights in. That will make for an interesting weight cut.

Dan Hardy, meantime, is coming off of a spectacular knockout loss to Carlos Condit, and will be hungry to climb back into the upper echelon of the division, that saw him earn a title shot against Georges St. Pierre, last year.

I don’t see this going to the ground, although if Johnson is as out of shape as people have been saying, he will likely shoot to avoid gassing. Despite the cage-rust and reports he might be “doughy” going into it, I’m taking Rumble by (t)ko… in what I see as being a slugfest.

Prediction: Anthony Johnson by 2nd rd. (t)ko (possibly by head-kick).

Rohoman: I’m not sold on either of these guys being potential title threats in the Welterweight division. At times Amir Sadollah has looked fantastic… and at times he’s looked just OK. Johnson is coming off a nice win over Mike Guymon but before that was KO’d by Matt Riddle.

I think this should be another win for Sadollah, to boost his record and get some confidence under his belt – he is, after all, hilarious and very marketable for the UFC… provided he strings together some wins over quote-unquote ‘name’ opponents. I’ll take Amir by decision.

Prediction: Amir Sadollah by decision.

Rohoman: This is another fight, thrown together because of injury. Originally it was supposed to be a rematch between Garcia and Nam Phan. The two fought to a highly controversial split decision that went Garcia’s way, back in December. But when Phan pulled out with an injury, the UFC threw the Korean Zombie in, with hopes they will duplicate their first, EPIC fight.

If you haven’t seen the first fight between these two, go out of your way to watch it. It was probably fight of the year… with the two swinging with no control… completely wild… connecting with huge punches… with neither man falling. It was super fun… like the first Forrest Griffin/Stephan Bonner fight. Unfortunately the second Griffin/Bonner fight didn’t live up to the hype and I don’t think this one will either. Jung’s last fight saw him get knocked out cold with a huge head kick from George Roop.

I have a feeling the two will try to slug it out again, but Jung will get caught this time.

Prediction: Leonard Garcia by 3rd rd. (t)ko.

Remember to follow @grohoman590 for live tweets throughout the show!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 25th, 2011 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.