UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

[allBthere]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

Carwin is the only guy strong enough to take on Brock. I'm not saying he'll win, but he's got way more of a shot than Cain, regardless of who would've won that fight.

This is "clash of the lunchboxes!"

[DTX3]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

Well it looks like Cain will face Ben Rothwell. Thoughts?

On the heels of Shane Carwin being scratched from UFC 104 to challenge Brock Lesnar for the division title in November, MMAmania.com (www.mmamania.com) has learned that former IFL and Affliction heavyweight standout Ben Rothwell has agreed to step in for “The Engineer” versus Cain Velasquez on Oct. 24.

Rothwell is coming off a dominating technical knockout win over Chris Guillen at Adrenaline II back in Dec. 2008. Prior to that, “Big” was riding a career high 13-fight win streak before running into former UFC heavyweight champion, Andrei Arlovski, during the inaugural Affliction event in July 2008 .

Before the loss, he had defeated former UFC champion Ricco Rodriguez, The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 8 standout Krzysztof Soszynski, Roy “Big Country” Nelson and others.

The Miletich Fighting Systems (MFS)-trained fighter was on course to throw hands with Chase Gormley at the same event however, the UFC quickly shuffled the deck after Carwin’s departure.


Velasquez is coming off the complete and utter destruction of Cheick Kongo at UFC 99 back on June 13. The talented wrestler out of American Kickboxing Academy pushed his perfect record to 6-0 in his first decision win after rattling off five straight technical knockout stoppages.

The experience and talent of Rothwell will provide him with perhaps his stiffest test to date.

UFC 104 will feature a main event between UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida and challenger Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. It’s expected that Velasquez will earn the next title shot with a win pending the outcome of UFC 106.

[DTX3]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

Carwin is the only guy strong enough to take on Brock. I'm not saying he'll win, but he's got way more of a shot than Cain, regardless of who would've won that fight.

This is "clash of the lunchboxes!"

Agreed. Cain still has a lot of work to do if he want's to compete with Brock.

[DTX3]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

UFC 106 is shaping up to be a good card.

Brock Lesner vs Shane Carwin
Tito Ortiz vs Mark Coleman
Jon Fitch vs Ricardo Almeida

[Wet Bandit]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

I completely forgot about dos Santos, isn't he fighting CroCop? IMO Kongo will never be a contender until he develops some sort of wrestling ability. He's one loss away(Frank Mir) from being just another run-through fighter imo. I heard Lil' Nog is making his way to the UFC, so that would be interesting if he moves up weight. The brightest of that list are obviously Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos. Brock is going to kill Shane Carwin.

I don't think Kongo's a contender either, not in the current UFC heavyweight division. I'm just saying that he could be in a division where he didn't have to fight top-level talent, or didn't have to fight guys that could expose his weaknesses.

Just compare Brett Rogers and Cheick Kongo right now. There is no doubt that the spotlight is shining much brighter on Rogers. But when you think about it, there's no good reason. They're both powerful strikers who have shown little to no wrestling. In Kongo's case, he's racked up a couple losses because he's faced some guys with wrestling ability ranging from good to great. He's got some solid wins, but those losses have pushed him entirely out of title contention.

And now compare that to Rogers. He's beaten a whole list of cans with one exception, a quick knockout win against a smaller striker with a weak chin, aka the absolute perfect style for Rogers to go up against. And Arlovski was coming off a KO loss to Fedor, a loss that he admitted made him suicidal.

That ridiculously tailor-made list of opponents for Rogers is what is fueling his hype right now. That's why it blows me away when someone tries to claim the Strikeforce heavyweight division is even in the same league as the UFC's. They invariably bring up Rogers, and I just think, "Yeah, the UFC's got a nearly identical one-dimensional striker, and that guy has no chance of being in the title picture in the UFC."

[Wet Bandit]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

UFC 106 is shaping up to be a good card.

Brock Lesner vs Shane Carwin
Tito Ortiz vs Mark Coleman
Jon Fitch vs Ricardo Almeida

That's also shaping up to do big business. Lesnar and Tito on the same card?

Hopefully they round out the card a bit, though. Those three fights have the potential to conceivably contain a combined 7-11 rounds of mostly wrestling. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but Lesnar and Tito pretty much ensure a lot of casual fans will be watching, and they probably don't have quite the threshold for that much wrestling.

[Pappy Knuckles]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

I hope Valasquez is given a decent opponent. Brock and Cain are both big as hell, it should be an exciting fight.

[DTX3]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

I hope Valasquez is given a decent opponent. Brock and Cain are both big as hell, it should be an exciting fight.

Ben Rothwell is his opponent.

[MC Fatigue]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

And Carwin looked good against Gonzaga?

Yes. He got rocked; got taken down, then managed to keep an extremely dangerous ground fighter not only from advancing position while he was stunned, but actually managed to get back to his feet, and then KO'd him.

That was a great performance.

[Stumbleweed]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

Local boy! Go Carwin!

[Wet Bandit]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

Yes. He got rocked; got taken down, then managed to keep an extremely dangerous ground fighter not only from advancing position while he was stunned, but actually managed to get back to his feet, and then KO'd him.

That was a great performance.

That's a crazy standard if you think Carwin looked great against Gonzaga and Cain didn't look that good against Kongo.

[MC Fatigue]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

That's a crazy standard if you think Carwin looked great against Gonzaga and Cain didn't look that good against Kongo.

Not really. Kongo is **** on the ground, and anyone looks great against him there. Standing up, he was getting pummeled; against someone like Carwin who can actually fight on the ground, I don't see Cain doing much except getting punched in the face standing up, and getting punched in the face when he's on the ground. I think Cain is extremely overrated.

Anyone can look great on the ground against a guy with no ground game.

Whereas Gonzaga has a crazy ground game, and a stunned Carwin was able to completely negate any advantage, and actually turn the tables on him completely. It was great.

[allBthere]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

Not really. Kongo is **** on the ground, and anyone looks great against him there. Standing up, he was getting pummeled; against someone like Carwin who can actually fight on the ground, I don't see Cain doing much except getting punched in the face standing up, and getting punched in the face when he's on the ground. I think Cain is extremely overrated.

Anyone can look great on the ground against a guy with no ground game.

Whereas Gonzaga has a crazy ground game, and a stunned Carwin was able to completely negate any advantage, and actually turn the tables on him completely. It was great.

I'm with you on this...when it happened I was shocked. And reading articles saying Cain (who I have nothing against) "completely and Utterly beat up Kongo" - they fail to mention Cain was completely and utterly beat the hell up too. Kongo has no ground game...but I will say this; the dude is tough as nails and can take a tremendous amount of ground and pound abuse.

[Wet Bandit]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

Not really. Kongo is **** on the ground, and anyone looks great against him there. Standing up, he was getting pummeled; against someone like Carwin who can actually fight on the ground, I don't see Cain doing much except getting punched in the face standing up, and getting punched in the face when he's on the ground. I think Cain is extremely overrated.

Carwin isn't half the striker that Kongo is, so I'm not sure we know how much Carwin could do to Cain on the feet based on what Kongo did to Cain, especially considering Carwin got rocked bad by a guy with as many TKO losses as TKO wins.

And I'm not sure how much success Carwin would have putting Cain on his back, considering Cain was an All-American at Arizona State, a real Division-1 wrestling school, unlike Carwin's alma mater Western State College.

I'm not trying to say Cain was awesome against Kongo and Carwin was terrible against Gonzaga, I just don't understand how you can say the opposite. Both guys had their moments where they looked bad, both guys got through it, and both guys won their fights how they should have.

[allBthere]

re: UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

Carwin isn't half the striker that Kongo is, so I'm not sure we know how much Carwin could do to Cain on the feet based on what Kongo did to Cain, especially considering Carwin got rocked bad by a guy with as many TKO losses as TKO wins.

And I'm not sure how much success Carwin would have putting Cain on his back, considering Cain was an All-American at Arizona State, a real Division-1 wrestling school, unlike Carwin's alma mater Western State College.

I'm not trying to say Cain was awesome against Kongo and Carwin was terrible against Gonzaga, I just don't understand how you can say the opposite. Both guys had their moments where they looked bad, both guys got through it, and both guys won their fights how they should have.

Carwin took one good shot...not like 80 or so as Cain did. Carwin finished the fight, and Cain couldn't. Carwin could handle his opponents strength really well, Cain sort of did, but not really well.

"I finish fights! ....how wants to see fights finished out here!?!?"