UFC 106: Forrest vs Tito

[DTX3]

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

Quote:

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]

Quote: Originally Posted by allBthere

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]

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]

Quote: Originally Posted by DTX3

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]

Quote: Originally Posted by DTX3

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]

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

[DTX3]

Quote: Originally Posted by Pappy Knuckles

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]

Quote: Originally Posted by Wet Bandit

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.