UFC 119 Previews: SB Nation Breaks Down The Card With Predictions And Analysis

Unless Lil’ Nog can slow the pace of this fight with his footwork and his boxing, I think he’s going to have a hard time dealing with Bader’s pace. If Bader can establish a high paced work rate throughout the fight he’s going to wear his opponent down. *See Bader’s workout below.

I talked to Bader about how he plans on winning this fight, and the answers are not all that surprising.

A rematch of the fight that vaulted Serra into a title shot with Georges St-Pierre, this fight is actually more intriguing to me now than it was four years ago. Neither of these guys resemble the two fighters who fought that night, so comparing the previous contest is kind of unnecessary. Aside from being a pretty close, fairly uneventful clinch fest, the first fight featured an almost unrecognizable Chris Lytle. Since dropping his fight to Serra, Lytle has been on a force in the welterweight division. Along with winning seven of eleven fights, Lytle has two ‘Submission of the Night’ awards, a ‘Knockout of the Night,’ and four ‘Fight of the Night’ honors.

Serra has been on a bit of a slide since miraculously beating Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre at UFC 69, but most of his issues settle around his back injury. Serra was out of commission for over a year after his upset win over GSP, but finally got it together enough to lose his title back to the UFC poster boy at UFC 83. I like Serra, but he’s in a place in his career physically that is going to make it hard to compete with guys like Lytle.

Dunham absolutely dominated Griffin on the mat, and was able to maintain back control throughout most of the match. This looks like a pretty bad match up for Sherk, who will once again be fighting someone with much more reach. Along with being a southpaw, Dunham has a solid 3” reach advantage over Sherk. Sean’s head movement is absolutely terrible, so I expect Dunham to utilize that reach with the jab. Add in Dunham’s being a lefty to that equation and it could be a rough going for Sherk if he tries to keep it standing.

Sherk’s best chance in this fight is his work rate. If he can keep busy on the ground with Dunham he can out-point him and steal a decision. Sherk has never been submitted, so he won’t be too concerned with hanging in Dunham’s half guard if that’s the best he can manage. Passing on Dunham will be pretty tough, so we’ll have to see who can neutralize his opponent better. I think Sherk tries to work Dunham into the cage, using movement while applying just enough pressure to avoid a stand-up.

Everyone has spent so much time spouting about how explosive this fight is going to be that one would think Michael Bay got producer credits. Yea, these two guys can KO almost anyone in the lightweight division with a single punch, but I’m much more interested in seeing some progress in their overall games. I don’t think either one of these fighters is going to be advised to stand right in front of the other, so grappling into transitions, be it in the clinch or wrestling, should play a pretty big role in this fight. I know everyone is expecting them to just stand there throwing punches until someone goes down, but it wouldn’t be smart. *(Greg Jackson is smart.)

Since joining Greg Jackson’s camp nearly eight months ago, Guillard has shown a vast improvement from his one dimensional beginnings with the UFC and showcased on the second season of ‘The Ultimate Fighter.’ Melvin is no longer a straight striker, he never really was. He’s always had wrestling in his back pocket, but coupled with a reinvigorated ground game I think Guillard is going to be a handful as long as he focuses on developing his points of weakness. Having eight losses by way of submission is no joke, so moving to Jackson’s was pretty a must.