UFC 123: Rampage Jackson vs. Lyoto Machida, BJ Penn vs. Matt Hughes

**Toad** · 11-20-10, 01:41 PM

Anyone else catching this? BJ Penn vs. Matt Hughes should be a very good fight. Rampage vs. Machida will be interesting, to see whether Rampage has lost heart like some of his interviews imply, or whether he's going to give us a glimpse of the old Rampage. Sotiropolous vs. Lauzon will be good, not sure if anyone saw Joe Lauzon's last fight but he completely dominated his overmatched opponent and went after him berserker style. Sotiropolous (undefeated so far in the UFC) is a couple levels above, but Lauzon's been prepping hard for this one and if he scores the upset it's going to be incredible for his career. Harris/Falcaio is another interesting match as Falcaio is a new arrival to the UFC and Harris is a highly regarded up-and-comer with a strong wrestling base. It will probably end up with Harris taking Falcaio to the ground and GnP'ing him into oblivion, but Falcaio apparently has extremely heavy hands so Harris better makes sure he times his shoot properly or he's going out.

I'm going to go with Machida, Penn, Lauzon, Falcaio. I haven't seen any of Phil Davis or Tim Boetsch fights (that I remember at least), but it sounds like most people think Boetsch is clearly outmatched so I'll go with Davis.

**reject_wolf** · 11-22-10, 10:31 PM

I was there, sick show the UFC put on

**Truth86** · 11-22-10, 10:42 PM

Yeah I second that. It was a real exciting night minus the beginning and end of the Falcio fight (although even that was exciting when he actually did something). Was not expecting the 21 second KO in the Penn-Hughes fight. I thought Lyoto got the victory when I was watching the fight, but it's whatever, I like them both and at least Rampage tried to go after him. And that improvised submition by Phil Davis was pretty awesome, not gonna lie! Sotoropolis had me a little scared in the first round but Im glad won

**Toad** · 11-23-10, 07:39 PM

I liked the Falcao fight a lot even though it was slow at times. The 3rd round was terrible, and I thought he held the choke too long in the first round, but then I found this:

Did Someone Try To Save Gerald Harris From An Early Submission Loss To Maiquel Falcao | MMATKO Mixed Martial Arts Videos, MMA Videos, UFC Videos

The round really did just go 4 minutes and 53 seconds. If it went the full 5 minutes, Harris would have tapped or gone to sleep! TIMERGATE! You could tell that Falcao was asking the ref WTF about something, and it looks like that was it. Then he came out pretty strong in the second round and man... when he starts swinging it looks so deadly. You could hear the *thwack* of his leg kicks easily, too.

BJ Penn is a beast, and I was glad to see Rampage win after Machida spent so much time avoiding conflict. It's a decent strategy for feeling someone out but at some point he really needed to make sure he won round 2 if he was going to try that strategy. Thinking "Oh no rush, I'll just march in during round 3 and KO Rampage Jackson to win" isn't a good plan, and he didn't do enough in rounds 1 or 2 to guarantee that he won them by any stretch of the imagination.

Phil Harris was so insanely ripped. He was actually funny and pretty goofy in his post-fight interviews. He was like a college kid just having fun in front of a camera, who just happened to have 1 million muscles.