Forrest Griffin vs. Tito Ortiz

So it looks as though the Tito Ortiz vs. Mark Coleman fight that was originally booked for UFC 106 isn’t happening. Mark Coleman sustained a knee injury and had to pull out. When he did, Ortiz sent the following “tweet” to his twitter followers..

“Coleman, Coleman, Coleman .. Too bad he sissies out!!! Who’s next??? I’m kicking someone’s ass on November 21st”

When Mark Coleman’s manager got word of Tito’s message, he issued a rather harsh, extremely personal statement of his own – which he later apologized for. Here’s what he had to say about Tito (and his girlfriend Jenna)..

“The only thing Coleman is afraid of when it comes to Tito is contracting swine flu from that dirty ass d-bag. We all know where he lays his head down at night. Tito wants to get personal with a legend? OK, let’s get personal – we can all go to our porn collections and watch what Tito sleeps with night after night.”

I wasn’t originally excited about watching Tito Ortiz fight Mark Coleman but now that it’s gotten so personal, I wouldn’t mind seeing it in the near future. In the meantime, it looks as though we’ll get to see a rematch between champions since Forrest Griffin has been named as Coleman’s replacement.

As you most likely recall, Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin fought to a split decision back at UFC 59 with Tito Ortiz narrowly out-pointing Griffin for the victory. In that first battle, Tito Ortiz came out gunning and was absolutely dominating Griffin with his ground and pound techniques from within the guard that he’s known for. I remember watching that and I actually felt sorry for Griffin at the time, I thought that he was in way over his head.

However, in the second and third round, Forrest Griffin turned it on while Tito Ortiz had slowed down. He just didn’t look the same after that first round so I imagine that something was bothering him – either his back or his knee.

And speaking of injuries, this will be Tito’s first fight back in the octagon since he underwent surgery on his lower back – which is something that he claims has negatively effected his performance for years. Now, with Tito Ortiz functioning at his full potential, and with the overall improvements that Griffin has made, it should make for an interesting rematch.

Tito Ortiz vs. Mark Coleman

After a long layoff, Tito Ortiz has reconciled things with Dana White and he’s set to make his return at UFC 106 against Mark Coleman. This will be his first fight in about a year and a half. During that time, he’s had some lower back surgery and he now says that he feels like he’s back to 100% mobility and he’s never felt better. On his website, Tito stated that he’s been struggling with back pain ever since his fight with Randy Couture – which was about 6 years ago.

If you’re unfamiliar with Mark Coleman, he was the UFC’s very first heavyweight champion. He’s been in the game for about 13 years now and during that time, he’s faced some of the toughest competition possible. He’s been in there with Fedor, he’s been in there with Shogun, he’s been in there with Crocop, he’s been in there with Nogueira – basically, he’s faced the best in the world. And now, Tito Ortiz is yet another big name that will be on Coleman’s fight record.

That being said, in each fight with those “big name” fighters, Coleman has ended up getting knocked out or submitted. His most notable victory would have to be against Volchanchyn back when he won the PRIDE grand prix finals back in 2000. However, his most notable contribution to the sport was his implementation of the “ground and pound”. He’s actually referred to by some as the “godfather of ground and pound”, since he changed the way a lot fighters approach the sport.

All that being said, he’s turning 45 years old in December and I have the feeling that the UFC just brought him in for the name recognition and to basically feed him to the up and coming stars that they want to showcase. He was originally supposed to fight Brock Lesnar last August but he sustained a knee injury and had to pull out of that one – which was most likely for his own good since we know how that would have went.

He ended up fighting Shogun in his debut, which was booked as an “easy fight” for Shogun to redeem himself after his loss to Forrest Griffin. That fight was a joke as both fighters gassed early. Ultimately, Coleman ended up getting knocked out though. His next fight was against Stephan Bonnar, which once again, was booked as an “easy fight”. Bonnar had just come off a hard loss to newcomer striking/wrestling sensation Jon Jones and seeing as how Stephan Bonner is one of the reasons for the current success of the UFC, Dana White set him up with Coleman as a comeback fight but Coleman shocked the world and pulled out a victory.

In the fight against Bonnar, Coleman showed greatly improved cardio as he relied on his wrestling ability to pull off a decision victory. However, I have no doubt that this Tito Ortiz vs. Mark Coleman fight has been booked for the sole purpose of ensuring that Tito’s return to the octagon is a successful one.

While they have fighting similar styles, Tito Ortiz is younger, quicker and I believe he’ll likely be a little too much for Coleman to handle. Coleman showed a lot of improvement in his last fight, and with Tito’s long withdrawal from competition, there’s still a few question marks. In the last training clip I’ve watched of Tito, he was looking out of shape and literally puking after what seemed to be a mild training session.

However, this fight isn’t going down until the end of November so I’m sure Tito will be in shape again. Come to think of it, I can’t remember a fight where Tito has gassed out. He always comes prepared and I imagine this time will be no exception. This should be a good fight that will mostly likely end with some ground and pound.

Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin

The maintenance crew at the Mandalay Bay events center better take some extra time to reinforce the cage before this one. Come fight time, Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin will likely be checking in at a combined weight of almost 550 pounds. I’m stoked to see this fight just on account of how big these guys are. What makes this fight even more exciting is the fact that there’s genuinely some bad blood between these two.

They’ve been giving shots back and fourth to each other for quite a while now and it really started after UFC 100 when Shane Carwin basically called out Lesnar for his post-fight antics…

“The flipping off of the fans that just lined your pockets with millions of dollars is just LAME. He may be a champion, but he has a long way to go before he earns the respect of a CHAMPION. I hate that he disrespected the greatest sporting fans in the world and I can‘t wait to fight him. Really it comes down to respect and I don‘t think that he respects the sport or the fans of this sport. He may be well known, but fame does not equal respect.”

When the UFC heads up their promotion for this fight, I can really see them playing up the classic nice guy vs. bad guy angle. And of course, it didn’t take long for Brock Lesnar to counter with some trash talk of his own…

“Some of the guys he’s beaten (Carwin) aren’t even worth having on your record. He hasn’t fought anybody. He’s fought Gonzaga, so I really think he’s 1-0.”

When questioned about his wrestling background, Lesnar – who’s a Division I champion – followed up with this..

“He’s a tough guy and a wrestler. But he’s a Division II national champion – enough said. I don’t know what he is, 11-0, 10-0, but he’ll have a loss against Brock Lesnar”

And speaking of their wrestling abilities, that’s really where things get interesting here. Up until now, both of these guys have relied on their wrestling ability and clear size and strength advantage to manhandle their opponents. Lesnar will likely have the advantage in size since he has to cut to get down to the 265 pound weight limit and after he makes weight, he bulks up again and usually enters the cage at around 280 pounds the following night.

Carwin, on the other hand, doesn’t cut as much weight as Lesnar does so he’ll likely be the smaller of the two. Cage Potato put together a cool comparison of the two which can be viewed here – Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin.

Carwin has more fights, but he’s finished them all within the first round and because of that, he doesn’t have much ring time in the octagon. Lesnar has spend over half an hour in the octagon – which is more than enough to alleviate the “octagon jitters” that so many inexperienced fighters seem to get.

This fight can really go either way. Lesnar has a slight advantage when it comes to size and he earned his titles at a significantly higher level than Carwin did. That being said, I think that Carwin is big enough, strong enough and skilled enough to prevent himself from being manhandled by Lesnar. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if their size and wrestling ability canceled each other out.

If this ends up coming down to a stand up war, then it’s tough to gauge since we haven’t seem much stand up from either fighter. Lesnar was getting owned in the stand up against Mir and from the looks of his training videos, it looks to be a real weakness of his. Carwin on the other hand can take a shot, as well as dish them out. We saw that in his fight against Gonzaga.

There’s so many question marks in this fight and I’m looking forward to all the questions being answered at UFC 106 in Vegas..