{"id":287178,"date":"2010-02-06T16:40:06","date_gmt":"2010-02-06T21:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"urn:newsml:sports.yahoo,yhoo:20050301:mma,article,yhoo-ept_sports_mma_experts-218039:1"},"modified":"2010-02-06T16:40:06","modified_gmt":"2010-02-06T21:40:06","slug":"ufc-109-coverage-begins-at-730-p-m-et","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/287178","title":{"rendered":"UFC 109 coverage begins at 7:30 p.m. ET"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Legends butt heads this evening in Las vegas and Cagewriter will be Octagon-side for all the action leading up to the Randy Couture-Mark Coleman fight. You can follow the entire Yahoo! MMA on Twitter <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/stevecofield\" >@stevecofield<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/KevinI\" >@keviniole<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/maggiehendricks\" >@maggiehendricks<\/a>. Kevin Iole broke down the card just after Thursday&#8217;s UFC 109 press conference. <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/-LCHyg9I41g&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowScriptAccess=\"never\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"560\" height=\"340\"><\/embed><\/p>\n<p><strong>UFC 109 odds (Courtesy <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.venetian.com\/\" ><strong>Venetian Resort Hotel Casino<\/strong><\/a><strong>):<br \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong><\/div>\n<div>Recommended plays in<strong> BOLD&nbsp;<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark Coleman (+350) v. Randy Couture (-500) &#8211; Light heavyweight<br \/><\/strong>Don&#8217;t write off Coleman especially at these odds. Couture didn&#8217;t exactly throw&nbsp;around&nbsp;Brandon Vera and&nbsp;Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira like rag dolls. The guess here is that Couture&nbsp;tries to make this into a striking battle. He does&nbsp;have advantage on the feet offensively but Couture does have some holes defensively, even he admits that. So there&nbsp;is a chance of a home run punch from Coleman. This should be a long fight that&nbsp;goes to decision and Coleman has a shot of pulling the upset. The&nbsp;value is on&nbsp;&quot;The Hammer.&quot;<br \/>PICK: COLEMAN +350<a name=\"remaining-content\"><\/a> <\/p>\n<p><strong>Chael Sonnen (+350) v. Nate Marquardt (-500) &#8211; Middleweight<\/strong><a name=\"remaining-content\" title=\"remaining-content\"><\/a><br \/>Sonnen admitted that when he worked with Marquardt in the past he had trouble scoring takedowns. That&#8217;s the only way he wins this fight. Now let&#8217;s also take Sonnen&#8217;s woe-is-me talk with a grain of salt. The two fighters worked together five years ago, Sonnen has certainly improved as a mixed martial artist. Bottomline thought, he does need to get it to the ground. If it stays standing, Marquardt is too athletic and throws in too many combinations for Sonnen to stay upright.<br \/>PICK: SONNEN +350<\/p>\n<p><strong>Paulo Thiago (+170) v. Mike Swick (-200) &#8211; Welterweight<\/strong><br \/>This is a huge fight for Swick, who can&#8217;t afford a loss if he hopes to get a shot at Georges St. Pierre in the next few years. Thiago is solid but not spectacular in any area. Swick&#8217;s takedown defense should allow him to keep this on the feet where Thiago has serious defensive flaws. <strong><br \/>PICK: SWICK -200<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Miller (+260) v. Demian Maia (-340) &#8211; Middleweight<br \/><\/strong>Miller a good&nbsp;mid-level middleweight but if he locks up with Maia, he&#8217;s in trouble. He got tossed around by Sonnen back at UFC 98 and that was after Maia ran through Sonnen. If Miller can make it into a boxing match, he&#8217;s got a shot. Is there anyway Maia, after a knockout loss to Marquardt, engages in a fight on the feet? No.<br \/>PICK: MAIA -340 <\/p>\n<p><strong>Frank Trigg (+115) v. Matt Serra (-145) &#8211; Welterweight<br \/><\/strong>Trigg is up against it. His mouth and ability to pump up a card, helps him but without a win her, here&#8217;s 0-2 in his second chance with the promotion. Is that a good thing or will it make Trigg fight tenatively? I agree with Serra, that you need to be loose. The pressure isn&#8217;t good. Serra just has to make sure he stays off his back. His striking was good enough to pull the upset on Matt Hughes but he spent too much time underneath Hughes. Trigg has a chance to win a long, boring fight via decision but I still like the finishing power of Serra.<br \/>PICK: SERRA -145<\/p>\n<p><strong>Justin Buchholz (+220) v. Mac Danzig (-300) &#8211; Lightweight<br \/><\/strong>Buccholz has been impressive even with a 1-3 record in the UFC. He&#8217;s lost some real wars. It&#8217;s same case for Danzig, who&#8217;s lost three straight, against good competition. That said, someone probably needs to win to keep their slot with the promotion. Danzig wants to get this to the ground and he&#8217;ll probably be able to. But Buchholz is dangerous if he stay off his back. <br \/>PICK: DANZIG -300<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ronny Torres (+110) v. Melvin Guillard (-140) &#8211; Lightweight<br \/><\/strong>Torres finally makes his debut with the promotion after some injury issues over the summer. This is Guillard&#8217;s 10th fight in the UFC and we&#8217;ve all seen where he has issues. Guillard&#8217;s cardio is great and his striking is fast and crisp but he&#8217;s prone to mental errors. He finally seems to have his training situation together. Guillard left Houston and spent the last two months experiencing the structured existence of Greg&#8217;s Jackson camp in Albuquerque. any bet on Guillard, especially against someone with strong jiu-jitsu, is risky but we&#8217;re going to roll with it. <br \/><strong>PICK: GUILLARD -140<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob Emerson (+130) v. Phillipe Nover (-160) &#8211; Lightweight<br \/><\/strong>You know Nover has ability. He stormed through the field&nbsp;on season 7 of &quot;The Ultimate Fighter&quot;&nbsp;and dubbed &quot;The next Anderson Silva&quot; by Dana&nbsp;White before folding in the finale.&nbsp;Since then&nbsp;he&#8217;s had to deal with flash knockouts and health issues since the TV victory. Emerson is a good kickboxer but his takedown defense is weak. Nover will get this one to the ground and put his submission skills to work. <br \/>PICK: NOVER -160<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brian Stann (+140) v. Phil Davis (-170) &#8211; Light heavyweight<br \/><\/strong>Davis is only four fights into his MMA career and he&#8217;s almost a 2-to-1 favorite? That tells you the buzz around this kid is through the roof. Davis was the 2008 NCAA wrestling champ at 197 pounds. Don&#8217;t be fooled, the kid is a legit 205er. Stann&#8217;s speciality is on the feet and his stamina is improving since working down at Jackson&#8217;s. Davis is too much of an unknown to lay this kind of number but you have to like his chances if he can consistently dump Stann on his head. <br \/>PICK: DAVIS -170<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Hague (+120) v. Chris Tuchscherer (-150) &#8211; Heavyweight<\/strong><br \/>It&#8217;s hard to know Tuchscherer offers. his fight against Gabe Gonzaga was a disaster. He got kicked in the groin and never stood a chance the rest of the way. His wrestling is strong and Hague doesn&#8217;t appear to have a great strength in any area. Tuchscherer doesnh&#8217;t lack for confidence. He told Cagewriter three weeks ago, that he would&#8217;ve won the Heavyweight season of TUF had he been chosen for the cast. <br \/>PICK: TUCHSCHERER -150<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joey Beltran (+450) v. Rolles Gracie (-700) &#8211; Heavyweight<\/strong><br \/>Coming from the most famous MMA family in the world, Gracie comes with a lot of hype. Beltran is a last second replacement which can&#8217;t speak well for his condiitioning. Shocker! Gracie by submission. <br \/>PICK: GRACIE -700<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Legends butt heads this evening in Las vegas and Cagewriter will be Octagon-side for all the action leading up to the Randy Couture-Mark Coleman fight. You can follow the entire Yahoo! MMA on Twitter @stevecofield, @keviniole and @maggiehendricks. Kevin Iole broke down the card just after Thursday&#8217;s UFC 109 press conference. UFC 109 odds (Courtesy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4012,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4012"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}