UFC Fight Night 22 + TUF

Tomorrow night (sorry about the late notice) on Spike. Fight Night leads into the premiere of TUF: GSP vs. Koscheck. Here is the fight card:

Nate Marquardt vs. Rousimar Palhares
Efrain Escudero vs. Charles Oliveira
Jim Miller vs. Gleison Tibau
Ross Pearson vs. Cole Miller

Yves Edwards vs. John Gunderson
Jared Hamman vs. Kyle Kingsbury
Tomasz Drwal vs. Dave Branch
Rich Attonito vs. Rafael Natal
TJ Waldburger vs. David Mitchell
Brian Foster vs. Forrest Petz

Marquardt vs. Palhares - Marquardt coming off the loss to Sonnen. Palhares coming off a win, but subsequent suspension for holding onto a submission for too long. Palhares is quite the submission specialist, rivaling Maia. Marquardt is great on the ground, but his standup is much more advanced than Palhares'. Not saying that Palhares will automatically win a ground match, but Nate's chances are much much better for winning and finishing by keeping it a standup war.

Escudero vs. Oliveira - Escudero is quite well rounded, as we all know. Oliveira spend less than 2 minutes in his first UFC match, submitting his opponent. Oliveira has been spouting off that BJJ will cancel out and beat wrestling any ole time. Big words. If he can back it up, there will be a submission. Looking quite forward to this one actually.

Miller vs. Tibau -- Miller is very well rounded and extremely tough. Tibau is HUGE for 155. HUGE. Tibau IMO tends to gas due to his massive weight cut. Tibau is gonna want to end this as quickly as he can, cause the later into the fight he goes, the less his chances of winning are. Miller has gas for the duration and the skills to win this fight anywhere. Good matchup.

Pearson vs. Miller - I really like both these guys. Pearson is winner of a couple seasons ago TUF. Mostly a standup guy, but with good takedown defense. Miller is probably more well rounded, although I'd give a standup edge to Pearson. Miller will be looking to drag this to the mat. As much as I love to watch Miller fight and work the ground with his long limbs, I predict a Pearson KO/TKO victory here.

Then of course following the fights is the premiere of TUF: GSP vs. Koscheck. Season of lightweights. Koscheck has already gone on record many times saying he does not mind playing the villain. Especially on this show and with his upcoming title fight against GSP being held in Canada. Should be an interesting season, where I believe many many people will become much bigger fans of GSP and much bigger haters of Koscheck. Hoping that Koscheck will bring some of his AKA teammates in for training / instruction too....like Fitch, Swick, Cain, Buentello, etc.