Griffin vs. Nogueira at UFC 113
Following wins by light heavyweight’s Forrest Griffin and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira at UFC 106 a match between the two seem so logical. Griffin always likes the high risk/high reward type fights like when he fought Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Anderson Silva. Nogueira will want the quickest path to the top and Griffin’s name value and past champion status is a great opportunity along that path. Sometimes the logical thing does happen in MMA as these two are set to fight May 8th at UFC 113 according to MMAJunkie & MMAweekly.
This is going to be a very entertaining fight that will be part of the night’s main card along with current 205lbs champ Lyoto Machida defending he title again versus Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. A win be either Griffin or Nogueira should put them one fight away from a chance at the belt. Nogueira won his UFC debut against Luis Cane and is currently riding a 6 fight winning streak. Griffin got back on the winning side at UFC 106 defeating Tito Ortiz by Split Decision avenging his 2006 lose to Ortiz. The former champ had lost two fights in a row to Anderson Silva and Rashad Evans, who took the belt from Griffin.
I see this as a very tough fight for Griffin to win because of Nogueira’s balanced skill set. Griffin is not a striker with one punch knockout power and only has one TKO in the UFC so winning by TKO is unlikely. Griffin does have a submission game but not at the level to actually submit Nogueira who in 21 fights has never been submitted. Griffins best chance will be to out point Nogueira by keeping the distance with his leg kicks, I think I’ve said that before. Really I see there being three ways this fight ends: Griffin by Decision, Nogueira by Decision or Nogueira by TKO. If I do the math here Nogueira has twice the chance to win the fight so if I were to bet I’d go with Nogueria.
Popularity: 6% [?]
If forrest wins this one, he is Ranked over shogun IMO… But were all sure this is going to end bad for forrest.