UFC Live Preview

  UFC Live: Hardy vs Lytle takes place tonight at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
  An entertaining welterweight bout between Dan Hardy (MMA 23-9-1, UFC 4-3) and Chris Lytle (MMA 30-18-5, UFC 9-10) headlines this event.
  An important lightweight battle between Jim Miller (MMA 20-2, UFC 9-1) and Ben Henderson (MMA 13-2, UFC 1-0) is the featured co-main event.
   Henderson is an extremely talented fighter who specializes in wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which causes him to be deadly with submissions. He also has the endurance it takes to go the distance and more importantly win via decision. Before the merger of the WEC and the UFC, Henderson was the WEC Lightweight Champion by defeating Jamie Varner for the undisputed title at WEC 46, after winning the interim title at WEC 43 over Donald Cerrone. He remained champion until the company's final show where he lost to Anthony Pettis in an very competitive fight. Henderson made his UFC debut in April at UFC 129 winning an impressive bout against Mark Bocek. A win over Miller could put Henderson in the lightweight title picture.
  A win for Jim Miller tonight would almost guarantee that he would be next in line for a lightweight title shot. He is one of the best fighters in the lightweight division that you never hear about. Dating back to UFC 100, Miller is on a seven fight win streak including wins over Mac Danzing and Bocek. He too specializes in the ground game, and can last a full fight in the octagon.
   Prediction: Expect 15 minute chess match on the ground. Both fighters excel best when a fight is taken to the ground and both are master wrestlers. Although it will not cause many fireworks, this fight will be an example of MMA at its finest. I give Henderson the win via decision. Miller does not have any big name wins, which seems to show he has not beat any of the finest lightweights, and lacks finishing fights, even using submissions. Henderson is the type of fighter Miller has not seen before, and Henderson appears to be a quicker version of himself which could cause Miller many problems.
   In March of 2010, Dan Hardy was taking on Georges St Pierre for the UFC Welterweight Championship, now he is predicted to be released from the UFC if he loses against Chris Lytle. Before his defeat against GSP, Hardy had a four fight win streak including wins against solid fighters in Mike Swick and Marcus Davis. Since the title defeat, Hardy has suffered two straight losses in the likes of Carlos Condit and Anthony Johnson. Hardy is too good of a fighter to lose a fourth time, especially if this fight is a stand-up battle. He is a tough boxer, who throws brutal punches from both fists. However, Hardy lacks ground game and hopefully will show improvement of it tonight against Lytle.
   This fight for Chris Lytle will be the last of his MMA career as he announced he will retire after this fight no matter what the outcome is. Lytle has had an outstanding career with notable wins over Matt Serra, Matt Brown, and Kyle Bradley. However, besides Serra, he has no other big time win as he has suffered losses to Josh Koscheck and Thiago Alves. No matter who he fights, Lytle brings a show and gives his all as he has win five fight of the night awards, one knockout of the night award, and two submission of the night awards. Lytle is a boxer as well, but also does really well on the ground and is known to pull off nasty submissions out of the blue.
  Prediction: I expect Lytle to go out with a bang and give Hardy, plus the fans, the stand-up war they want to see. If Lytle cannot handle Hardy's viscous punches, expect to see him take the fight onto the ground and pull of a submission. Lytle wins via submission in round three.