The Ultimate Fighter 10 Finale Preview and Picks

It’s hard to believe, but after tonight, ten seasons of the reality series that brought millions of fans into the sport and changed it forever will be in the books. Tonight, Roy Nelson and Brendan Schaub will face one another to see who wins the tenth season of “The Ultimate Fighter”, while Houston Alexander will get in the cage with Kimbo Slice, Jon Jones will return to action against Matt Hamill, and Frankie Edgar will look to continue his momentum against Matt Veach.

The fighters are all weighed in, the fights are just hours away, and soon it will all be underway. In the meantime, here are some thoughts on tonight’s fights.

Marcus Jones vs. Matt Mitrione

Both of these fighters fought deep into the show, where Marcus Jones lost to Brendan Schaub in the semifinals via brutal ground and pound, while Mitrione lost in the quarterfinals after tapping out to an early guillotine choke from James McSweeney.

This fight is likely being put on the main card to capitalize on some sort of feud between the two after Jones got into Mitrione’s face in what was a quite out of character incident from what we saw out of Jones during the season. However, that was all due to Jones being upset about a Mitrione eye poke putting teammate and friend Scott Junk’s career in jeopardy. Soon afterward, it was shown that Junk would be able to continue fighting after all, and one would think that the beef would end there.

Still, Marcus Jones was a fan favorite during the show,and Mitrione was about as close to a “villain” as we had, with his waffling over whether or not to fight and his tendency to get into confrontations with others in the house. Furthermore, Mitrione makes a good opponent for Jones, which may be just as much of a reason for putting these two together as the brief confrontation in the last episode was.

If you saw Mitrione quickly tap to a hastily-applied Schaub guillotine in the last episode, you probably know where I am going with this. Mitrione is rather sloppy standing up, winging wide punches much of the time. Of course, those punches are heavy, and if one lands, Jones could be beaten that way. However, everything I’ve heard is that Jones has improved his game tremendously (particularly in the standup), and I expect Jones to survive just fine while getting the fight to the mat where he can submit Mitrione.

Prediction: Jones by submission

Frankie Edgar vs. Matt Veach

Frankie Edgar is trying to keep his momentum going, with a two fight win streak following his decision loss to Gray Maynard. With wins over Tyson Griffin, Spencer Fisher, Hermes Franca and Sean Sherk, Edgar is on the short list of contenders to the UFC Lightweight Title, though he will probably be behind Maynard in line now. In other words, Edgar just needs to keep on winning until his turn comes up- and finishing a fight or two would not hurt, either.

Veach is a bit of an unknown commodity still, although his first round victory over Matt Grice gave a good idea of what he is capable of. With an 11-0 record and having finished ten of his eleven fights, Veach is in some ways the opposite of Edgar, which may be why this fight was made. Perhaps the UFC brass is hoping that Veach will push Edgar to fight with a bit more immediacy this time around.

Veach has good submission skills and striking fundamentals, but I believe that Edgar just may be the quickest lightweight the UFC has. He will beat Veach to the punch early and often, and he is competent on the ground as well. Furthermore, his wrestling pedigree will help him decide where the fight takes place, and he will end up rolling on towards his inevitable UFC Lightweight Title shot sometime (hopefully) in 2010.

Prediction: Edgar by decision

Matt Hamill vs. Jon Jones

Hamill has been hanging around the UFC for some time now, putting together a nice record in the organization but not really doing much of note. He has fought two top-level UFC fighters (Rich Franklin and Michael Bisping), but his inability to use his greatest strength- his wrestling- to force his will upon either man led to losses in both cases.

Meanwhile, Jones has been very exciting in his three-fight UFC tenure, where he has exhibited ridiculous athleticism and a creativity that you do not often see in successful fighters. He has good power in his hands and feet, and is dangerous wherever the fight goes.

Hamill really needs to do his best impression of 2002 Matt Hughes in this one. He has shown, as mentioned earlier, a tendency to let his opponents dictate where the fight takes place, which is not a good idea in this case. He can undoubtedly take down Jones, but with his suspect gas tank and Jones’ dynamic approach, I don’t think it will be enough.

Prediction: Jones by KO/TKO

Houston Alexander vs. Kimbo Slice

Ah, the night’s highly-anticipated slugfest.  We don’t have to watch a lot of fight footage to know what will happen in this one.  Alexander is getting another shot in the UFC, though whether it’s an authentic opportunity to get some fights or more of a one-fight audition against another brawler is debatable.  Meanwhile, the UFC probably suspects that the magic of Kimbo may run out soon (you know, if he can’t win), and are thus determined to get at least one or two good stand-up wars out of him.

The problem is, I don’t really expect Alexander to cooperate.  At least, not fully.  Why would Alexander, who is not a tremendously well-rounded fighter but has much more experience than Kimbo, stay where Kimbo has even a remote chance to win the fight?  I expect Alexander to use his experience to tie up Kimbo when the fight is standing and maybe even look for some takedowns.  Kimbo has had a suspect gas tank in the past (as well as a suspect chin), and I think that Alexander will avoid the boxing match that the fans want, opting for the clinch while standing and possibly some ground and pound at some point.
It had to happen at some point.  Kimbo does not have the skill set to compete with the deep heavyweight ranks that the UFC has built, and he is not a young guy who will exponentially improve and turn into a force to be reckoned with.  After Alexander, who fights Kimbo next?  The heavyweight ranks are filled with huge fighters, and the standup stylists are much more polished than Kimbo is.  A drop to 205 seems unlikely; Kimbo had enough trouble getting to 215.  Depending on how this turns out, we may be seeing the end of Kimbo.

Prediction: Alexander by KO/TKO

Roy Nelson vs. Brendan Schaub

Finally, we have the main event.  Roy Nelson was a favorite going into the season to win the whole thing, with a huge amount of experience and a well-rounded skillset, to boot.  Meanwhile, Schaub is a big, athletic heavyweight who has four professional fights to Nelson’s 17.

Nelson did not exactly leave a trail of bodies in his wake, though: two of his three wins were by the admittedly smart but less than dynamic tactic of gaining side mount, trapping his opponent’s arm between his legs in a “crucifix” position, and pounding away to the other fighter’s exposed forehead with shots somewhere between the range of love taps and moderate blows to get a stoppage.  However, it’s not as if he wasn’t impressive: the fact that he was able to essentially “call his shot” and enact such a strategy twice showed his superiority over the majority of the fighters in the house.

Meanwhile, Schaub showed a pretty good range of skills in his three fights, and usually looked to be more athletic and in better shape than most of his fellow housemates.  His win over Marcus Jones featured a finish that showed off Schaub’s impressive power, which he will no doubt try to use against Nelson.

First of all, let’s establish one thing: Schaub will not want to go to the mat with Nelson.  Well, at least not underneath him, anyway.  Nelson is as crafty as they come and will win in relatively short order if he can force Schaub to the mat.  Meanwhile, Schaub will definitely be looking to test Nelson’s chin, which seems durable enough.  However, Nelson has shown a certain sloppiness when the fists begin to fly that may lead to Schaub landing some pretty good shots, and with Schaub’s power, that could be all that it takes.

However, I don’t think it’s going to go that way.  Nelson’s wrestling is not great, but eventually Schaub will get too comfortable standing and Nelson will clinch, trip, or do whatever to Schaub he has to in order to put him on the mat.  From there, we’ll see a submission or maybe the now-signature Nelson belly smother/crucifix for the TKO victory.

Prediction: Nelson by submission

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