UFC 72 Predictions - Preliminary

UFC 72 is tomorrow (June 16, 2007) and as many of you know by now, I like to take a couple of cracks at these predictions, starting well before the actual fight night. UFC 72 is no different. In fact, I'm in a bit of a predicting mood today, so I may even give my preliminary UFC 73 predictions today as well.

Let's start off with the UFC 72 Fight Card as it sits right now.

Rich Franklin vs Yushin Okami
Hector Ramirez vs Forrest Griffin
Rory Singer vs Jason MacDonald
Clay Guida vs Tyson Griffin
Jason Tan vs Marcus Davis
Tom Murphy vs Jake O'Brien
Eddie Sanchez vs Colin Robinson
Scott Smith vs Ed Herman
Dustin Hazelett vs Stevie Lynch

There are two things worth noting about the UFC 72 fight card. First, there are no title fights on the card. This is a bit of a disappointment, but still there are some worthy fights on this card.

Let's start off with my prediction for Rich Franklin vs Yusin Okami:

Most of the fans who read this page are familiar with Rich Franklin. For those of you who aren't, Rich has an excellent stand up game and heavy hands (try to forget his loss to Anderson Silva). Rich is also comfortable on the ground, but mostly in the top position.

Yushin Okami has an impressive resume, but has yet to face a fighter like Rich Franklin (you can also forget about Okami's victory over current UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva. That was a DQ victory, very early in the fight. Most of Okami's victories are by strikes, which makes this an excellent match up with Franklin.

I'm going to give the edge in this fight to Franklin, just based on the experience factory (not total fights, but who he's fought). In either case, I don't think this will be a quick or easy fight.

Prediction: Rich Franklin, probably by decision.

Hector Ramirez vs Forrest Griffin
What can I say. I will not pick Forrest against anybody but a top 5 fighter at light heavyweight. I don't think Ramirez is a top 5, so my pick goes to Forrest Griffin.

Rory Singer vs Jason MacDonald
I like both of these fighters as well, but again it's a matter of who they've fought. I'm going to take Jason MacDonald in this fight.

Clay Guida vs Tyson Griffin
Prediction : Tyson Griffin

Jason Tan vs Marcus Davis
Prediction : Marcus Davis

Tom Murphy vs Jake O'Brien
Prediction : Jake O'Brien, by boring decision.

Eddie Sanchez vs Colin Robinson
Prediction : Eddie Sanchez

Scott Smith vs Ed Herman
Prediction : if Ed Herman looses this fight he will not fight in the UFC again Ed's gonna take this one.

Dustin Hazelett vs Stevie Lynch
I don't know enough about these guys to really have a prediction on this fight. Feel free to comment with your own prediction.