CONCLUSION

In conclusion I feel this will be a fairly exciting opening round with even better tournament bouts and single fights to come. The slowly developing line-up was a bit unnerving and some of the participants are set up to lose but anything can happen in a tournament right? Fighters like Yokoi, Takahashi and Kharitonov could wind up reshuffling the whole deck of predictions for the winner. Only time will tell. Enjoy the fights!

To recap, my picks are:

Fedor over Coleman by TKO/referee stoppage in the 2nd Rd.

Nogueira over Yokoi by submission in the 1st Rd

Filipovic over Randleman by KO in the 1st Rd

Takahashi over Herring by decision in the 3rd Rd

Kharitonov over Rua by TKO in the 2nd Rd

Ogawa over Leko by submission in the 1st Rd

Silva over Miller by TKO/referee stoppage in the 1st Rd

Waterman over McGee by TKO/referee stoppage in the 2nd Rd