UFC Hamburg is upon us, and Cageside Press has our staff picks in for Shogun vs. Smith on Sunday!
The UFC was in action with a rare Sunday card, going down from Hamburg, German. UFC Fight Night 134 numerically, the card was topped by a light heavyweight scrap between the legendary Shogun Rua and surging prospect Anthony Smith. Somewhat miraculously, Shogun was on the best streak of his UFC career with three straight wins. That had led to talk of a possible title shot against Daniel Cormier. However, first he’d need to put away the dangerous Smith, who only recently had sent Rashad Evans into retirement. Smith, for his part, was 4-1 in his past five heading into UFC Hamburg.
Let’s get to our staff picks!
| Haqparast vs. Diakiese | Roberts vs. Zawada | Tybura vs. Struve | Miranda vs. Azaitar | Teixeira vs. Anderson | Shogun vs. Smith | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heath Harshman (72-40) |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Paarth Pande (75-43) | | |  | |  | |
| Jesse Gillette (66-42) | | | |  | | |
| Dan Doherty (72-46) | | | | | |  |
| Josh Evanof (25-16) | |  | | | | |
| Mike Straus (69-49) | | | | | | |
| Eddie Law (61-40) | | | | | | |
| Gabriel Gonzalez (65-48) | | | | | | |
| Jay Anderson (67-51) | | | | | | |
| Mike McClory (57-52) | | | | | | |
While Danny Roberts was a clear favorite in his welterweight fight with David Zawada (not surprising, given Zawada took the fight short notice), the real landslide pick was Marc Diakiese. Nary a vote went to opponent Nasrat Haqparast, making ‘Bonecrusher’ about as sure a thing as possible.
Most of the writers responding leaned towards Abu Azaitar in his UFC debut, meanwhile. The rest of the field? Our writers were somewhat split on the main and co-main event. As they were on Struve vs. Tybura, the card’s lone heavyweight contest.
