It’s that time, yet again, for another round of ‘Writer vs Fighter’ — the battle for ultimate pick supremacy. While we know precisely who would win if these guys threw down in a cage, the writers have been getting the upper hand on the fighters so far this year, jumping out to a 2-0-1 record. Let’s take a look at the results so far:
Joe McDonagh def. Randy Costa (3-2) – Fight Island 7
Doug Murray def. Bryan Barberena (2-1) – Fight Island 8
Shawn Bitter DRAW Mike Rodriguez (1-1) – UFC 257
Here’s how it works: both writer and fighter must pick the winner of the main event, co-main event, and featured main card bout. A correct pick will earn one point. Both must then pick a “lock” — the fighter they are most sure will win their fight — from the entire card. That’s two points. The “dog” comes next, and a correct underdog pick earns three points.
It’s that simple. Five picks: Main, co-main, and featured fight winners, lock, and underdog. To the winner go the spoils. Not actual spoils, but bragging rights anyway.
This week it’s our fearless editor, Jay Anderson, up against highly touted prospect Dalton Rosta. Where did these two see eye-to-eye this week?
The answer is hardly anywhere. The two are different across the board with the exception of the featured fight between Michael Johnson and Clay Guida. Both men jumped on “The Menace” to take out “The Carpenter” in their lightweight battle.
In other action, Cageside’s Jay is hot on the dogs at the top of the card. In both the main event and the co-main, the two differed on their picks with Jay going with the plus-money in wily veterans trying to extend their career. Will his nostalgia picks of Overeem and Edgar pay off or is this where the new blood comes alive and steals one for the fighter?
In the bouts that can make the most splash, each was all over the place with their underdog picks. While Jay took some large dogs at the top, he picked a much more modest underdog with Joselyne Edwards, who faces off with Karol Rosa. Rosta, meanwhile took the closest underdog on the card in Beneil Dariush, as part of his top 15 lightweight clash with Carlos Diego Ferreira.
For their locks, Rosta again went with a close fight, taking Alexandre Pantoja to beat the newcomer Manel Kape. For once, Jay played it a bit more safe going with heavily favored Timur Valiev to beat Martin Day, who steps in on short notice riding a 3-fight losing streak.
May the best writer/fighter win! We’ll have the results up after the event!
Results: Dalton Rosta absolutely kills it! And in the process, becomes the first fighter to win so far in the series! Rosta picked four of five bouts correctly, for our best showing so far this year — a total of seven points out of an available eight!
