UFC 106 Griffin vs Ortiz

The Ultimate Fighting Championship is returning to Las Vegas for their latest show. This event seems like it's been a major headache for the UFC. Originally the main event was Lesnar and Carwin. Well we all have heard snippets of Lesnar’s illness and the slugfest was postponed. By the way, get well Brock. Mark Coleman got injured during training and he had to pull out of the event. In comes Forrest Griffin and whala, we have Ortiz-Griffin 2: The Rematch. At least I thought I saw “The Rematch” title somewhere. Did you know Tito Ortiz made his debut at UFC 13 back in 1997? More last minute fireworks exploded when Karo Parisyan withdrew yesterday. If you follow Dana White on Twitter, you know he was fucking pissed and said Parisyan won’t fight in the UFC again. Honestly, the battle between Parisyan and Dustin Hazelett was one I was definitely looking forward too. Hazelett has shown promise in his past bouts. Credit goes to the UFC as they have put together an electric fight card. We have a lot of fan favorites on this card headlined by the rematch everyone wants. Many felt Griffin was robbed in his first match with Ortiz. Add to it the fact that Tito has a world class mouth. In fact when “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” retires, I think he’ll have a great career in the booth. The other contests feature fan favorite Josh Koscheck, “Rumble” Johnson, who walks around over 210 lbs and cuts to 170, the New York Bad Ass, the Irish Hand Grenade, Killa B, hard luck specialist Amir Sadollah, and the other Noguiera twin. Add in two other fighters I like to watch, Luiz Cane and Brock Larson, and you have a cant miss card. It appears that Spike TV is continuing their trend and a couple of the preliminary fights will air before the PPV. Well, I’ll get to it. Here are the picks for UFC 106 and enjoy the fights...

Sotiropoulos def Dent by choke

Uno def Cameos by unanimous dec

Larson TKO over Foster

Grove def Rosholt by triangle choke

Davis TKO over Saunders

Sadollah def Baroni by arm bar

Cane split dec over Nogueira

Thiago def Volkmann by choke

Johnson KO over Koscheck

Ortiz def Griffin by unanimous dec

Week 8 TSS CFB Poll

This article was posted on theSportStew.com on Oct 24th...



TSS College Football Rankings.

1. Alabama (2) 972
2. Texas 966
3. Florida 943
4. Miami 827
5. USC 813
6. Cincinnati 789
7. Iowa 768
8. TCU 740
9. Georgia Tech 681
10. Boise St. 664

Others receiving votes LSU, Oregon, Texas St University

Oh baby, it’s getting fun now!! From here on in every week is like a playoff week for these Top Ten teams. Which is a great argument for the BSC to continue as is. Ok, that’s a discussion that’s coming soon. We can’t resist our turn to fix college football. I will say this…I wouldn’t change too much.

The top 3 has not changed since we started our poll 3 weeks ago. In the words of Denny Green, “They are who we thought they were!!” Florida just continues to fail to impress us as a top team. I honestly believe several top teams can beat Florida. And they look like the team to lose before the Alabama show down. Not backing off that prediction at all!

The rest of top ten is moving up thru survival of fittest. Miami has only one loss to a very good Virginia Tech team, in hurricane type weather (ironic huh?) USC isn’t over impressive, but who else are you going to move up to the 5 spot. You really think any of those other teams would beat USC? Cincinnati, TCU, and Boise are fighting their schedules and the knock that they haven’t beat anyone. Iowa just keeps winning, while everyone continues to pick against them. If history is any indication, Iowa comes back down to earth this week. Watch out for Georgia Tech and even Iowa to totally fuck up the BCS title game. Their schedules and conferences are just good enough to climb up to 2 or 3 if any of those teams slip.

The weather is great for college football here at SportStew HQ, time to open some beers, fire up the grill and let the fighting begin. Be sure to follow us on Twitter and get involved damn it!!!

Editor's Note. No respect for Boise St. You guys have dropped them every week and all they do is win. Keep up the good work though, cause it's the drama and conversations that make sports great.

UFC 104

The Octagon is rolling into the Staples Center in LA this weekend. The glamor, the glitz, a couple of smashed faces and there you have it, UFC 104. Too bad the Zuffa boys can't come up with some cool names for their events. Remember Declaration or Redemption? Maybe they need a creative department or at least a better one. I would call it; UFC 104 Bonifácia. I don't know what that means but it has something to do with Brazil in the early 1800's and its outside the box of the normal Machida vs Rua or Franklin vs Belfort. There's some intriguing fights on the card. Spike TV is going to air a couple of the prelim fights again for this PPV. Thanks again Spike and UFC for doing this. The fight card has a little bit of Iowa flavor with five fighters; Neer, Fisher, Rothwell, Al-Hassan, and Kimmons, having some ties to the Hawkeye state. Some with Miletich out of Bettendorf and others with Midwest Cage Championship. The main event features Lyota Machida and Shogun Rua. It seems like a contrast of styles. Machida is a precise counterpuncher and very patient while Rua is the aggressive Muay Thai ace. Did you see the recent articles where Machida says he drinks his urine? Ha ha. Just great. Please don't spit on me. The co-main showcases two relative newcomers. Ben Rothwell is making his UFC debut but has over 30 career fights and his favorite move is the Vertical Hammer. Cain Velasquez is a former All-American wrestler with Arizona St and is unbeaten in his young career. Velasquez has dominated his UFC competition so far. The winner of this bout will be the next in line for a shot at the heavyweight crown. Did I mention that Machida drinks his pee? Well anyway, here's the picks for UFC 104...

Struve def Gormley

Al-Hassan def Kingsbury by choke

Kimmons TKO over Rivera

Sonnen def Okami by choke

Barry KO over Hardonk

Bader TKO over Schaefer

Johnson KO over Yoshida

Fisher def Stevenson by split dec

Neer def Tibau by unanimous dec

Rothwell KO over Velasquez

Machida TKO over Rua

NFL Week 6 Pix, Who's Worst Team

I love weekends. Today I’m sitting at the House of Brews n Sports, the nickname for my apartment, watching the Iowa-Wisconsin, Texas-Oklahoma, and Michigan St-Northwestern games on the TV wall. Probably would have another game on ESPN360 if I wasn’t doing last minute research for the NFL picks. The couch is comfy and the beer is cold. Good start to the day. Thanks to Joe for stepping up last week. I dropped the ball and forgot to award the Game Ball or the LVP. Well not this week.

Game Ball: Cedric Benson. Benson somehow rambled for 120 yards and a touchdown against the ferocious defense of the Baltimore Ravens. After being ousted from Chicago he surfaced in Cincinnati for the end of last season, and has added a much needed element to the Bengal offense.

LVP: Larry Johnson. LJ had another terrible week. He only managed 37 rushing yards last week and he carried the ball 21 times. In case you’re not a math wiz, that’s a minuscule 1.8 yard average. Come on LJ, you should be a leader, not a cancer. It’s obvious that his career is dwindling and probably has played his way out of Kansas City, which isn’t a bad thing for the Chiefs.

So, who is the worst team in the NFL? There are quite a few that are playing terrible. Four teams are yet to win a game, the Titans, Bucs, Rams, and Chiefs. Washington, Oakland, and Cleveland have been awful but pulled out at least one victory, somehow. You also can’t overlook Carolina or Buffalo. These teams have produced very few highlights except for the teams playing them. And the winner, or loser, however you look at it is… The St. Louis Rams. Why you ask? The Rams have scored only 34 points all year. That’s less than a touchdown a game. The defense has allowed 146 points leading to a differential of -112. That’s a lot in five games. St Louis is led by the QB tandem of Kyle Boller and Marc Bulger, which has produced only four scoring drives. The lone bright spot on offense is Stephen Jackson. The Rams rank towards the bottom of the league in many key categories, especially 3rd down conversion and giveaways. It doesn’t get much better on defense, as they rank in the bottom half of the NFL in every statistical category I saw. This proves it takes a total team effort to suck this bad. Congratulations to the St Louis Rams.

Here are the picks for the week but first check out Matt Schaub’s profile picture on NFL.com, ESPN.com, or look right. The picture says, “I just smoked a huge bowl. Where are the Cheetos?” Classic…

Bengals, Packers, Ravens, Saints, Steelers, Panthers, Chiefs, Jaguars, Cardinals, Eagles, Patriots, and Jets. The Falcons win the Sunday night tilt and San Diego in the Monday Night Football upset.

CFB Week 7 & TSS Poll

Not as many upsets this week as we have been seeing, but that does not mean our top ten doesn’t get a little shake up. A big reason for that is the injured QBs making a come back. USC is a hard team to figure out. There signature win is over Ohio St, who continues to fail to impress. Oklahoma jumps back in with Bradford back at the helm. The beauty part of our guess work this week is that some teams are going to have to prove themselves right now! USC had better do more than win. They better kick the shit out of Notre Dame to keep their lofty rating. For Oklahoma they are in a pickle. They have to beat Texas to keep BSC hopes alive. Even if you excuse them for losing to decent teams without Bradford, you can not excuse them for losing 3 times. If you’re a top 5 team, then you have to be able to survive losing your QB to BYU.

Just a side prediction here. Everyone handed Florida and Alabama trips to the SEC title game this week. But we are on the record now as saying one of those teams will not make it. Why? Because that’s how college football almost always works out. Not to take anything away from Alabama or Florida. We just believe in the system.

1. Alabama (2) 980

2. Texas 975

3. Florida 898

4. Virginia Tech 869

5. Miami 772

6. USC 713

7. Oklahoma 685

8. Ohio St. 654

9. Boise St. 626

10. Cincinnati 611

Others receiving votes TCU, Iowa, Eastern St.

So there you have it. Fire up Twitter and get involved. Agree, disagree….we don’t care. Just have the balls to say something.

Editor's Note. It's another good weekend of ball games that could shake things up. Boise St. looked average last night. Cincy looks to be in a tight battle tonight. Florida is in an interesting matchup while Va Tech and Alabama entertain AP ranked teams. Saturday will be a good day to hold the couch in place and enjoy some brews. Have fun!