A match between the battle tested Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and up and comer Cain Velasquez headlines the upcoming UFC 110 card in Australia. Cain has been a beast since entering the cage, using his wrestling pedigree and tireless work ethic to ground and pound his way to victory never losing in his professional career. He now meets his toughest opponent to date in Minotauro, who has 31 more fights as a professional fighter. As far as Boxing goes Nogueira tops Cain for sure and in submissions Minotauro is one of the best in the Heavyweight division. Cain has already stated that he will not change his attack plan for this fight so the key for Velasquez will be submission defense once he gets the fight to the floor where he wants it. Nogueira does not have the type of wrestling to fend off the take-downs coming from the wrestling standout Valsquez in this contest so I have no doubt he has been drilling submissions from his back in anticipation of this fight. It is to be seen weather or not "Big Nog" will be able to catch Cain from his back, as it has been a less and less frequent occurrence since wrestlers have become so savy in the submission defense game. Cain's AKA teammate Jon Fitch recently stated that "I think the closed guard is dead in MMA right now; unless you are Demian Maia or Shinya Aoki, forget about it, you are either getting up or getting on top. Forget pulling off submissions from your back nowadays. Strong wrestlers like Sonnen will just pound you out all day long." I don't believe that the closed guard has no place in modern MMA, I do think that it is going to become harder and harder to use it effectively as fighters overcome the guard game with smothering wrestling and ground attacks while being conscious of the sub attempts from the bottom. Nog will undoubtedly get the chance to prove Fitch wrong as he will be working for submissions under the relentless attack of Velasquez. For Minotauro he will need to beat up Cain on his feet and use his crafty jiujitsu to win this fight. Both guys are at the top of the Heavyweight division and the winner will probably have the title in his sight after the Mir/Carwin winner faces Lesnar, so it will be an intense match up and one worthy of main event status in Australia on February 20th. The full line up of fights for UFC 110 is listed below:
MAIN CARD
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Cain Velasquez
Michael Bisping vs. Wanderlei Silva
George Sotiropoulos vs. Joe Stevenson
Ryan Bader vs. Keith Jardine
Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic vs. Ben Rothwell
PRELIMINARY CARD
Chris Haseman vs. Elvis Sinosic
Stephan Bonnar vs. Krzysztof Soszynski
Brian Foster vs. Chris Lytle
C.B. Dollaway vs. Goran Reljic
Igor Pokrajac vs. James Te Huna
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