After Lyoto Machida’s dismantling of Rashad Evans at UFC 98, he became the UFC light heavyweight champion. He now holds the most prestigious belt in MMA today.

The question is now, who can beat Machida.

Please vote in the poll on the right hand side.

If you choose other, write a comment or send us an e-mail at email@fightgameblog.com.

This is another duel AngryMarks Podcast/FGB Radio show. Stevie J hosts and takes you through the entire card, including the preliminaries. Since we were there live, we give you the live perspective. Al also joins us. We also ask the question. Who can beat Lyoto Machida?

Listen below.

Right click to download.

Picking up here where GG left off on the live coverage. Joe and Mike are hyping the card. I’ll start the coverage when the first PPV fight starts.

Sean Sherk Versus Frankie Edgar
Sherk does look a little different than he usually does, a bit smaller and not quite as cut, but I don’t think it’s a significant as I thought it would be based on the reports I’ve read. It could be attributed to the fact that he’s now 35 years old. Or maybe he’s not taking as many supplements.

Round 1 – Edgar throws a high kick right away. Lots of circling and jabs by both, feeling each other out. Edgar lands a nice combo while Sherk is struggling to overcome the reach disadvantage. Sherk stuffs a single leg takedown attempt. Edgar gets a takedown off a Sherk leg kick. Sherk back up. I think That was Edgar’s round

Round 2 – Sherk loading up with his shots, but not landing much. Good action, but nothing real noteworthy. No guy with a dominate exchange, but so far Edgar is getting the better of the exchanges. Sherk looks a little frustrated. Sherk takes a kick to the nuts. Sherk has not attempted a takedown in 2 rounds. Easily Edgar’s round.

Round 3 – 45 seconds in Sherk uses a double leg to take Edgar down, but Edgar back up 20 seconds later with no damage. Sherk with a little trickle of blood near his eye. Edgar still picking him apart. Edgar blocks a single leg. Edgar is landing lots of shots, but no combos to speak of and neither fighter has been in any danger. Another stuffed takedown and catches Sean in a guillotine. Bell rings. Edgars round. I have it 30 -27 for Edgar.

All judges have it 30-27 for Frankie Edgar and the FGB’ers are all 0-1 so far with our predictions.

Chael Sonnen Versus Dan Miller
Miller is from Sparta, but somehow I doubt he’ll yell, “This is Sparta” before the fight. He’s also on a 10 fight win streak. Ref Yves Lavigne is getting a lot of heat from the crowd.
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I will be covering the prelims live at the show and Cactus Jim is going to be covering the PPV part of the show. I will send him any necessary notes live.

The only things of note that I’ve read are that Sherk’s body looks completely different than usual and also that Serra had a hard weight cut.

I’m heading over to the MGM Grand in about 1/2 hour and the prelims start at 4:45PM, so check back around that time.

Kaplan came out to Tina Turner’s We Don’t Need Another Hero.He also is wearing pro wrestling trunks and a “Dr. D.” David Schultz perm style mullet.

The round was all on the feet save for a late takedown by Kaplan. Roop got the better of it and used his length advantage. Kaplan’s nose is bloodied.

Kaplan won round two using his wrestling. He wasn’t able to keep Roop on his back the first few times he got him down, but did so at the end of the round. Most likely 1-1.

Third round was good. Roop was scoring standing while Kaplan was trying to take it to the ground. Kaplan got him down once, was immediately in side control and then was in mount position seconds later. He couldn’t keep him there. It was a close round.

Winner: George Roop by way of split decision.

That would’ve been my call.

2. Yoshiyuki Yoshida vs. Brandon Wolff
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Stevie J from AngryMarks.com and I did an audio show right after the UFC 98 weigh-ins and before steak dinner with the F4W Convention crew.

We talked about the weigh-ins, who looked good, who the crowd liked and didn’t like, the Frank Mir Q&A, our final predictions for the top two matches based on the UFC hype show, and lastly, a little bit about the F4W Convention.

Listen below.

Right click to download.

I will be in Las Vegas this weekend for UFC 98. Originally scheduled to be Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir, and then thought to be Rashad Evans vs. Rampage Jackson, Rashad Evans vs. Lyoto Machida for the light heavyweight title is the main event for the card. But there’s also a secondary main event that has been a few years in the making that I’m interested in seeing. Matt Hughes vs. Matt Serra might not mean as much today as it did a few seasons ago during The Ultimate Fighter, but the build has been good and it will hopefully be a great resolution to what has been so far, a great feud.

You can see the entire card at Wikipedia’s UFC 98 page.

The FGB squad has predictions for what I consider to be the top three fights. Stevie J from AngryMarks is also back to give us his thoughts.

Frankie Edgar vs. Sean Sherk
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