(Renzo Gracie vs. Frank Shamrock, 2/10/07)
Matt Hughes is, according to some oddsmakers, about a 5-1 favorite to beat Renzo Gracie at UFC 112 in Abu Dhabi this weekend. Maybe that’s because of how easily Hughes smoked Royce Gracie at UFC 60, or how he managed to survive an early scare and ride out a decision win over Gracie student Matt Serra at UFC 98. Or, then again, maybe it’s just because Renzo hasn’t fought in over three years (what you see in the video above is the unsatisfying result of that outing) and is bound to have a little bit of ring rust at 43 years old. Regardless, Gracie told MMAFighting.com in a recent live chat that he thinks he’ll beat Hughes with his superior jiu-jitsu (what, you thought he was going to say punching power?), but his fight isn’t the only one on the card where he’s predicting an upset:
"I don’t want to fight at 155 just because I don’t want to fight the new champion, Frank Edgar. I believe Edgar is going to beat B.J. Penn. He has all the tools to do it."
Just in case you were wondering, Edgar is an even bigger underdog than Gracie. But hey, this is the same guy who predicted Serra’s upset win over Georges St. Pierre. That’s got to count for something, right? Or absolutely nothing at all?


If by “give Penn a fight” you mean show up to get tooled for a few rounds, then yeah.