Jason MacDonald

Jason 'The Athlete' MacDonald is a Canadian mixed martial artist. He lives in Red Deer, Alta., with his wife Kelly and four children, boys Tristin and Keel, and girls Jett and True. He blogs regularly for Sportsnet.ca.

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira fights in the main event of UFC 110.

Before I go on a long overdue family vacation, here are my picks for Saturday’s UFC event in Australia.

First of all, I thought Randy looked decent last weekend at UFC 109 but it’s very hard to tell how he looked because he was facing a guy that looked terrible. If Randy looked 46 years young, then Mark Coleman looked every bit his age at 45.

It’s great for Randy but now we need him to step up and fight a Top 5 guy. I personally would love to see him fight Forrest Griffin. I know that he trained at Xtreme Couture, but they have different coaches. The guys who train Couture are not the same as the guys who train Forrest. Chael Sonnen put himself into contention to be in the next title fight. Sonnen may not be the best standup fighter and he may not have the best jiu-jitsu, but he is very smart. He knows the way to beat Yushin Okami or Nate Marquardt, by putting them on their back and keeping them there. He fought a great fight and completely nullified everything Nate was able to do. And I am so impressed by the pace he is able to fight at, all the time. He goes in there and keeps scrambling and grinding for 15 full minutes. He reminds me of Frankie Edgar.

The big news is Vitor Belfort is out and Demian Maia is stepping in. Maia walked away with a win and his standup looked better, but in my mind he’s playing with fire. He’s one of the best ground guys, yet there he was standing and trading with Dan Miller. That was stupid of him. You should do what you do best until someone stops you. Sonnen is one of the best wrestlers and that’s what he did. So if Maia goes into this Anderson Silva fight and thinks he can stand and trade punches, he’s in a lot of trouble.

I think the news with the most impact is the fact that Gegard Mousasi cut his ties with M-1 Global. I think that was the first step by his management to get Mousasi into the UFC. I heard they said they initially teamed up with M-1 Global because it was the best way to build him up in North America, but now they left because M-1 Global wasn’t willing to provide him the financial security they did Fedor Emelianenko. And Mousasi said he simply wants to fight for money so he can buy a farm for his family.

My guess is he’ll have his final fight for Strikeforce in April -- then he’s UFC bound. And there are tons of matchups there I’d love to see. Mousasi vs. Anderson Silva, Mousasi vs. Machida, to name a couple. I think that’s something we’ll see in the near future and I certainly hope it happens. I would be shocked if we didn’t see him in the UFC by summer time.

Now for my UFC picks for this weekend’s event in Australia:

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Cain Velasquez

I think Cain is a good up-and-comer and a great wrestler, but I’m not sure he has the skills to deal with Nogueira on the ground. I think Velasquez can take him down like he did Cheick Kongo but the problem is he’ll have to deal with a guy with tremendous jiu-jitsu. That will be too much of a challenge. I’ll pick Nogueira by submission.

Michael Bisping vs. Wanderlei Silva

I really feel Wanderlei has fallen back a step. He’s had some amazingly tough fights, but he’s past his prime. Bisping has shown he can hang in there and weather the initial storm like he did against Denis Kang. I think Wanderlei is going to come out hard, but Bisping will survive, take him down, ground it out and finish him. Bisping by TKO.

Joe Stevenson vs. George Sotiropoulos

This is another really good fight. George is fighting in his homeland so I’m sure he’ll be extremely motivated. He looked great in his last one. Stevenson will try to take him down, but he’s very hard to submit. George will give him a tough fight, but I’m picking Joe by decision.

Ryan Bader vs. Keith Jardine

This is an interesting fight. Bader is an up and comer, predominantly a wrestler. He showed he had decent standup on the reality show. Keith is coming off some horrible knockouts, and we haven’t seen him fight in a while. He’s unorthodox and hard to handle, but Bader should be able to take him down, put a lot of pressure on him, and I think he’ll squeak out a decision.

Mirko Cro Cop vs. Ben Rothwell

I’ve said it in past blogs, I think Cro Cop is way past his prime. The only thing he has in his favour is Rothwell likes to keep it standing, but I still think Rothwell will put too much pressure on him. I like Rothwell by TKO or KO.

Editor's note: Rothwell has since pulled out of the fight with a shoulder injury. He has been replaced by Australian Anthony Perosh.

Stephan Bonnar vs. Krzysztof Soszynski

Same thing with Bonnar as with Cro Cop. I don’t know why, I don’t think age is a factor, but Bonner is just past his prime. Those tough fights have taken a toll on him. He’s a tough guy, we all know that, but for whatever reason isn’t able to put it all together. Soszynski was on a streak before he had a little setback against Vera. I think he’ll pull out the upset here, though I don’t even know if it would be considered an upset.

Chris Haseman vs. Elvis Sinosic

Obviously this was put on because they’re both Australian. They were both really good fighters six, seven years ago. But they’ve been pretty inactive, especially against upper level competition. I’m going to go with Sinosic by submission.

Editor's note: A shoulder injury to Elvis Sinosic forced this all-Australian matchup to be scrapped from the card.

Brian Foster vs. Chris Lytle

Everybody knows I’m a big Lytle fan; he always goes out there and lays it all on the line. But Foster fights very similarly to him. This is definitely a fight of the night candidate. Lytle’s been in there with some of the best. I think he’ll hang in there, after recovering from surgery, it’s his first fight back, he’s healthy and well prepared and he won’t see anything he hasn’t seen many, many times before. I’m going with Lytle.

C.B. Dollaway vs. Goran Reljic

Goran Reljic for sure. He’s been away for a while but he’ll come back healthy and knock out Dollaway.

Well I’m off to Mexico Tuesday morning with the whole family. I’m hoping I’ll be able to watch the fights, hopefully at a bar or restaurant. You all enjoy and I’ll talk to you at the end of next week.