**Official WEC 30 Discussion Thread**

[dallaskd]

Date: 09/05/2007 9:00 PM ET
Event Type: Versus - Live Event

Doors open at the Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino at 3:30pm
First bout begins at 4:00pm
First televised bout begins at 6:00pm

Fight Card:

-Rob McCullough (c) vs. Rich Crunkilton (WEC LW le)
-Chase Beebe (c) vs. Rani Yahya (WEC BW le)
-Miguel Torres vs. Jeff Bedard
-Brian Stann vs. Jeremiah Billington
-John Alessio vs. Marcelo Brito
-Coty Wheeler vs. Ian McCall
-Jesse Forbes vs. Bryan Baker
-Sergio Gomez vs. Donald Cerrone
-Marcus Hicks vs. Scott McAfee
-Blas Avena vs. Kevin Knabjan


Breakdown of WEC 30 le Fights:

This fight card is shaping up to be a pretty damn good one, featuring two le bouts. Let's go inside each matchup.

Rob "Razor" McCullough vs. Richard "Cleat" Crunkilton
WEC Lightweight Championship Bout
Let's start off with the current WEC Lightweight Champion, Rob McCullough. Rob is a straight Muay Thai standup fighter who has won 5 World Muay Thai championships in his fighting career. He fights out of Huntington Beach, California, so he's a Team Punishment fighter out of o Ortiz's camp. Rob just recently won the Lightweight le at WEC 25 with a victory over Kit Cope, another champion Muay Thai fighter. Rob's main strenght is his kicks. Since he is a Muay Thai Champion, he has great form and is able to get kicks off fairly quickly and with some power. He also uses very crisp combinations with his kicks and hands as seen when he fought Olaf Alfonso at WEC 19. He was able to lay a kick into Olaf's midsection and then deliver a tremendous right that broke Olaf's jaw. He has a very good sprawl that he uses as his takedown defense. He is able to avoid wrestlers and grapplers with the sprawl. He also has tremendous cardio, but who expects anything less coming out of Team Punishment? His chin is very strong. In a number of fights, he has shown that he can take a punch and deliver a counter almost always landing. Here is a highlight reel of fights McCullough has fought, mainly showing some of his technique.

Richard "Cleat" Crunkilton is a submission wrestling fighter fighting out of the American Kickboxing Academy. His only blemish on his record was a decision loss to Hermes Franca at UFC 42 - Sudden Impact. After that loss, he rattled off 6 straight victories, 3 by TKO/KO and 3 by Submission victory. Crunkilton has excellent ground and pound game, along with a very good kicking game up top, much like McCullough. Crunkilton's main trait is his takedowns and wrestling. In most of his fights, he aims to catch kicks or fake his own kick into a takedown. He uses fakes to flinch opponents and then shoots the opponent's legs for the takedown. In most of his fights, he uses this technique within the first 30 seconds of the fight. He has a very good transition game on the ground in which he can move from full guard to side mount rather quickly. He has a tremendous ground and pound style that will be the key to winning this matchup.

For this matchup, McCullough won't have too many weaknesses at all that Crunkilton can expose. The only real blemish I can see in McCullough's game right now is his record. He has fought a lot of sub .500 fighters. Kit Cope is 1-4, granted he's fought some top guys in the WEC and Kenny Florian who is in the UFC. His opponents who aren't sub .500 are barely above a .500 winning percentage. Ryan Healy is the only recent win that is considerably above the 50% mark. McCullough will also be fighting against a wrestler in Crunkilton who is very used to catching kicks and taking down his opponent. He also has devastating elbows and with his transition game on the ground, has a very effective ground and pound that McCullough will have trouble with. McCullough's cardio comes into play here tremendously. If McCullough can avoid the takedown with his great defense, look for a 1st or 2nd round KO/TKO from McCullough. I believe Crunkilton will be able to take down McCullough, and possibly ground and pound him. Crunkilton has beaten bigger and stronger fighters before in convincing fashion. Both fighters have padded records though. Crunkilton has fought a majority of sub .500 fighters, more than McCullough. He did manage to decision a surging Hermes Franca, the only fighter on both fighter's records that has any real skill to gauge this fight on besides McCullough losing to Josh Thomson back in 2002 by decision. So, who will win this battle of the unprovens? I call them unprovens because with as many sub .500 fighters as they have fought, this is really their first real compe ion for both of them in a long time. If McCullough's takedown defense prevails, look for McCullough to win this in the 1st or 2nd round by TKO/KO. I believe Crunkilton will get the takedown though, he has some dynamic ways of doing so. Look for Crunkilton to take it into the later rounds, it's a stretch, but Crunkilton has more experience dealing with aggressive fighters such as McCullough, and stronger fighters as well. All scenarios aside, McCullough has a superb takedown defense, great cardio, strength, and speed on his feet. Look for a McCullough TKO win in the 1st or 2nd round.

Final Prediction: Tough Decision. I'm taking.... Rob McCullough, 2nd round TKO/KO.

Chase Beebe vs. Rani Yahya
WEC Bantamweight Championship Bout
Chase Beebe is essentially a "choke" artist, winning nearly all of his fight by Rear Naked Choke. He sports a record of 11-1. Chase Beebe's background is extensively in wrestling. He is a four-time Illinois State Wrestling Champion. He is primarily a ground fighter, but he does have some standup and a small amount of submission skill. There is little video of Chase Beebe online, and I haven't seen enough of him to justify a good review of his skill then what I have already stated. I do believe that this is a very bad matchup for Chase Beebe. Let's move on to his opponent.

Rani Yahya is a different story. He is a well-known black belt in ju-jitsu in the WEC. He is the 2007 champion in his weight class of 65kg. He recently submitted Mark Hominick at WEC 28 in the 1st round by rear naked choke. Rani has also fought in such events as K-1 HERO'S in Japan, and participated in numerous ju-jitsu compe ions and serves as an instructor in ju-jitsu.

Chase is an aggressive fighter on the ground, but if we've learned anything from great ju-jitsu, it counters wrestling very well if used properly. I'm looking for Rani to take advantage of Beebe's wrestling game and pull off a submission victory in the 1st or 2nd round. Rani is very aggressive in his submission game. He literally transitions from one submission to the other with very quick movements. In his matchup with Kazuya Yasuhiro in K-1, he tried to pull a submission off in the first 10 seconds of the fight, and then transitioned from legs to chokes and so forth until he sunk in a Brabo Choke. Very skilled, and for as small as he is, very aggressive. I'm looking for Rani to win this via 1st round submission victory.

Final Prediction: Rani Yahya via 1st round submission

[LEONARD]

Love me some WEC...should be some great fights. Yahya is interesting to watch...him chasing Hominick around the ring was funny. If he gets you down though, you've got problems. Beebe will be tough to take down...

Razor Rob vs Crunkilton should be a war...

*smack* You need to put the date and time in the le if you're going to start these threads... ;-)

MMAWeekly's WEC 30 preview
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/...articleid=4629

Yahya video interview
http://www.sherdog.com/videos/videos.asp?v_id=1250

Alessio video interview
http://www.sherdog.com/videos/videos.asp?v_id=1249

Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone, who was a featured fighter on "Tapout" on WEC is on the undercard...
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/...articleid=4621