The main event of The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale is a light heavyweight matchup between Stephan Bonnar and Igor Pokrajac.  Following my breakdown of the fight, I noted my recommended bets for the card as well as picks for all the fights.

Igor Pokrajac (+195) vs. Stephan Bonnar (-210)

Igor Pokrajac (22-7 MMA, 1-2 UFC) is a mixed martial artist fighting out of Zagreb, Croatia.  Pokrajac has a wrestling background and has 5 takedowns in his 3 UFC fights.

In his last fight Pokrajac was able to overwhelm James Irvin en route to a first round submission.  In his two previous UFC losses he was on the losing end of a back and forth battle with James Te Huna (via TKO in the third) and was taken down numerous times against the accomplished wrestler Vladimir Matyushenko on his way to a decision loss.  3 of his 4 losses outside of the UFC were to guys in the HW division.

Stephan “The American Psycho” Bonnar (12-7 MMA, 6-6 UFC) is best known for his loss to Forrest Griffin on the finale of “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 1.  The fight was later recognized as the number one fight on UFC’s Ultimate 100.  Bonnar has a black belt in both Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Tae Kwon Do.  

Since losing to Griffin in the season 1 finale, Bonnar has beaten fighters such as Keith Jardine, James Irvin, Eric Schafer and Krzysztof Soszynski.  His most recent losses are to Jon Jones, Mark Coleman and Soszynski.  The Soszynski loss is a bit controversial due to it being a very close fight and the referee stopped it in the 3rd because of an inadvertent head butt which led to a cut on Bonnar.  

I believe Bonnar is going to get his second straight win here, but I see some value in Pokrajac.  I think Bonnar’s standup is the biggest difference between these two.  He’s really active, can take a hard shot, and has decent kicks.  Bonnar’s gameplan for this fight should be to avoid any takedown attempts by Pokrajac and dominate the standup battle.  I think he will be able to rock him at some point and finish up with some ground and pound for a TKO.  I believe that Bonnar will be able to have this fight play out in that manner a little more than 50% of the time so that is my pick.  On the flip side, I think there is a decent chance that Pokrajac is able to get takedowns and avoid Bonnar’s submission game for 3 rounds on his way to a decision win.  Pokrajac isn’t the wrestler that Coleman, Evans, or Jon Jones are, but based on the fact that those 3 took down Bonnar 17 times means something to the way this fight could play out.  Pokrajac has to recognize Bonnar is definitely less dangerous on his back, and needs to get the takedowns.  Based on the odds there is some value in the Croatian here.  My official pick is Stephan Bonnar via TKO round 3.

Main Card Picks:

Michael Johnson via unanimous decision over Jonathan Brookins Stephan Bonnar via TKO, round 3 over Igor Pokrajac Demian Maia via submission, round 3 over Kendall Grove Rick Story via unanimous decision over Johny Hendricks

Leonard Garcia via TKO round 3 over Nam Phan

Undercard Picks:

Will Campuzano via TKO round 2 over Nick Pace Fredson Paixao via submission round 1 over Pablo Garza Dave Branch via unanimous decision over Rich Attonito Tyler Toner via unanimous decision over Ian Loveland Kyle Watson via submission round 2 over Sako Chivitchian

Aaron Wilkinson via TKO round 1 over Cody McKenzie

Betting:

Well I lost pretty big at UFC 123 with Machida and Hughes. -2.85 units at the event.  This brings my running total since the start of thesportsjury.com to +4.71 units.

Michael Johnson 0.3 units to win 0.66 units Demian Maia: 1.8 units to win 0.5 units Rick Story: 0.3 units to win 0.555 units Igor Pokrajac: 0.3 units to win 0.585 units Fredson Paixao: 0.625 units to win 0.5 units Total: 3.325 units to win 2.8 units