UFC 143 Final Report: Sherdog MMA Pick’Em

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Carlos Condit knew he had doubters, and he proved them wrong.

In the UFC 143 headliner on Saturday in Las Vegas, Condit upset the proverbial applecart for Sherdog MMA Pick’Em players, 71 percent of whom picked him to lose to Nick Diaz in their five-round showdown for the interim welterweight championship. Instead, Condit executed his game plan to perfection and hammered out a unanimous decision over Diaz, snapping the former Strikeforce titleholder’s 11-fight winning streak in the process.

Condit will carry his momentum into a unification bout with longtime welterweight king Georges St. Pierre later this year, once the French-Canadian recovers from reconstructive knee surgery.

Pick’Em users were on point for the remainder of the UFC 143 main card, as the majority of them correctly picked the outcomes of nine other bouts: Josh Koscheck over Mike Pierce (split decision), Renan “Barao” Pegado over Scott Jorgensen (unanimous decision), Ed Herman over Clifford Starks (submission), Dustin Poirier over Max Holloway (submission), Edwin Figueroa over Alex Caceres (split decision), Matt Brown over Chris Cope (technical knockout), Matt Riddle over Henry Martinez (split decision), Rafael Natal over Michael Kuiper (unanimous decision) and Stephen Thompson over Daniel Stittgen (knockout).

Players were split down the middle on the co-main event between two-time Abu Dhabi Combat Club Submission Wrestling World Championships gold medalist Fabricio Werdum and “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 10 winner Roy Nelson. Werdum dominated Nelson with knees from the clinch en route to a one-sided decision.

Within Sherdog MMA Pick’Em, players will earn points based on correct match-by-match predictions for a given event. A maximum of 210 points can be picked up in a single match.

Players are awarded 50 points for each correct pick, along with 30 additional points if they choose the correct method: decision, knockout/technical knockout or submission. If the method involves a finish, 30 additional points will be awarded to players who choose the correct round in which the finish occurs. Players are also allowed five boosts per event through which they can notch an additional 100 points for outcomes about which they feel particularly certain. However, any incorrect selections involving boosts will cost the player 50 points.

“Mark Hanson” currently leads the Sherdog MMA Pick’Em game with 5,580 points, having picked 39 of his 50 fights correctly, with an 87.5-percent success rate on his boosts. The leader nailed the results of 10 of the 11 bouts at UFC 143, missing only on Condit-Diaz.