Sherdog MMA Pick’Em: UFC 144 Final Report

Virtually no one bought into Tim Boetsch. Now, the doubters undoubtedly wished they had.

Boetsch sent shockwaves through the Sherdog MMA Pick’Em fantasy game, as he roared back from the brink to stop former middleweight title contender Yushin Okami on third-round punches at UFC 144 “Edgar vs. Henderson” on Saturday at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. A staggering 91 percent of users expected Okami to emerge from the encounter with his hand raised. He did not.

For two full rounds, all went according to plan for Okami. He battered Boetsch on the feet and on the ground, seeming to close in on a one-sided nod from the judges. Boetsch had other plans. The AMC Pankration representative upped his intensity and aggression in the third round, trapped Okami on the cage and unleashed a firestorm of uppercuts that folded the Japanese stalwart and capped a remarkable comeback for the man they call “The Barbarian.”

The rest of the UFC 144 main card was not particularly kind to Pick’Em players, either, as the majority of them misfired on Frankie Edgar-Benson Henderson (56 percent picked Edgar), Quinton Jackson-Ryan Bader (83 percent picked Jackson) and Cheick Kongo-Mark Hunt (77 percent picked Kongo). Most users were on point with Jake Shields-Yoshihiro Akiyama (84 percent chose Shields), Hatsu Hioki-Bart Palaszewski (64 percent chose Hioki) and Anthony Pettis-Joe Lauzon (66 percent chose Pettis). The prelims were every bit as volatile, as three heavy favorites -- Takeya Mizugaki (95 percent), Tiequan Zhang (94 percent) and Norifumi Yamamoto (93 percent) -- all felt the sting of defeat.

Within Sherdog MMA Pick’Em, players 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.

“Darkan” currently leads the Sherdog MMA Pick’Em standings with 7,020 points, having picked 53 of his 72 bouts correctly, with an 80 percent success rate on his boosts. The frontrunner, however, was successful on only six of the 12 bouts at UFC 144.