Being coaches on the most recent installment of The Ultimate Fighter has caused some bad blood between Rampage Jackson and Forrest Griffin, who will fight for the UFC light heavyweight championship in Las Vegas tonight. The show went from an extreme match of joke-telling to a name-calling contest in mere seconds. Which means that this should be good!

LW: Corey Hill (2-0) over Justin Buccholz (7-2) - Hill is a 6’4”, 155 pound freak of nature, and he’s also one of the hottest lightweight prospects in the UFC – plus he’s a good wrestler and has been training with Pat Miletich and Jens Pulver in Iowa. Buccholz is just another test for the yet-to-be-proven Hill, but I see “The Real Deal” passing this test against Justin, who is winless in the UFC.

LW: Dennis Siver (11-5) over Melvin Guillard (21-7-2) – Guillard has all the talent in the world, but his head repeatedly fails him in his UFC fights. He had a big chance last year in a fight with Joe Stevenson, but he was submitted early in the first round. And, in true Guillard fashion, the same thing happened last December against Rich Clementi. I'll take Siver - a 29-year-old wrestler from Germany - here in a bit of an upset.

LW: Cole Miller (13-3) over Jorge Gurgel (12-3) – Gurgel started out on TUF 3 as one of the top prospects, but he’s never really shown much in the UFC. Miller was one of the top prospects on TUF 5 and he won his first two official UFC fights, but he fell off track in January when he was submitted by Jeremy Stephens. I look for Miller – another seasoned jiu-jitsu fighter – to rebound in this one with a submission win over Rich Franklin’s Jiu-jitsu coach.

HW: Gabriel Gonzaga (8-3) over Justin McCully (8-3-2) – Gonzaga is looking to get back on track for another heavyweight title shot, and McCully is just an also-ran. This is the easiest fight of the night to pick. Gonzaga will finish this fight with his excellent jiu-jitsu or his above-average power.

Main Card

LW: Marcus Aurelio (16-5) over Tyson Griffin – Griffin has been in some wars in the UFC, but he always seems to come out on top. This fight should be yet another war, but I’m not sure if Griffin - a member of Randy Couture's Xtreme Couture camp - can handle Aurelio, an American Top Team member who is a PRIDE veteran and very skilled jiu-jitsu fighter. Griffin is about as well-rounded as they come, but he’s really a 145-pound fighter. There has been talk of him moving to the WEC to fight Urijah Faber, and that may happen if he can’t take out Aurelio in this fight, which could go a long way to securing a lightweight title fight for him.

WW: Josh Koscheck (10-2) over Chris Lytle (25-15-5) – I wasn’t very high on Koscheck a year ago, but after his impressive second round KO of a good young prospect in Dustin Hazelett, the future is beginning to look brighter and brighter for this former D-1A All-American wrestler. Lytle is a former pro boxer, so he’ll obviously be looking to stand with Koscheck. In the past, that would have been trouble for Josh if he couldn’t take his opponent down. But it looks as though his time training at American Kickboxing Academy has finally paid off with drastically improved striking. This could be a three-round war, or it could be over in four seconds. But either way, it’ll probably be Koscheck coming out on top.

LW: Joe Stevenson (28-8 ) over Gleison Tibau (15-5) – Stevenson has asked Dana White for a fight with Japanese superstar Shinya Aoki since losing to B.J. Penn in a lightweight title fight in January, but he should really not be taking Tibau that lightly. Tibau trains with American Top Team, which is one of the top camps in the world. Any fighter from that camp is dangerous at any time. Tibau is also a skilled jiu-jitsu fighter, but Stevenson is probably that much better. Stevenson is also probably the more polished standup fighter at this point in his career. Joe can probably get past Tibau on talent alone, but it’s a safe bet that he should probably focus a little more just so that he doesn’t underestimate Gleison.

MW: Ricardo Almeida (9-2) over Patrick Cote (12-4) – Classic striker vs. grappler. Almeida is one of the most decorated jiu-jitsu fighters in all of MMA, and he looks to be back healthy after his layoff due to injury. Cote is a Canadian brawler, and one punch from him can put just about any fighter in the 185-pound division to sleep. That being said, Almeida has more experience on a higher level than Cote, and he’s also competed in BJJ contests against some of the world’s top names for years. This fight is high profile enough to put the winner – no matter who it is – in discussion for a MW title shot sometime in the future. I expect Almeida to win it, but I wouldn’t be surprised either way.

LHW title: Forrest Griffin (15-4) over Quinton “Rampage” Jackson (28-6) – All of the measurables say that Jackson should win this fight to retain his undisputed light heavyweight championship, but measureables don’t measure heart. And Forrest Griffin – the original Ultimate Fighter – has a lot of heart. Forrest completely dominated Mauricio “Shogun” Rua – a man thought by many to be the top fighter in the world – last October, which is something that even the champ can’t say he has accomplished (Rampage lost to Shogun in PRIDE).

But title fights are never about who has beaten whom in the past. Title fights are about who wants it more. I don’t doubt that Rampage has loved each and every one of his days as the light heavyweight champ and that he wants to have many more, but there comes a time when being champion becomes old for a fighter, and he just wants to lose the belt. Rocky did it in Rocky III. And the time may just be up for Rampage.

Stylistically, this is a dream matchup. Rampage is a wrestler at heart, and he has some of the most powerful slams in the game; but he can also stand and bang (see: first round KO of former champ Chuck Liddell last May). Forrest isn’t really well-versed in anything, but he is a damn good brawler (see: Ultimate Fighter Finale against Forrest Griffin). He also knows a few submissions, and he seemingly gets them out of nowhere. Ideally, both fighters will probably want to keep this fight standing, at least for the first few rounds, so that neither of them will be caught on the ground. If that happens, look for this fight to go into the late rounds with one of the two pulling off something drastic. If Forrest doesn’t submit Rampage or Rampage doesn’t TKO Forrest, then look for this fight to go to the judges. The winner will then probably have to offer a rematch.