What's up, bitches?!

Phew, it's been a busy couple of days in the world of fight picking. Scarcely was the draft in the books before Jake Shields, Nik Lentz, Yushin Okami and the rest of our heroes threw down on a card headlined by yet another rematch featuring the P4P most boring fighter, Frankie Edgar. Jeez, front page troll posts make me jaded. Anyway, I digress! We've got a ton of action to recap and I'll get right to it. First, here are some general thoughts about the BECW, the draft and UFC 150:

• I'm sorry if the draft and particularly the live post that accompanied it wasn't as entertaining and crazy as you would expect. The tight schedule and the time difference issues meant that we had to run a tight ship and prevent kreally from picking himself in the 6th round, a mission that we accomplished with aplomb. Last season's draft took around 3 hours if I'm not mistaken - this one lasted just an hour and a half which includes the 12 minute porn break we took in the middle. If the gap between this season and the next is longer than a week, I say we aim for a Sunday draft so we don't have to worry about streamlining the process so much. If we're feeling particularly megalomaniac, we can even pretend we're the NFL and split the draft in two or three.
  
• The Live Spreadsheet got updated for the new season. If anyone has any idea how one would go about working out the potential point swings in each matchup for every fight, shoot me an e-mail. Other than that, criticism and feedback is always welcome. Remember that if the live post won't load for you (stop using Internet Explorer, Groves), you can always go to the BE frontpage, click Fanposts, then Full View and get the content of the fanpost without having to load the comments. The link to the live spreadsheet will always be somewhere in the post.
• Except for the changes in Week 7 matchups (#1 now faces #4 in each division, while #2 meets #3) and the decrease in team sizes, the rules and structure of this season are the same as the very successful season 3. If we're going to be making drastic changes like letting teams keep 5 players from season to season we should probably debate them sooner rather than later. Every season invariably finishes with the winning team asking to stay intact but at that point it's too late to do anything.
• That was a pretty awful PPV card all round, I thought. I had high hopes for Holloway but he disappointed despite the awesomely awesome finish. Shields/Herman was dreadful, Okami/Roberts was a mismatch and Bendo/Edgar was pretty poor (I actually had the fight 49-49 - neither guy deserved to win the last three rounds). Thank fuck for Cerrone/Guillard.
• I am not ashamed to admit that I got teary-eyed for the 2nd time in as many Erik Perez fights. The way he just explodes with unadulterated happiness when the ref stops the fight is so infectious. The sight of him literally jumping for joy while the ghost of Ken Stone tried to catch him was so beautiful.
• Speaking of lack of adulteration, well done to Sweet Scientist & the Espousers of Hate who established an early lead and never looked back. Team BECWandDietPepsi actually scored the most points on the main card but a dreadful hot bout showing had us leaving it late to overtake Bernier's hapless WARriors. I still don't like hot bouts for meaningless fights like Hamman/Kuiper.
  
• Very well done to my former teammate HaterSlayer who crushed all opposition in the BECW and landed in 2nd place overall on MMA Playground with his score of 82 points. At the other end of the table, ZSP missed picks while captain benten struggled to a paltry 25 points. Joining him at the bottom were former and/or current top picks Matt Bishop, discoandherpes, Dave Strummer and George Halivatrollzis.
• lanky has requested a replacement following ZSP's no-show. If you want to be a fucking fight picker, sound out in the comments.
• And before I forget: THIS IS THE LAST RECAP I INTEND TO WRITE. We have three weeks until the next event so I firmly expect someone to step up and take the job. A couple have voiced interest previously but this is the time to step up. I'm going to be really busy starting in a week or so which means less time to drink during weekdays which means more weekend drinking which means less time to watch MMA. It's very unlikely that I'll be around for all the cards so someone needs to help with the live spreadsheet as well.

All the results are available in the live spreadhseet but here are the overall team standings after one event:

Follow the jump for the complete draft recap!

Tim Bernier, POW, PFP and lanky were kind enough to send me their draft sheets upon which I've built the consensus numbers used to evaluate each draft pick. Horselover Fat also sent me a series of horse drawings but I have yet to decipher them. Please note that when it says that you were a poor value pick, it doesn't mean that we don't like you, it just means that we would have picked you later. Your captain still loves you, probably/hopefully!

Anyway, join me for a walk through each round of the draft:

Legend:

Consensus = where a player would rank on a draft board made up of our five combined draft boards

High/low = the highest/lowest a player was ranked on one of the draft sheets

Reach/steal = how many picks sooner or later the consensus board thought a player should be picked - the lower the number, the bigger the steal

Value = a generated verdict of the pick based on the Reach/Steal number

Round 1

The draft started out with me picking the only player who was a 1st rounder on every draft sheet, DetroitDrew. The fact that someone had him as low as #6 was baffling to me considering his long-term credentials (ranked #18 on MMA PG's all-time picking percentage list) but most agreed that he was the obvious first pick overall. lanky was perceived to have taken a big chance on the relatively inexperienced Dangalvan but the real surprise came when kreally took Zater with his no. 6 pick, higher than than any of the five consensus sheets had Kater listed. More surprise followed when season 3 hotshot and top overachiever jafotinatos was taken at #9 by Horselover while Bernier snapped up the proven Tim Burke with his first pick.

Round 2

Bernier kicked off the round by securing himself a logo and a longtime picker in LBo, who was considered a slight reach. This pick was followed up by a highly surprising pick in former prospect camp and Living Death member thuggis who finished 24th in his debut season but did enough to convince Newt to take a chance on him as early as 14th. If the consensus is to be believed, Newt could've picked up thuggis a round later. Debuting prospect camp standout ScorecardOTN was picked up at #16 by Horselover who will hope Scorecard isn't a one-hit wonder. Another hot prospect in Ben Bauman signed with PFP's Nohomos in what was considered a slightly risky deal. The 2nd round finished with two fantastic picks as MJB! and Tats16 were picked up by sklart and yours truly, respectively, the latter being ranked no lower than 15th on the five draft sheets.

Round 3

lanky took a big chance on the recently hired George Halitovatzis IV and will hope that Guillard isn't booked to fight on any more S4 fight cards while Horselover resigned S3 replacement player Brad Ackerson and the erratic but sometimes brilliant DirtyML was picked up by kreally. To his own surprise, discoandherpes came home from after-school care to find out that he was not only picked up early in the 3rd but also considered a great signing for the Dogcunt Sklarts. Later in the round, Sweet Scientist was delighted to pick up Sugel Mendoza while the previously great IvanIllich/Jake Hopkins was considered a reach for 19miles following his disappoint Season 3 campaign.

Round 4

A crazy round 3 saw TimBer reach quite a bit for one of the lesser known Danes on BE as most people had DreamingOfFighting going in the second half of the draft. Newt re-signed PDG27 while apprentice finally became master as benten20 was able to snap up former captain T.C. Engel, whose teeth are going to make up the logo of the Buttertooth Brits. POW turned some heads when he picked up Jeremy Couturier who is fresh off a season-long suspension due to missing picks. Almost equally surprising was sklart's signing of phantasma475 whose UFC on Fox 4 picks were the first in 1½ years. Time will tell if phantasma's career picking % of 63 merits being picked in the top half of the draft. kreally made a great move as he re-signed former prospect camp and TPP teammate GreyedOut while former standout and BE Radio host -Neil- had dropped far enough on most people's draft boards to make him a slight reach for me even at #48 (I had him at #14, myself).

Round 5

A dreadful season 3 was enough to drop another new BE staffer to the middle of the consensus as TAFKA SSReporters was not even considered a good pick at #49. Meanwhile, sklart picked up the self-anointed greatest lover in the world and candidate for worst captain ever as IRodC was seen as a great pickup at #50 while lanky's choice of Jeffigatame at #52 was even better. kreally decided against picking Chris Groves, leaving him to POW who will hope for a strong sophomore season from the well-known BE member.

Round 6

milk72 will be on a mission to prove his doubters wrong as POW's decision to pick him up at #66 was widely derided due to a spotty picking history. Former captain OBP will pick for Right Pick Necessary while Full Etim will have the full power of BE Radio (and BADboy DOT COM) behind them. The Earl of Twirl, formerly he of the most diabolical hatred (side note: had E-Mo never changed name, he would've been a shoo-in for Unadulterated Espousers of Hate), will surely get the chance to stay off the underachievers list this year and a strong season could be in wait once he inevitably grows tired of married life and rededicates himself to MMA. sklart and myself finished off the round with two outstanding pick-ups as S2 champ Luke Nelson looks to bounce back from a disappointing season while TitanFan2K was inexaplicably still on the board at #72.

Round 7

The story of round 7 was kreally yet again missing the boat on a great pick as he passed up the chance to sign KMcCaig ... LOL. POW is undoubtedly happy about the kreally-McCaig feud as he landed a strong pick while lanky took a chance on a fellow Scotsman and PFP's Nohomos lived up to their name by signing yet another stand-up lover.

Round 8

You know you've reached the 8th round when Unabomberman is considered a solid pick. Newt could likely have waited until the final round to pick up the inexperienced DarthRevan but as the pick was made on mobile while driving down the highway in the wrong direction, Newt will be pleased he didn't get Subbevil. Former captain inthepipes joined the Nohomos in a great pickup while lukustra and Rob Young were seen as big gambles.

Round 9

PFP was surprised to see jason18 still on the board while Andy Anderson had been pegged as the last pick thanks to his lack of experience. We've seen top players emerge from the last round in every season, though, and it's always been impossible to anticipate who it would be. Will memitim finally put it all together, will Rutager be sober, will WeAllHateCaleb/CJD2505 ever stop watching pro-wrestling long enough to make solid picks and will Body Triangle ever break out of his status as a certain last-rounder?

Consensus Team Rankings

Finally, I bring you the cumulative Reach/Steal numbers for each team:

There you have it.