Iain Kidd's main card breakdown and free $250 Kountermove fantasy tourney

Saturday night's UFC 186 event might not look to be the best line-up on paper, but there are still a few really intriguing match-ups on the card. Historically, every time I make up my mind that a card is going to be lackluster, I end up having to eat a little crow because those cards usually end up being gangbusters. I'm holding out hope that this will be another of those times.

I've been putting together some main card predictions and breakdowns over the past couple weeks, and my most recent one with my long time podcast partner in crime, Iain Kidd aka The Dirty Scot, seemed to go over well with folks due to his humorous (and always good natured) take on the match-ups. This week I've decided to let Iain's voice be the only one to resonate on these semi-hallowed pages.

Yves Jabouin vs Thomas Almeida

Kountermove pricing: Jabouin $4400 / Almeida $5200

Welcome to the first of two "in 2009 this bout would be on the prelims" fights on the featured card! Two good fighters have a good fight and that's about it.

Iain's pick: Jabouin

John Makdessi vs Shane Campbell

Kountermove pricing: Makdessi $5000 / Campbell $4600

Oh hey! Look! Makdessi vs Campbell! It's part two! I guess John Makdessi probably throws some spinning kicks at Shane Campbell, who is making his debut on a UFC main card, because Joe Silva doesn't give a shit about this card, he's too excited about the Avengers: Age of Ultron premiere next week.

Iain's pick: Makdessi

Michael Bisping vs C.B. Dollaway

Kountermove pricing: Bisping $5100 / Dollaway $4500

Bisping vs Dollaway should be fun. Since becoming a cyclops, Bisping has gone 1-2, but he lost to Rock Lukehold who just wtfhulksmashed Lyoto Machida, so that's not surprising, and Tim Kennedy who has won every fight in the last couple years except the one he had against Big John McCarthy while Yoel Romero got a 43 minute break between rounds.

CB Dollaway's last win was over Francis "Limited" Carmont, but Bisping is a whole other animal. I think Bisping stuffs his takedowns and steals his lunch money.

Iain's pick: Bisping

Quinton Jackson vs Fabio Maldonado

Kountermove pricing: Jackson $5000 / Maldonado $4600

I'ma let you finish, but Fabio Maldonado is without a top 1 of the top 3 heavy bags of all time. OF ALL TIME. Rampage eats heavy bags for breakfast. That's why this is a cachweight bout.

Iain's pick: Jackson

Demetrious Johnson vs Kyoji Horiguchi

Kountermove pricing: Johnson $5700 / Horiguchi $4800

Demetrious Johnson is Joe Rogan's new favorite fighter, which means he's probably going to start horribly losing fights, ala George Sotiropolous, and everyone else Joe Rogan loves. The curse is real, guys.

Horiguchi is getting the "If you created a guy in a lab to beat the champion..." treatment, except this time it's a Japanese lab, so they were able to cram the same amount of technology into a much tinier fighter. Still, DJ wins this.

Iain's pick: Johnson

Now I'll get to the good stuff, the free cash tourney. Before I link you guys, I wanted to give you some standard information about Kountermove.

Players use a $25,000 artificial salary cap to draft 5 fighters from the card before each event begins. Eachfighter has a salary designated by Kountermove -- salaries range from $3,000 to $8,000. The winners are determined based on how the fight plays out rather than simply a fight's outcome (pick'em format). Kountermove calculates a fighter's fantasy score based on the number of strikes, takedowns, submissions, dominant positions, and rounds won. Scoring data from the fights flows into the site in near real-time, so players can monitor their teams as the event happens. The data used in calculating a fighter's score is provided by UFC's official stats provider, FightMetric.

The site was started with the idea that MMA in general must market "up and coming" fighters to become a truly mainstream sport. "There are many great fighters out there that no one knows about because so much of marketing in MMA is geared toward the top fighters" said Aaron Ard, a co-founder of Kountermove.com, "we wanted to create a game that would create interest and engagement in preliminary fights as well as the headliners." Statistics are bearing this out; over 85% of Kountermove players' teams have at least one fighter competing on the preliminary card. No Kountermove player has won a major tournament without a preliminary card fighter on their team.

Here's the link to the $250 tourney:

http://www.kountermove.com/join/41344-bloody-elbow-free-250-tourney-on-ufc-186-johnson-vs-horiguchi-T-free/

You can follow Kountermove via their Twitter account, @Kountermove

Disclaimer: Kountermove is not an advertiser on Bloody Elbow, nor are we being paid to advertise the contest. They offered to provide Bloody Elbow readers with the free tournament and are fully responsible for the contest and any associated prize payouts.