AND THE WINNER IS . . .

Well, to be clear, the OFFICIAL WINNER of our $1,000 UFC 125 Prediction Contest will only be announced once the official fight results are determined by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, following any post fight substance testing and the like. As a result, this announcement is only provisional and subject to change.

But . . . the fights are finished and the numbers are tallied, and barring and changes in the results the provisional winner of Tapology's contest is:

AALOVERA22 

Congratulations aalovera22!!  What do we know about this special girl-or-guy? Well, not a whole hell of a lot actually. Our lucky -- no, make that skillful -- contest winner took the money and ran as a mere white belt, joining Tapology on December 30 just in time for the contest. S/he also successfully verified his or her e-mail address as called for by the contest rules (woulda been a shame to lose out on a technicality). We will be dropping a cool $1,000 into his or her bank account barring any changes in UFC 125's official results.

So what did it take for aalovera22 to come out on top of our first ever contest given there were close to a thousand entries, most of them from knowledgeable hardcore MMA fans? Well, when you look at aalovera22's predictions and compare them to the overall leaderboard for the event, what you see is that it wasn't the number of winners that did it, but the number of perfect predictions. Aalovera22 nailed not only the winner, but the method and round of victory in four of last night's fights, plus nailed another of the results via decision.

The perfect calls were: Brian Stann KTFO'ing Chris Leben in the first round; Jeremy Stephens knocking out Marcus Davis in Round 3 (how'd sh/e know that?); Tavares over Baroni in Round 1 by TKO; and Roberts subbing out Greg Soto in Round 1. Add in correctly calling Nunes winning over Brown in a major upset that hardly anyone called, and we have ourselves a winner with 575 points.

When you look over the leaderboard, you'll notice some interesting things. Despite having the highest point total, Aalovera22 had only 7 of the night's 11 fight winners correct. Seven other site members got 8/11 winners correct, and two of our members, tflick and Tribster, actually nailed 9 of the 11 winners. Considering the draw in last night's Main Event knocked out everyone's prediction in that fight, those are exceptional sets of predictions.

For those new members who may be having difficulty locating their own picks, navigating back to them is easy. From your profile page (reachable via the 'profile' link on the main navbar, or by clicking your icon in the right hand column), just click on 'picks' and then the red link in the 'CORRECT' column next to UFC 125.

So now that that's out of the way, and every single site user but aalovera22 walks away crestfallen, empty-handed and heartbroken, a pitiful shell of their former selves -- what did everyone think of the contest? Any thoughts or observations on the outcome of the fights, or the mechanics of entering your picks? What would you like to see come next?  We know the site was almost impossible to access for a few hours last night due to being swamped with traffic, but that's just about squared away now, and won't soon be repeated. Anything you want to post about the contest, post it here.  Thanks everyone for joining and participating.

nice i only got 4/10 right :( haha im at 50% now how embarrasing hoping to pick that up in the next few events .

I got 4/11

Really tough night of fights to pick.  When McKee and Brown were both upset early on, you knew it was going to be one of those nights.  Almost everyone on the leaderboard got knocked out of contention from the start. Crazy.

5/11 for me...this was the first time i've picked on this site (thanks to whoever posted on mixedmartialarts.com) but im going to pick every event here... hate that draw tho...lol

@jersey cool man we're glad you are here.

if your UG account has photo-posting privileges, you can take your picks from here and bring them with you back there.

i was shocked watching grispi get dominated...im happy for HIM that it wasn't aldo yesterday

so u lose a pick for edgar vs maynard ? if so its pretty stupid cos u cant pick a draw it shud just be given if u got it by decision

we didn't really plan it out to work this way with draws, to be honest.  the way we built it, it just ends up giving you an L on your record.

we'll be thinking about it and figure out if there's a better way to do it.

ya man it doesnt matter really not too often theres draws like dat.

You could add a draw tab and make it worth a lot because the odds of draws happening is very slim. Though we have had 2 recently overall they are a rarity. I don't think anyone can honestly say they pick fights to end in a draw. 

everyone lost on the draw, so its not a big deal...i personally detest gray maynards style, so im glad i was wrong in my maynard via decision pick.

Draws happen so infrequently that if you were earnestly trying to pick the fights correctly, you would never select a draw. So is it a sucker bet like on a craps table, for noobs? Or maybe people just pick it as a joke... I dunno.

agreed..i have NEVER thought, "hmmm, i bet this fight ends in a draw"

ya that was a pretty stupid comment by me 

It was lot of fun.  Entering the contest made it more exciting to watch the fights.

Would it be copasetic to make it so that a draw doesn't count against you as a missed pick?  Kinda like a walk in baseball, it doesnt count as an at bat.