If you enjoyed The Ultimate Fighter Latin America, I have some good news for you.
You’re going to see a lot of familiar faces this Saturday night at UFC 180. Five of the evening’s 11 bouts feature contestants from this branch of the venerable reality series. That means 10 of the season’s 16 fighters are in this event.
But hey, if you didn’t watch TUF Latin America, at least you have Cain Velasquez to look forward to. Ah, wait. Velasquez got injured? In a way, this entire event was built around him. UFC 180 is happening in Mexico City. Velasquez, a proud Mexican-American, was anchoring the card by defending his heavyweight title against Fabricio Werdum after they coached against each other on the aforementioned television program.
And then Erik Perez, Joe Lauzon and Diego Sanchez fell injured, too? This is not what you want from an event that is a key tent pole in the UFC’s blueprint to become more popular in Mexico and South America, thus making their sports domination of the Western Hemisphere complete.
Well crap.
Some of the air may be out of the balloon on this one. And fans may feel pressed for their MMA minutes this weekend, what with Bellator 131 and World Series of Fighting 15 also on the schedule for Saturday. But there are still some good fights to be had at UFC 180. For example, ever heard of Mark Hunt, now fighting Werdum for the interim heavyweight belt? That could be an interesting one.
There are others. Here are information capsules, predictions and viewing coordinates for the full UFC 180 card.