“Scale never lies”

As the weigh ins have just wrapped up, it appears UFC Fight Night Fortaleza is upon us.

The card will be held in Fortaleza Brazil and will headed by a 5 round middleweight bout between Vitor Belfort and Kelvin Gastelum. While Gastelum is notorious for missing weight at 170, he had no problem hitting the 185lb weight limit on the nose earlier today. Belfort also made weight at 186 lbs.

Gastelum is coming off of a 2 rd K.O. that sent Tim Kennedy into retirement and Vitor is coming off back to back losses. However, both fighters are looking for a W.

Probably the most overlooked match on the card is a 155lb bout between Edson Barboza and Beneil Dariush. Except for a 3″ reach advantage, both fighters are pretty much identical, but more importantly, both fighters can “bang.”Barboza is a stand up wizard who won knockout of the year in 2012 when put the lights out on Terry Etim before he ever hit the ground.

While Beneil is no slouch on the feet, you can bet he either wants to get this fight to the ground or up against the fence. In my opinion, Beneil is the more well rounded fighter. He needs to continue to pressure Barboza throughout the fight and not spend too much time in open space. Either way this will be a fine fight to watch and could put one of these fighters in the conversation with the best in the division.

Here’s a list of the upcoming fights:

Vitor Belfort (186) vs. Kelvin Gastelum (185)
Mauricio Rua (206) vs. Gian Villante (206)
Edson Barboza (155) vs. Beneil Dariush (156)
Jussier Formiga (126) vs. Ray Borg (126)
Bethe Correia (136) vs. Marion Reneau (135)
Alex Oliveira (171) vs. Tim Means (170)