(Are you there God? It’s me, Cowboy…)
A lot of fight booking action today, Potato Nation.
Before dropping a unanimous decision to Nate Diaz at UFC 141, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone had arguably the best 2011 of any fighter out there, scoring victories over Paul Kelly, Vagner Rocha, Charles Oliveira, and Dennis Siver, three of which came by way of stoppage. And although he ended the year on a loss, Cerrone will be looking to start off 2012 with a big win when he takes on 60 fight veteran Yves Edwards at UFC on FX 3, which goes down at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Virginia on May 15th.
After suffering one of the most brutal knockout losses of 2011 at the hands of Sam Stout, Edwards has gone 1-1 in the UFC, picking up a second round TKO over Rafaello Oliveira at UFC Live 6 before being outpointed by TUF 13 winner Tony Ferguson at the TUF 14 Finale in December. Edwards will likely be a considerable underdog going into this one, so Yves, for the sake of the Thugjitsu nation, lay off the KC Masterpiece.
And in other UFC on FX news…
It appears that Thiago Silva will be squaring off against Igor Pokrajac now that Brandon Vera has pulled out of their rematch due to injury. Silva has not fought since getting busted for steroids in the aftermath of his bizarre and humiliating win over Vera in January of 2011. Pokrajac, on the other hand, has won two straight for the first time in his UFC career, defeating Todd Brown by TKO due to retirement at UFC Live 3 before KO’ing Krzysztof Soszynski into retirement at UFC 140.
Then again, it’s really hard to judge what an MMA fighter means by “retirement” these days.
Let’s switch gears from the UFC on FX, to the UFC on Fox, shall we?
Coming off a brilliant second round TKO of his own over Mitch Clark in his UFC debut back at UFC 140, Jersey native John Cholish has agreed to face Danny Castillo in a lightweight clash of rising contenders. “Last Call” has racked up two in a row over Shamar Bailey and Anthony Njokuani since being out wrestled by the Carlos Mencia of comedy, Jacob Volkmann, at UFC Live 5. Yes, the Carlos Mencia of comedy.
UFC on Fox 3 is set to transpire on May 5th in East Rutherford, NJ, and is headlined by a lightweight battle between Jim Miller and Nate Diaz.
-J. Jones