We stand on the doorstep of yet another weekend with no UFC action, but never fear. There’s still plenty of cagefighting to go around this weekend, if you know where to look. Let me serve as your guide to all of the fisticuff action coming your way over the next few days.
Friday
Event: Bellator 64 (Windsor, Ontario, Canada)
Viewing: Spike.com/MTV2, 7 p.m. ET
Bellator’s latest season six offering is the best fight card of the weekend, and by a wide margin. It features an intriguing main event between welterweight champion Ben Askren—who barely won a controversial decision over Jay Hieron in his last outing—defending his belt against the always-dangerous Douglas Lima. Askren is a fantastic wrestler, of course, but Lima has been a singularly devastating fighter over the past two years. He comes into the fight with a nine-fight winning streak and a very real chance of dethroning Askren for the belt.
There’s also some sweet tournament action. Alexandre Bezerra and Marlon Sandro face off in a featherweight tournament semifinal, while the bantamweight tournament features two fantastic fights: Travis Marx vs. Masakatsu Ueda and Rodrigo Lima vs. Hiroshi Nakamura.
UFC/WEC veteran Chris Horodecki fights on the preliminary card.
Event: The Ultimate Fighter Live (Las Vegas, NV)
Viewing: FX, 10 p.m. ET
Michael Chiesa takes on Jeremy Larsen in the latest episode of the venerable reality show.
Saturday
Event: Super Fight League 2 (Chandigarh, India)
Viewing: YouTube.com, 9:15 a.m. ET
Super Fight League 1, which featured Bob Sapp tapping out to a double-leg takedown, was one of those events that you categorize as “so bad it’s awesome.” Don’t get me wrong, I loved the show. Quite a bit, in fact. But I probably loved it for all of the wrong reasons, the main one being the incredible Super Fight League theme song.
Super Fight League 2 should be more of the same. The main event features hulking heavyweight Todd Duffee taking on Neil Grove. It’s not the best fight in the world, to be sure, but at least we’ll get a real finish instead of the sketchy pro-wrestling stuff Sapp came out with the last time around.
You’ll also get to see Minowaman taking on Alexander Schlemenko and Ryan Healy vs. Paul Kelly. Those are two fights with real potential to be awesome.
And hey, it’s a free show. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube. All you need to do is wake up a little early (or a lot early, if you live on the West Coast).
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