UFC Fight Night 107 on Saturday March 18, 2017 in London is expected to be one of the hottest competitions in the year so far. Jimi Manuwa and Corey Anderson are set to take on each other in the headliner scheduled for five rounds. Alan Jouban and Gunnar Nelson also face off in the 170 […]
UFC Fight Night 107 on Saturday March 18, 2017 in London is expected to be one of the hottest competitions in the year so far. Jimi Manuwa and Corey Anderson are set to take on each other in the headliner scheduled for five rounds. Alan Jouban and Gunnar Nelson also face off in the 170 pound co-event while Brad Pickett and Marion Vera are also scheduled to go hell for leather at each other as Pickett seeks to end his combat sports career on a high not. Makwan Amir Khan and Arnold Allen are part of the main card.
So who’s going to come out in the O2 Arena in London? Let’s try and look deeper than a crystal ball.
Poster boy Jimi Manuwa (16-2) vs Corey Anderson (9-2)
Manuwa is capable of putting up a good fight and even brags about it. He has also made no bones about picking at the others in the 205-pound division who have turned down fights against him. That said, the fact is that Manuwa aka ‘poster boy’ failed to make good of two opportunities. He failed to get the better of Alexander Gustafsson and was demolished at UFC 191 by the Brit, Anthony Johnson. So is his bragging really got any fuel? At 37, Manuwa doesn’t seem to have enough steam although he could pull it off against mid-tier fighters including Corey Anderson.
Speaking of Anderson, he too hasn’t had a pretty good run in the last eight fights. He won only two of them. It could be that his skill set isn’t refined as yet. What works for him is that he seems to be a better athlete and can frustrate Manuwa but the question of whether he could keep up the pace over five rounds, is still debatable. Therefore, the gods seem to be in favor of Manuwa winning by a knockout.
The UFC heads to London tomorrow (Sat., March 18, 2017) when UFC Fight Night 107 goes down from the O2 Arena. The card features some under-the-radar up-and-coming stars despite the criticism heaped upon the light heavyweight main event between hometown favorite Jimi Manuwa and Corey Anderson on Fight Pass, and should serve as another launching
The UFC heads to London tomorrow (Sat., March 18, 2017) when UFC Fight Night 107 goes down from the O2 Arena.
The card features some under-the-radar up-and-coming stars despite the criticism heaped upon the light heavyweight main event between hometown favorite Jimi Manuwa and Corey Anderson on Fight Pass, and should serve as another launching pad for some European future stars of MMA.
First and foremost among those competitors is Icelander Gunnar Nelson, who will meet surging knockout artist Alan Jouban in a welterweight co-main event that promises an interesting contrast of styles with “Gunni’s” elite ground game.
Fan favorite British veteran Brad “One Punch” Pickett will also throw down in his farewell fight against Marlon Vera on the main card as well.
Find out whom we picked to win in London tomorrow here:
Jimi Manuwa vs. Corey Anderson:
This fight, while not exactly heavily promoted, still has a good amount of potential to deliver a hard-hitting match-up in a division that badly needs just that based on the two fighters’ most recent performances. Manuwa knocked out former interim title challenger Ovince St. Preux with a highlight reel hook at last year’s UFC 204 in Manchester, while Anderson rebounded from a close decision loss to former champion Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua by stopping Sean O’Connell in the second round of their fight in December.
Known for his knockouts, the British Manuwa has some of the most frightening one-punch power in the barren UFC light heavyweight division. Anderson is quickly coming into his own effective striking game; however, he could look to use his wrestling advantage over the “Poster Boy” here. There’s no need for him to slug it out with a knockout artist like Manuwa. If the newly named “Overtime” fights smart, we could see a somewhat boring match. Don’t count on it, however, as both of these men are looking to make a statement and rise up a 205-pound rankings list that needs some new blood. I think Anderson is the more motivated and well-rounded fighter. Anderson via TKO.
Gunnar Nelson vs. Alan Jouban:
A potentially riveting fight in its own right, the UFC Fight Night 107 co-main event will probably come down to which fighter can most effectively impose his respective gameplan. Jouban lives up to his “Brahma” nickname by coming forward relentlessly with a bulldozing Muay Thai arsenal and a solid chin; it could be said he eats a few too many shots in the process, however. Nelson will of course be looking to get the fight to the ground to use his championship ground game, and we haven’t really seen the rising Jouban tested by a true mat wizard there as of yet, as most of his fights have played out on the feet. His takedown defense isn’t bad, but I expect Nelson to just be on another level in the wrestling and grappling departments. Nelson via second-round submission (rear-naked choke).
Brad Pickett vs. Marlon Vera:
It’s almost impossible not to root for the hard-hitting, action-centered “One Punch” in his final MMA bout of all-time, so Vera has a target on his back. As one of a select group of fighters who have defeated dominant flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson and a fighter who brought it every time out to the cage, the seasoned Pickett’s legacy is intact as a true English brawler of the highest order. He’ll have his hands full with the larger Vera, who has a two-inch reach and height advantage, but he’ll be motivated by his fervent hometown fans, who will no doubt be feverish in their support of “One Punch.” This one will be a war, and I think hometown favorite Pickett goes out in style with a hard-fought win. Pickett by unanimous decision.
Makwan Amirkhani vs. Arnold Allen:
A featherweight curtain-jerker caps off this underrated card, as rising Finnish star Amirkhani, who usually always fights in Europe as one of the UFC’s key prospects there, could find himself in the unfamiliar role of heel when he meets hometown prospect Allen. This one promises to be yet another war (or at least, we hope), with Amirkhani boasting an impressive 13-2 mark, while Allen has a just-as-shining 11-1 mark. Both fighters are tough, fast, and well rounded, and that makes this a tough one to pick. “Mr. Finland” has more time in the octagon, however, and that could play a part in this pivotal bout. He’s also ultra-confident and could be a future contender at 145 pounds. The same could obviously be said for Allen as well, but I’m going with the entertaining Finn in this fight. Amirkhani via unanimous decision.
The UFC takes its Octagon across the Atlantic for Fight Night 107 this Saturday, March 18, when it will set up at the O2 Arena in London, U.K.
The host nation will be well represented throughout the event, including the main card, which features three …
The UFC takes its Octagon across the Atlantic for Fight Night 107 this Saturday, March 18, when it will set up at the O2 Arena in London, U.K.
The host nation will be well represented throughout the event, including the main card, which features three British fighters competing over the course of four fights. The headliner, a light heavyweight clash, pits London’s own JimiManuwa against America’s Corey Anderson.
Since starting out in the UFC with a trio of wins, Manuwa has alternated victories and defeats over his last four bouts, most recently besting Ovince Saint Preux. Anderson, meanwhile, has found success in four of his last five outings, and he is coming off a TKO win over Sean O’Connell.
In the co-main event, Iceland’s Gunnar Nelson takes on the American Alan Jouban. Nelson has won two of his last four, while Jouban enters the scrap riding a three-fight win streak.
The full Fight Night 107 main card is as follows:
JimiManuwa vs. Corey Anderson
Gunnar Nelson vs. Alan Jouban
Brad Pickett vs. Marlon Vera
Arnold Allen vs. MakwanAmirkhani
The Bleacher Report team has assembled to provide you with our predictions for each of these contests. Read on for what I like to think of as our collective and considerable wisdom.
The UFC takes its Octagon across the Atlantic for Fight Night 107 this Saturday, March 18, when it will set up at the O2 Arena in London, U.K.
The host nation will be well represented throughout the event, including the main card, which features three …
The UFC takes its Octagon across the Atlantic for Fight Night 107 this Saturday, March 18, when it will set up at the O2 Arena in London, U.K.
The host nation will be well represented throughout the event, including the main card, which features three British fighters competing over the course of four fights. The headliner, a light heavyweight clash, pits London’s own JimiManuwa against America’s Corey Anderson.
Since starting out in the UFC with a trio of wins, Manuwa has alternated victories and defeats over his last four bouts, most recently besting Ovince Saint Preux. Anderson, meanwhile, has found success in four of his last five outings, and he is coming off a TKO win over Sean O’Connell.
In the co-main event, Iceland’s Gunnar Nelson takes on the American Alan Jouban. Nelson has won two of his last four, while Jouban enters the scrap riding a three-fight win streak.
The full Fight Night 107 main card is as follows:
JimiManuwa vs. Corey Anderson
Gunnar Nelson vs. Alan Jouban
Brad Pickett vs. Marlon Vera
Arnold Allen vs. MakwanAmirkhani
The Bleacher Report team has assembled to provide you with our predictions for each of these contests. Read on for what I like to think of as our collective and considerable wisdom.
On Saturday, the UFC returns to London, a city that has long been a hotbed of the sport. That in itself comes as no surprise. British fans flock to fill arenas whenever the UFC comes to town, often buying tickets before the fight card has even been ann…
On Saturday, the UFC returns to London, a city that has long been a hotbed of the sport. That in itself comes as no surprise. British fans flock to fill arenas whenever the UFC comes to town, often buying tickets before the fight card has even been announced. Their appetite for UFC action remains, apparently, insatiable.
What is a surprising, however, is UFC’s decision to provide these loyal, rabid fans with an afterthought of a show. Even the main event, a battle between mid-tier light heavyweights JimiManuwa (16-2) and Corey Anderson (10-2), is little better than a time filler.
Has it come to this? Has UFC’s continued expansion and obligations to both television and the hardcore fans who’ve purchased their streaming Fight Pass service doomed fans to a succession of lackluster cards from now until eternity?
Veteran MMA scribes Jonathan Snowden and Chad Dundas tackle the question that will make or break an entire sport.
Jonathan Snowden: London is one of the world’s great cities. When I lived in Europe, we would fly there once every couple of months to soak it all in. There were unparalleled cultural opportunities and a diverse, interesting population, with people from all over the world who had come together to make their stand against ignorance and assorted nonsense. And also to drink beer. All the beer.
Suffice to say, I have strong feelings for London. But even if you don’t particularly care one way or another, it doesn’t really matter. Because, I think we can all agree, London deserves better than this abysmal UFC card.
Any place would.
Whether you live in L.A. (Los Angeles or Lower Alabama) or in the wild mountains of Montana, your town is too good for this dreadful show.
Every time I think the UFC has reached new lows, it manages to surprise me. The sport has been stretched thin, to the point of breaking. Stars are few and far between, and the generation that built the business is fading athletically. Their replacements, it seems, are making a fashionably late entrance.
I understand that intellectually. But my heart cries out all the same.
JimiManuwa—main eventer? Really? Arnold Allen vs. MakwanAmirkhani? I defy you to look me in the eye and pretend you know who those gentlemen are without a sneak peak at Tapology.
And they are on the main card!
Right now, the UFC has a market desperate for mixed martial arts. The O2 Arena, which attracts more paying fans than any other indoor stadium in the world, will be packed from floor to ceiling. People are buying this dreck.
But for how long?
Is this sustainable Chad? Can UFC continue to rely on its brand to sell an increasingly dismal product, both to fans overseas and the most hardcore fans in North America via UFC Fight Pass? At some point, the straw will pile up to the point the camel will have no choice but to collapse, right?
Chad Dundas: Even amid the trickle of lackluster fight cards the UFC has rolled out to begin 2017, this one stands out. Someday, people are going to be flipping through a stack (or an internet slideshow) of UFC event posters, will see the one juxtaposing the big glossy photos of Manuwa and Anderson and think, “Wait, there must be some mistake here.”
We’re still in the backwash of the UFC’s lucrative 2016, a year in which it fired a lot of promotional bullets in order to smash its own all-time annual pay-per-view sales record. At this point, though, it’s mid-March. The first quarter of the year is almost up, and yet a glance at the upcoming UFC schedule shows TV events headlined by Demetrious Johnson vs. Wilson Reis, Cub Swanson vs. ArtemLobov and Alexander Gustafsson vs. Glover Teixeira.
By the time we get through that stretch, it’ll be the end of May!
Granted, the mildly interesting UFC 210 (featuring Daniel Cormier’s light heavyweight title match against Anthony Johnson) is coming up on April 8, and then the fairly stacked two-title affair of UFC 211 on May 13, but still—this is a bad stretch for UFC.
It makes you feel for fans in London who jumped in early to buy tickets to see Fight Night 107 live, only to get walloped with a card that looks like something from the regional independent circuit that ought to air on AXS TV.
And you’re right, if I were a hardcore fan who was either attending this event or continuing to shell out a monthly subscription fee for Fight Pass, I’d be getting a little uneasy right about now.
If I were that fan, I’d love to know the long term strategy here. So far, new UFC owners at WME-IMG appear to be hacking away at the fight company’s roster—letting legitimate prospects like KyojiHoriguchi and Nikita Krylov walk—while serving up a menu of fight cards that will be remembered as one of the worst in the UFC’s modern history.
It would be nice at some point for somebody to let us know where all this is headed, lest those hardcore fans do indeed start thinking about voting with their wallets.
What do you think, Jonathan, will the UFC turn it around in the second half of 2017? Or should we all start getting used to Manuwa vs. Anderson as the new normal?
Jonathan: I wish I had comfort to provide, but considering the state of the world these days, I’m fresh out. Perhaps, in some weird way, UFC is mimicking the broader world, replacing former matchmaker Joe Silva’s carefully considered order with random corporate chaos.
Of course, UFC already had the loud-mouthed Twitter troll as president—so maybe life is imitating art after all?
Anyway, to actually answer your question, I’m afraid that things may not be getting better, because I’ve heard this song before. WME-IMG has a corporation’s soul. It’s dark, shriveled and crying out for cash like a zombie with eyes only for human brains.
WME-IMG, no doubt, sees how big boxing shows operate, with big main events surrounded by dreck and random television cards filled with prospects and the occasional has-been. They know that fight cards don’t have to be good to sell in quantity and have likely grasped that UFC could achieve the same financial return with much less effort and expense.
They’ve perhaps even intuited Silva and former UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta’s darkest fiscal secret—they were fight fans who wanted to create the kind of quality top-to-bottom shows fanboys love. WME-IMG doesn’t have love in its heart for great fights. Heck, despite what Citizens United told us, corporations don’t even have hearts. They are driven by profit, loss and justifying the $4 billion paid for UFC last year. Quality is not job one.
As long as UFC fans in London and elsewhere are willing to pay a premium for the UFC brand no matter how obscure the fighters entering the Octagon are, WME-IMG will be happy to oblige them. If the UFC can garner consistent ratings with relative unknowns, the bean counters will be pleased to water down the shows until they are little more than gruel.
The power here rests with the consumer. After all, if you squint hard enough, you can find reasons to pretend everything is OK. Look, it’s Tim Johnson, an enormous man with a mustache. Is that Gunnar Nelson? Yes please.
Are fight fans willing to watch this thing become boxing, aesthetically, if not in the cage? How hard are you willing to squint in order to pretend this is still the sport we fell in love with?
Chad: Honestly, man, I’m not sure I’m willing to squint much more than I already do.
The fabric of this sport is vastly different now than when I found it. Things like the continually ballooning live event schedule, Reebok outfitting deal, Fight Pass and what in retrospect was a network television deal that asked the UFC to churn out an insane amount of content have all changed it—and not much of it for the better, in my opinion.
The vision you provide for the future of the sport is a sobering one, and all I can say is that I hope you’re wrong. I was initially bullish about the prospect of the WME-IMG era in the UFC, but the first few months of 2017 have moved me squarely into the undecided column.
I still think our new overlords can make this sport better. I’m just no longer sure they will.
Which brings us back to Manuwa vs. Anderson as an even partially defensible main event inside the Octagon.
To date, I’ve been astonished at the willingness of the sport’s hardcore fanbase to accept the many machinations of the UFC, fork over the consistently rising financial burden of being a fan and follow the twisting threads of an increasingly impenetrable schedule and do nothing but shower praise and line up for more.
How long can people keep up that level of enthusiasm? I’m guessing right up to the point that fights like Manuwa vs. Anderson become the rule instead of the exception.
I think fans are willing to sit through the doldrums of early 2017, but they’re damn sure hoping for a rebound.
But if what we’re seeing here is regression to a new, disappointing standard instead of a monetary lull in the action, I can’t imagine even the UFC’s most devout followers staying engaged forever. At least not to the level they currently are. Myself included.
Jonathan Snowden and Chad Dundas cover combat sports for Bleacher Report.
Fighters face off prior to the UFC event which is set to take place at London’s O2 Arena in England this Saturday, March 18. The headline fight promises to be a competitive light heavyweight bout between Londoner Jimi Manuwa and TUF 19 winner Corey Anderson. SBG Ireland’s Icelandic submission maestro Gunnar Nelson faces Alan Jouban in […]
Fighters face off prior to the UFC event which is set to take place at London’s O2 Arena in England this Saturday, March 18. The headline fight promises to be a competitive light heavyweight bout between Londoner Jimi Manuwa and TUF 19 winner Corey Anderson. SBG Ireland’s Icelandic submission maestro Gunnar Nelson faces Alan Jouban in […]
On Saturday, the UFC returns to London, a city that has long been a hotbed of the sport. That in itself comes as no surprise. British fans flock to fill arenas whenever the UFC comes to town, often buying tickets before the fight card has even been announced. Their appetite for UFC action remains, apparently, insatiable.