Even if you aren’t looking forward to the main event of Saturday’s UFC 132: Faber vs. Cruz this upcoming long weekend, there is much more to excite you about this card even with BJ Penn and Jon Fitch out with injuries.
Check out what goodness 132 has in store for you and the remainder of the countdown show after the jump.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/IronForgesIron)
Even if you aren’t looking forward to the main event of Saturday’s UFC 132: Faber vs. Cruz this upcoming long weekend, there is much more to excite you about this card even with BJ Penn and Jon Fitch out with injuries.
First you have the “Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robot” competition between Wanderlei Silva and Chris Leben. What’s not to love about watching these two go balls to the wall trying to knock the other’s head off?
Then you have Tito Ortiz’sretirement party possible last UFC fight against Ryan Bader. Tito claims he’s in better shape and healthier physically than he’s been in years, which will dramatically reduce his options when it comes to excuse-making after the bout, so he better hope he wins, especially when he calimed in the preview show that “he’s fighting for his legacy, his family and his life” against Bader.
You’ve also got a sure-to-please welterweight match-up between undefeated (sorry Karo) Korean fighter Dong Hyun Kim and Carlos Condit. When have we ever seen either of these two fight conservatively or boring? I can’t remember either, but it must not be often if at all or else we’d know it.
Even the prelim card is worth watching.
George Sotiropoulos vs. Dos Anjos probably would have been on the main card in place of Denis Siver-Matt Wiman if G-Sots hadn’t lost to Siver in his last bout at UFC 127. And Shane Roller vs. Melvin Guillard has the potential for either Submission of the Night or Knockout of the Night, depending on who wins it.
Even further down on the card are guys like former WEC featherweight champ Brian Bowles and undefeated prospect Brad Tavares. The card is stacked from top to bottom as is the preview show, which is well worth watching.
Check out the rest of it below, courtesy of our friend Zombie Prophet from IronForgesIron.com.
UFC 132: Cruz vs. Faber 2 features some incredibly exciting fights throughout the entire card. This isn’t just a night to order the Pay-Per-View—this is a night to sit down for six hours and watch the preliminary fights on Facebook and Spike TV a…
UFC 132: Cruz vs. Faber 2 features some incredibly exciting fights throughout the entire card. This isn’t just a night to order the Pay-Per-View—this is a night to sit down for six hours and watch the preliminary fights on Facebook and Spike TV as well.
While there are intriguing match-ups throughout, including a Bantamweight title fight, this card, more than any other, will seriously alter the Lightweight Division.
Dennis Siver vs. Matt Wiman, Melvin Guillard vs. Shane Roller, George Sotiropoulos vs. Rafael dos Anjos and Anthony Njokuani vs. Andre Winner are all fights that contain potential major players in the division.
I’ve made my predictions already, but let’s take a look at who could potentially match-up the best with the top of the division.
(Wanderlei Silva: You couldn’t last five minutes in this man’s world.)
UFC 132: Cruz vs. Faber goes down Saturday night in Las Vegas, and in case you’re feeling some MMA fatigue after five consecutive weeks of events, let us remind you — this card has the potential to be a real son-of-a-bitch. Familiarize yourself with the lineup here, and get your juices flowing again by watching some career highlights from the fighters on the card. Enjoy…
(Ryan Bader vs. Keith Jardine, UFC 110, 2/21/10)
(Melvin Guillard vs. Dennis Siver, UFC 86, 7/5/08)
(Wanderlei Silva: You couldn’t last five minutes in this man’s world.)
UFC 132: Cruz vs. Faber goes down Saturday night in Las Vegas, and in case you’re feeling some MMA fatigue after five consecutive weeks of events, let us remind you — this card has the potential to be a real son-of-a-bitch. Familiarize yourself with the lineup here, and get your juices flowing again by watching some career highlights from the fighters on the card. Enjoy…
(Ryan Bader vs. Keith Jardine, UFC 110, 2/21/10)
(Melvin Guillard vs. Dennis Siver, UFC 86, 7/5/08)
(Wanderlei Silva vs. Kazushi Sakuraba, PRIDE Total Elimination 2003, 8/10/03)
(Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock 2, UFC 61, 7/8/06; fight starts at the 10:18 mark)
(Carlos Condit vs. Renato “Charuto” Verissimo, Rumble on the Rock 8, 1/20/06)
(Urijah Faber vs. Dominick Cruz, WEC 26, 3/24/07; click image to go to video)
(Shane Roller vs. Thiago Tavares, UFC Live: Sanchez vs. Kampmann, 3/3/11)
(Chris Leben vs. Terry Martin, UFC Fight Night 11, 9/19/07)
(Anthony Njokuani vs. Chris Horodecki, WEC 45, 12/19/09)
Filed under: UFCLAS VEGAS — Melvin Guillard has his own way of doing things. Even normal things — simple things, at least in the world of pro fighting — quickly become a canvas for him to work on. Take Wednesday afternoon’s UFC 132 open workouts, fo…
LAS VEGAS — Melvin Guillard has his own way of doing things. Even normal things — simple things, at least in the world of pro fighting — quickly become a canvas for him to work on. Take Wednesday afternoon’s UFC 132 open workouts, for instance.
Before stepping on the mats to show off his skills for media and fans, Guillard first stripped down to his underwear so that he could be lathered head to toe in…something. As he stood there in a ballroom at the MGM Grand with his eyes closed and arms out wide, getting oiled up in the middle of the afternoon as if there weren’t a room full of strangers gawking at him, it was plain to see that this was not a man who spends all that much time worrying what people think about him.
If he was, he probably wouldn’t have mentioned to reporters that his plans after he retires from professional fighting include playing on the PGA tour. As in, the golf one. And no, he’s not joking.
“People laugh at me all the time,” said Guillard, who claimed that, despite only playing golf for about a year, he now shoots in the 80s. “If y’all see my golf game you wouldn’t be laughing, because I will smoke y’all out there.”
Confidence, in case you couldn’t already tell, is something Guillard has never lacked. He had it on season two of The Ultimate Fighter, back when he had more raw talent than polish. He had it through his up-and-down years after the show, when he’d mix flashes of fighting brilliance with almost pathologically self-sabotaging acts both in and out of the cage.
Now he finally seems to have pulled it all together, and with his current four-fight win streak comes a matching ego. So what if he’s fighting Shane Roller on the Spike TV prelims of this card, and right after what would seem to be a much more high profile win over Evan Dunham in January? Regardless of where he may be in the pecking order at any given time, Guillard still has no problem declaring himself the best lightweight in the world.
“I can sit here and say that from my heart and from my soul,” he said. “I know I’m the best 155er. I know when guys are scheduled to fight me, I know they don’t want that fight. A lot of times, their managers probably go other routes of wanting to fight other guys. I’m the one guy that fighters right now don’t want to fight, because this is my time. I’m at the peak of my career, and I’m not even in my prime yet. I just hit 28. I still haven’t gotten old man strength yet. Right now, every fight’s going to be tough, and I’m not knocking any fighter in my weight class, but I’m one tough dude, man. I’ve taken my beatings. I’ve taken my lashes. I’ve been knocked down. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let anybody knock me down again in my life.”
But the fact that Guillard thinks so highly of his own skills only makes it more perplexing that he’s one of the few UFC lightweights on a win streak who isn’t clamoring for a title shot every time the mic gets passed his way. Not that he’d mind one, of course, but he admitted that he’s almost purposely put those aspirations aside for the moment.
Instead, his focus is simple: he just wants to stick around.
“You see a lot of guys come and go,” Guillard said. “They get cut all the time. I think a lot of guys are worried too much about title fights and winning belts. I care more about keeping my job and always being able to give you guys great fights. I always ask myself, how would I feel if a kid walked up to me and said, ‘Hey when’s your next fight in the UFC?’ and I’m not in the UFC anymore. That’s kind of heartbreaking as a person. You feel like a failure. I try my hardest to not worry about the hype and title fights and rankings. I just want to keep fighting, bring you guys great fights, and I treat every fight like a title fight.”
Fighting a guy like Roller — who was a good-but-not-great WEC lightweight before debuting in the UFC with a knockout of Thiago Tavares — may not be the kind of fight that vaults a guy immediately into the title picture. It might even be a bout where he has more to lose than to gain.
But Guillard? He just wants to fight and keep fighting as often as possible, he said. Other people may worry about getting the title shot as soon as possible, but he isn’t like other people.
The UFC lightweight division is at a standstill. With champion Frankie Edgar and top contender Gray Maynard sidelined with injuries, there is no clear direction for some of the division’s brightest stars. Most would agree that Jim Miller is currently a…
The UFC lightweight division is at a standstill.
With champion Frankie Edgar and top contender Gray Maynard sidelined with injuries, there is no clear direction for some of the division’s brightest stars.
Most would agree that Jim Miller is currently ahead of the herd. He is set to face former WEC lightweight champion Ben Henderson on August 14 in a possible title eliminator bout.
With no timeline set for Edgar or Maynard’s return, the future remains uncertain. Even if Miller defeated Henderson, he would likely be forced to choose between taking a fight or going on an extended hiatus and waiting for a title shot.
What can the UFC do to sort out the excessively stacked and talented 155-pound division? UFC lightweight contender Melvin Guillard has an idea.
“Edgar and Maynard still haven’t fought again, so right now, everybody’s at a standstill,” Guillard told ESPN.com. “The only solution I see is them doing a 155-pound grand prix tournament, and putting everybody in brackets and weeding the losers to giving a true No. 1 contender a fight here in the next year or so.”
With the success of the ongoing Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix, UFC President Dana White could entertain the idea. The lightweight division is arguably the most stacked in the entire sport. With Strikeforce onboard and their partnership with Dream, fans can also hope for cross-promotional entries of upper-echelon talent like Gilbert Melendez and Shinya Aoki.
What about a B.J. Penn return?
A lightweight tourney would probably peak the Hawaiian’s interest. Former two-time title contender Kenny Florian would be another name to consider, but he is apparently next in line to challenge Jose Aldo for the featherweight title.
“I honestly felt after the [Evan] Dunham fight that it was going to move me a lot higher,” Guillard said. “But they’re still ranking guys like Dennis Siver ahead of me, and I knocked this chump out in less than two minutes. He even called me out again, trying to fight me again.”
Siver entered the title mix after securing major victories over George Sotiropoulos and Spencer Fisher. Guillard doesn’t mind fighting guys like Siver and his upcoming opponent Shane Roller, but he is looking for fights that will further his position in the lightweight division.
“Honestly, you guys and all the fans are going to be like, ‘well, we kind of knew that was going to happen…why was Shane Roller even in the cage with Melvin?’ So, it’s just one of those fights where, for me, it doesn’t make sense…but it always makes sense when you’re in there to make a paycheck,” said Guillard.
“As far as I’m concerned, that’s all it’s going to do for me is bless me with another paycheck. But as far as moving me up the rankings and making me more elite? I don’t think that’s going to do anything.”
The UFC lightweight division is at a standstill. With champion Frankie Edgar and top contender Gray Maynard sidelined with injuries, there is no clear direction for some of the division’s brightest stars. Most would agree that Jim Miller is currently a…
The UFC lightweight division is at a standstill.
With champion Frankie Edgar and top contender Gray Maynard sidelined with injuries, there is no clear direction for some of the division’s brightest stars.
Most would agree that Jim Miller is currently ahead of the herd. He is set to face former WEC lightweight champion Ben Henderson on August 14 in a possible title eliminator bout.
With no timeline set for Edgar or Maynard’s return, the future remains uncertain. Even if Miller defeated Henderson, he would likely be forced to choose between taking a fight or going on an extended hiatus and waiting for a title shot.
What can the UFC do to sort out the excessively stacked and talented 155-pound division? UFC lightweight contender Melvin Guillard has an idea.
“Edgar and Maynard still haven’t fought again, so right now, everybody’s at a standstill,” Guillard told ESPN.com. “The only solution I see is them doing a 155-pound grand prix tournament, and putting everybody in brackets and weeding the losers to giving a true No. 1 contender a fight here in the next year or so.”
With the success of the ongoing Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix, UFC President Dana White could entertain the idea. The lightweight division is arguably the most stacked in the entire sport. With Strikeforce onboard and their partnership with Dream, fans can also hope for cross-promotional entries of upper-echelon talent like Gilbert Melendez and Shinya Aoki.
What about a B.J. Penn return?
A lightweight tourney would probably peak the Hawaiian’s interest. Former two-time title contender Kenny Florian would be another name to consider, but he is apparently next in line to challenge Jose Aldo for the featherweight title.
“I honestly felt after the [Evan] Dunham fight that it was going to move me a lot higher,” Guillard said. “But they’re still ranking guys like Dennis Siver ahead of me, and I knocked this chump out in less than two minutes. He even called me out again, trying to fight me again.”
Siver entered the title mix after securing major victories over George Sotiropoulos and Spencer Fisher. Guillard doesn’t mind fighting guys like Siver and his upcoming opponent Shane Roller, but he is looking for fights that will further his position in the lightweight division.
“Honestly, you guys and all the fans are going to be like, ‘well, we kind of knew that was going to happen…why was Shane Roller even in the cage with Melvin?’ So, it’s just one of those fights where, for me, it doesn’t make sense…but it always makes sense when you’re in there to make a paycheck,” said Guillard.
“As far as I’m concerned, that’s all it’s going to do for me is bless me with another paycheck. But as far as moving me up the rankings and making me more elite? I don’t think that’s going to do anything.”
LAS VEGAS — 