(Rousimar Palhares finishes Lucio Linhares at UFC 107 last December. Five of Palhares’s last seven wins have come via heel-hook submission. Photo courtesy of MMAWeekly)
With Alan Belcher‘s main event fight against Demian Maia at UFC Fight Night 22 (September 15, Austin) nixed due to an eye injury, it’s now being reported that the Nate Marquardt vs. Rousimar Palhares feature scheduled for UFC 118 (August 28, Boston) will be pushed back two and a half weeks to serve as the Austin card’s headliner. Maia hasn’t been officially dropped from the UFN 22 lineup yet, though it seems likely that he’ll get a replacement opponent on a future event.
As for UFC 118, some shifting will need to be done to fill the empty main card slot, and potentially fill the hole that the replacement could create in the Spike TV Prelim broadcast. The lineup currently looks like this…
Submissions can provoke a number of reactions. For those, especially of understanding of the intricacies of the back-and-forth battle of grips, reactions and setups, the finish can be a beautiful thing. Other times, the objective of trapping your opponent in a potentially bone-crunching position is cringe-inducing. With that in mind, we decided to split our midseason submission award into three categories.