UFC 195 is a mere day away. The leader of MMA ended its 2015 campaign on a strong note and kicks off 2016 in much the same way.
UFC welterweight champion Robbie Lawler puts his gold on the line against No. 4-ranked contender Carlos Condit in the main e…
UFC 195 is a mere day away. The leader of MMA ended its 2015 campaign on a strong note and kicks off 2016 in much the same way.
UFC welterweight champion Robbie Lawler puts his gold on the line against No. 4-ranked contender Carlos Condit in the main event.
In the co-main event, No. 2-ranked heavyweight contender Andrei Arlovski and No. 3-ranked StipeMiocic are set to do battle. These bouts come after the other 10 that fill out this fight card, and Bleacher Report will have it covered wall-to-wall.
First up? The weigh-in. All fighters will tip the scale at 7 p.m. ET on Friday evening to make the bout official. Come back for live updates from the UFC 195 weigh-in.
The UFC begins 2016 with a tantalizing card from Las Vegas on Saturday for UFC 195. Welterweight champion “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler will defend his title against former interim champion “The Natural Born Killer” Carlos Condit.
In the co-main event, two …
The UFC begins 2016 with a tantalizing card from Las Vegas on Saturday for UFC 195. Welterweight champion “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler will defend his title against former interim champion “The Natural Born Killer” Carlos Condit.
In the co-main event, two powerful heavyweight contenders will square off for a chance to challenge for the UFC Heavyweight title. StipeMiocic faces “The Pitbull” Andrei Arlovski in what could be a destructive bout. Here’s a look at the viewing information and predictions for the entire card.
Main Card (Pay-per-view, 10 p.m. ET)
Champ Robbie Lawler vs. Carlos Condit – for welterweight title – Condit by TKO
Andrei Arlovski vs. StipeMiocic – Arlovski by TKO
Lorenz Larkin vs. Albert Tumenov – Larkin by TKO
Diego Brandao vs. Brian Ortega – Ortega by decision
Tony Sims vs. Abel Trujillo – Trujillo by KO
Preliminary Card (FOX Sports 1, 8 p.m. ET)
MasanoriKanehara vs. Michael McDonald – McDonald by TKO
Nina Ansaroff vs. Justine Kish – Kish by decision
Drew Dober vs. Scott Holtzman – Holtzman by submission
Alex Morono vs. Kyle Noke – Noke by TKO
Preliminary Card (UFC Fight Pass, 6:30 p.m. ET)
Joseph Duffy vs. Dustin Poirier – Duffy by TKO
Joe Soto vs. MichinoriTanaka – Soto by decision
Edgar Garcia vs. Sheldon Westcott – Garcia by TKO
Predictions for Four Most Interesting Fights on the Card
Duffy over Poirier
Dustin Poirier was supposed to meet Joseph Duffy in the headline bout at UFC Fight Night 76, but the latter was scratched because of injury. The two talented lightweights will get it on in the featured UFC Fight Pass prelims on Saturday’s card.
Since moving up to 155 pounds, Poirier has looked like a new man. He’s won two fights in a row, finishing both by KO/TKO. Duffy is a different breed of lightweight than the ones Poirier has faced since joining the division.
The Ireland native is a physical grappler with excellent reach and length. He’s also the last man to defeat ConorMcGregor. Duffy submitted the current UFC featherweight champion back in 2010.
At 5’10”, Duffy is one of the few fighters in the weight region that Poirier won’t be able to control with his long frame. Poirier may have a slight edge on the ground, as he is a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu compared to the blue belt Duffy holds, but the difference won’t be significant enough.
Duffy’s strength and speed advantage as a striker will lead to a second-round TKO victory.
McDonald over Kanehara
After being sidelined almost two years with a hand injury, Michael McDonald is set to step back into the Octagon. His opponent, Masanori Kanehara, is an exciting Japanese fighter, but to put it plain, he’s going to get smashed on Saturday.
Assuming McDonald isn’t terribly rusty, his striking prowess will overcome Kanehara inside the first round. McDonald is too strong and accurate with his punches (42 percent striking accuracy, per FightMetric.com).
He won’t waste time disposing of Kanehara in an effort to emphatically announce his return to the UFC bantamweight division.
Miocic over Arlovski
Funny things happen in heavyweight bouts, but you can almost bet someone’s going to get knocked out in the co-main event. Neither Miocic nor Arlovski are big on grappling. Miocic does average 2.16 takedown attempts per fight, but he does his best work during stand-up exchanges.
While he’s dangerous as a striker, Miocic has had some issues protecting himself against shots. He’s defending just 52 percent of the strikes thrown at him. That could be a major problem against a big puncher like Arlovski.
Call him lucky, fortunate, opportunistic or anything else, but Arlovski has done nothing but win since he returned to the UFC in 2014. Many of us have simply been waiting for him to lose—officially (he deserved the loss when he defeated Brendan Schaub by decision in his UFC return)—but he keeps putting numbers in the win column.
Against a talented, but inconsistent opponent like Miocic, Arlovski is the pick to win again in this one. I’m calling the Pitbull for the win via third-round TKO.
Condit over Lawler
MMA History Today is one of many expecting the UFC 195 main event to be an epic clash:
It’s unlikely Lawler and Condit disappoint, but that’s not a good look for the champion. Lawler has been a great champion, but his reign has to come to an end at some point. There are so many legitimate contenders at 170 pounds, and Lawler has been in quite a few wars. His two battles with Johny Hendricks and his career-shortening masterpiece against Rory MacDonald will take a toll on him at some point.
Condit will bring him another one, and this time, Lawler won’t be the last man standing. Condit is hungry, skilled and very tough. He’s three inches taller and more talented using his feet as weapons with kicks.
Expect Condit to hurt Lawler with leg kicks and high kicks to the head. Lawler is as tough as they come, but Condit will wear him down and finish him in the fourth round in what will prove to be another classic UFC welterweight title bout.
Even longtime mixed martial arts fans might have trouble remembering their first exposure to Robbie Lawler and Carlos Condit. It was as if suddenly, they parachuted into the fight landscape as projects designed to strip fighting to its most intense and…
Even longtime mixed martial arts fans might have trouble remembering their first exposure to Robbie Lawler and Carlos Condit. It was as if suddenly, they parachuted into the fight landscape as projects designed to strip fighting to its most intense and basic essence.
This is the polite way of saying it. In more colloquial terms, they are a couple of savages—two of the purest fighters who have graced the Octagon.
In the wake of the seismic aftershocks left by Holly Holm’s thunderkick and Conor McGregor’s smashing left, the fight world seems full of possibilities but short on focus. We’re still in the afterglow. That is why Lawler-Condit is perfect for this moment in time. Who better to re-center our attention than a pair of fighters who have made careers out of ferocity over flash?
Ronda Rousey was a one-woman event. Conor McGregor is a one-man show. Those phenomenons have their places, and in some ways prove that the entertainment sub-category of sports can be bigger than the sport itself.
But Lawler-Condit is back to basics—a renewal of why we watch.
Will it draw huge numbers? Probably not. But should it? If you truly like fighting, this matchup between two men with a combined 87.5 percent finishing rate should have youpositively giddy with anticipation.
Lawler’s sledgehammer fists against Condit’s elbows of doom. What’s not to love, except for the lack of attention?
“Nothing bothers me. I don’t care about being overshadowed,” Lawler said during a recent media call. “I like creeping up on people, being the quiet guy just coming to fight, going to war, coming to battle. I’ve never been in this game to be in the spotlight. I’m in this game because I love it. I love fighting, I love competing, I love pushing myself. When push comes to shove, I’m always on the stage.
“On the biggest stage, I’m going to be the guy who’s showcasing my skill, and I’m going to shine bright. That’s what I’m focused on. I’m not worried about what I’m not getting, I’m worried about what I’m going to get. Everyone else is doing great things, but so am I. This sport is going to continue to grow. There’s going to be different stars out there, and I’ll get my chance to shine.”
At 33 years old, Lawler (26-10, 1 no-contest) is not old, but just going by the numberssuggests he’s probably on the back side of the bell curve and has been for a while, according to analysis provided by Erik Malinowski of Wired. That makes his recent revival all the more outstanding.
For a time it seemed he would be some kind of cautionary tale, a one-time wunderkind who made it to the UFC by 20 but never quite reached his rumored potential. And then came his return to the UFC, and everything changed. His new camp rounded out his game, his fight IQ caught up to his athletic skills and all of the potential exploded to the surface.
The refined package boasts sublime striking, an active ground game and overhauled wrestling skills that allow him to boast the highest takedown percentage, 80 percent, in UFC history, according to Fight Metric.
“I think he’s definitely the most dangerous guy I’ve ever faced,” Condit (30-8) said during a media call. “He’s super skilled, but he’s also got the power and experience—and he’s a smart fighter—so I’m going to have to be on my A-game.”
The same goes for Lawler.
Condit is cerebral and measured—he recently acknowledged his use of analytics in his fight preparation, which is a rarity in MMA circles—but he also has the propensity to shuck all that and fight from the heart. To see that, all you have to do is witness his last-minute finish of Rory MacDonald in a fight he was losing, his flying knee KO of Dong Hyun Kim and his high-noon left-hook showdown with Dan Hardy.
The theme of mano a mano is prevalent in their careers.
For Lawler, just think of that moment when he and MacDonald stared each other downat the end of Round 4 of their grueling bout last July. His lip sliced in half…his body painted in blood, it sent chills down the spine of a sport.
The intensity of the fight just seems magnified with these two.
One is a savage puncher; the other is a terrifying finisher. Simon Head of the Sun has already projected this bout has fight of the year written all over it:
Strip away all the flash of promotion, remove all the pomp and dim the bright lights and these two capture the essence of what professional mixed martial arts is in a way few ever have.
“It’s a fight. They’re going to lock us in a cage and me and Robbie Lawler are going to try to kill each other,” Condit said during a Wednesday media workout. “I think we’re two of the most skilled guys in the division for sure, if not the sport, and I think we’re going to go in there and put on a display of violence and aggression that people won’t soon forget.”
Their records suggest that isn’t hyperbole, and besides, Condit isn’t the type for braggadocio.
It probably will be exactly what he says it will be, which means Robbie Lawler and Carlos Condit are about to write an ode to violence. It’s not the spectacle of a Ronda Rousey event or a Conor McGregor show, but for 25 minutes, it might be better.
This Saturday night will see a welterweight title matchup for the ages as champion Robbie Lawler defends his belt against the ultra-violent Carlos Condit at UFC 195.
It’s hard to make the argument that Condit’s recent work earned him the shot. He defea…
This Saturday night will see a welterweight title matchup for the ages as champion Robbie Lawler defends his belt against the ultra-violent Carlos Condit at UFC 195.
It’s hard to make the argument that Condit’s recent work earned him the shot. He defeated Thiago Alves, a respectable veteran but hardly an elite opponent, back in May and prior to that he had suffered a devastating knee injury against Tyron Woodley. His last winning streak culminated in a decision over Nick Diaz almost four years ago.
No, this matchup is all about violence. In the absence of a no-brainer top contender, the promise of an all-timer of an action fight between the always-exciting Lawler and the psychotically aggressive Condit was enough to convince the powers that be to forgo a strict view of the rankings and simply make the best possible fight.
This should be a doozy. Lawler has been on an incredible run since his return to the UFC in February 2013, winning seven of his eight fights. All of them have been entertaining, and the champion offers a frightening combination of raw power and striking craft that has rarely appeared in MMA.
Lawler has already accomplished remarkable things in the last three years, but a win over Condit would cement him as a welterweight champion to be remembered—a name to be mentioned in the same breath as Georges St-Pierre and Matt Hughes. For Condit, beating Lawler would finally make him the undisputed king—a title that has eluded him for his entire career.
Considering both fighters’ age—33 for Lawler and 31 for Condit—and 15 and 13 years of professional experience, respectively, the end of their prime years could be coming anytime. This fight offers fans potentially one last shot to see two of the most violent and dangerous fighters in the sport do their thing at an elite level.
The rest of the card offers a mixture of action fights and relevance.
In the co-main event, Stipe Miocic takes on Andrei Arlovski in what is likely to be a top contender matchup at heavyweight. Few would have thought that the venerable Arlovski, who last held a UFC title more than a decade ago, would find himself in position to fight for the belt in 2016.
On the action side, Albert Tumenov takes on Lorenz Larkin in an exceptional matchup of welterweight strikers. Tony Sims and Abel Trujillo open the main card in yet another fight that promises violence, while Diego Brandao and Brian Ortega will match their aggressive natures in a fantastic featherweight clash.
Even the undercard carries substantial interest. Joseph Duffy and Dustin Poirier will finally meet after Duffy’s flash knockout in sparring forced a last-minute cancellation of their scheduled October clash in Dublin. Unusually, this bout will take place on Fight Pass instead of Fox Sports 1 or the pay-per-view main card in an attempt to drive more viewers to the UFC’s proprietary platform.
UFC 194 was something, huh? The next pay-per-view event with the unenviable task of living up to that standard is UFC 195 on Saturday, January 2. The full card is as follows:
Robbie Lawler vs. Carlos Condit
Stipe Miocic vs. Andrei Arlovski &nbs…
UFC 194 was something, huh? The next pay-per-view event with the unenviable task of living up to that standard is UFC 195 on Saturday, January 2. The full card is as follows:
Robbie Lawler vs. Carlos Condit
StipeMiocic vs. Andrei Arlovski
Albert Tumenov vs. Lorenz Larkin
Diego Brandao vs. Brian Ortega
Michael McDonald vs. MasanoriKanehara
Justine Kish vs. Nina Ansaroff
Drew Dober vs. Scott Holtzman
Abel Trujillo vs. Tony Sims
Dustin Poirier vs. Joseph Duffy
Kelvin Gastelum vs. Kyle Noke
Joe Soto vs. MichinoriTanaka
Edgar Garcia vs. Sheldon Westcott
The bout order is currently unclear, so rather than the usual main card breakdown, we’re here to give you a quick rundown of each and every fight on the card. So buckle in, folks. While this card lacks the sheer star power of UFC 194, it still has a lot to look forward to.
MMA isn’t kind to its aging practitioners. Fighters who finds themselves on the wrong side of the aging curve are only a short punch or kick away from staring up at the rafters with a cage-side doctor’s flashlight shining in their faces.
Whether it’s C…
MMA isn’t kind to its aging practitioners. Fighters who finds themselves on the wrong side of the aging curve are only a short punch or kick away from staring up at the rafters with a cage-side doctor’s flashlight shining in their faces.
Whether it’s Chuck Liddell’s chin crumbling under the assault of Rashad Evans, Shogun Rua and Rich Franklin, or Anderson Silva’s body failing him twice against Chris Weidman, it couldn’t possibly be clearer that this sport has no margin for error as fighters lose a step.
That never-ending slide toward increasing danger and finally irrelevance is part of what makes UFC 195‘s ultra-violent title matchup between Robbie Lawler and Carlos Condit on January 2 so compelling.
At ages and levels of experience when most of their contemporaries have fallen off their peak form, Lawler and Condit aren’t just holding steady; they’re actively getting better in every phase of the game and putting their experience to good use in and out of the cage.
The champion has 37 fights under his belt in more than 14 years as a professional, and he turned 33 this year. Condit is 31, is a veteran of 38 bouts and just passed 13 years in professional MMA. Neither had an easy journey to the top: Lawler traded wins and losses in Icon Sport, Pride, EliteXC and Strikeforce for most of a decade after the UFC cut him, while Condit needed nearly seven years and 27 fights to get to the world’s biggest stage.
At this point, both fighters possess an air of self-awareness and confidence that only experience can provide. They’ve seen it all, done it all and heard every last hackneyed question about motivation and training and how this camp will be different from the last. Neither has time for that kind of promotional nonsense, and they can be understandably testy with questions they deem unworthy of their time.
“I don’t really pay much attention to that kind of stuff, who’s getting the next this or that,” said Lawler.
And that, in essence, is the charm of this fight. Neither man is much of a talker, but they’re both perfectly aware of the violence they bring with them into the cage, and that’s the selling point. “
“I’ve just got to be myself,” said Condit, and Lawler expressed the same sentiment.
Why bother with the bull if it’s not a real expression of personality? Condit and Lawler have made their names through sweat, blood and the generous, aesthetically pleasing application of their violent art, not by stringing together a few clever phrases and banking on charisma.
Condit makes no bones about it.
“I was impressed and I was entertained [by Lawler-MacDonald],” he said. “Fights like that, when I’ve been in those really gritty wars, that’s what I live for. The true fighters in this sport, we live for that stuff.”
To hear Lawler tell it, one of the best fights in UFC history was little more than a day at the office—a hard one, to be sure, but just a good day’s work, and an enjoyable one.
That is a genuine sentiment from both men. It’s easy to pay lip service to the idea of a knockdown, drag-out brawl or to claim that one wants nothing more than to go to war. Lawler and Condit have proved, time and again, that they’re perfectly able and content to drop bombs and wade through blood.
The particularly striking thing about the way Lawler and Condit discuss that kind of uber-violent fight is that they never frame it in terms of what fans or the promoters want to see. Conor McGregor, for example, promotes his fights in terms of putting on a show and getting the finish, and he has openly stated on several occasions that he wants his style to be exciting because that’s what both the audience and the UFC want.
For Lawler and Condit, that’s not the case. Putting on bloody, violent wars is simply a reflection of who they are, not a concession to the needs or desires of the crowd. If the audience happens to enjoy that, and it obviously does, then so much the better. Being fan favorites is a mere byproduct of their natural inclinations.
Both men know this and know themselves. There are no mysteries left at this stage of their careers: Condit and Lawler are dialed in. When asked whether they were affected by having to train hard and cut weight over the winter holidays, neither expressed even the slightest concern.
“I don’t gorge myself,” said Lawler.
Condit answered, “I’m gonna do what I was gonna do anyway.”
Their weight cuts have become less troublesome. “The more I do it, the easier it gets. Obviously the last two pounds aren’t fun, but I’m good with it,” Lawler said, and Condit echoed that he’s honed his method and protocol over many iterations.
This separates Lawler and Condit from many of their veteran peers. The 36-year-old Urijah Faber, for example, has spoken about the strain the cut to 135 pounds put on his body and his preference for fighting at featherweight if possible. Dan Henderson has recently gone back down to 185 pounds after a long stretch at light heavyweight, where he didn’t have to cut down.
Other veterans struggle to stay abreast of a constantly evolving sport, but Lawler and Condit explicitly embrace change.
“I’m a student of the game,” Lawler said. “I’m always trying to get better. Once your skills are sharpened, then you want to add new wrinkles. This is MMA: If you’re not evolving and getting better, you’re not gonna be around long.
Condit feels the same way: “Just because a musician writes a great album doesn’t mean they don’t want to continue to write great music. For me, this is a creative outlet. Sometimes, we’re trying to put together the same notes or the same techniques into different combinations to solve different problems.”
They’re smart, cerebral fighters, and these aren’t just nice sentiments: Both have made serious, demonstrable changes to their repertoires in the last several years.
Lawler’s game has improved dramatically since his return to the UFC, with some of the best defensive wrestling the sport has ever seen and a higher-output and more diverse striking game. His command of the intangibles of striking, such as rhythm and shot placement, is self-conscious and extraordinary.
Condit’s evolution has been subtler. His footwork and movement are better, his angles have improved, he’s sharper as a counterpuncher, and his relentlessly creative and unorthodox approach has become even more effective, as with the upward elbow that finished Thiago Alves last May. That perfectly placed shot took advantage of Alves’ tendency to lean to the right and showcases the thoroughness of Condit’s preparation.
UFC 195’s headliners fit neatly into a broader trend in the sport. Many veterans these days seem to be finding their peak form well into their 30s after more than a decade in the sport. Rafael dos Anjos ran through the stacked lightweight division as a 10-year veteran at the age of 30 to dominate Anthony Pettis and take the title, while Fabricio Werdum was 37 when he claimed the heavyweight strap.
Werdum, Dos Anjos, Condit and Lawler aren’t outliers. Faber is still one of the best bantamweights in the world at 36 and after 12 years of professional experience. Michael Bisping is better than ever at 36 and 11 years as a pro. Demian Maia has a decade under his belt and has gone 6-2 in the same stacked division as Lawler and Condit.
The list goes on, but the point is clear: Healthy living and smart training can extend a fighter’s prime years. Lawler and Condit are both uncommonly durable—they’ve suffered one clean knockout and one injury TKO between them in a combined 74 fights—but both have explicitly embraced a more measured approach to training.
“I listen to my body,” said Condit. “A lot of my strength and conditioning is geared around keeping me together…so it doesn’t spiral out of control to the point where we have to pull out of a fight.”
That’s the attitude of someone who knows just how thin the margin of error is when the wear and tear of more than a decade hangs on his shoulders every time he goes into the gym.
The thumb injury that forced Lawler out of the initially scheduled bout with Condit at UFC 193, for example, was actually a re-injury. He first hurt it about a decade ago, and it popped again during a wrestling practice.
Lawler’s understated verdict? “It’s a weird-looking thumb.”
When you’ve been around MMA for as long as Lawler and Condit have, you’re going to have a few distinctively mangled body parts.
Father Time waits for no fighter, and the aging process in combat sports is rarely pretty. At least for now, however, Lawler and Condit are holding strong and benefiting from their nearly 30 years of combined experience.
The UFC begins 2016 with a tantalizing card from 
