Tag: UFC Fight Night 26

UFC on FX 1: Preview, Fight Card, TV Info, Predictions and More

A busy week in the sport of mixed martial arts figures to get wild with the UFC’s debut on FX this Friday night with Melvin Guillard challenging Jim Miller in the main event. Guillard was making some noise in the lightweight division last year bef…

A busy week in the sport of mixed martial arts figures to get wild with the UFC’s debut on FX this Friday night with Melvin Guillard challenging Jim Miller in the main event. 

Guillard was making some noise in the lightweight division last year before losing to Joe Lauzon at UFC 136. He will get his chance to prove that was just a fluke against Miller, who is coming off a loss of his own last August. 

Miller would have been in line for a title shot if he had defeated Benson Henderson, but was clearly overmatched in that fight. Now he must get back on track against the quick-striking Guillard in his first-ever main event. 

 

Where: Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, TN

 

When: Friday, Jan. 20 at 6:00 p.m. EDT

 

Watch: Preliminary card starts at 6:00 p.m. EDT on Fuel TV, main card starts at 9:00 p.m. EDT on FX

 

Fight Card


Main Card on FX

Lightweight bout: Melvin Guillard vs. Jim Miller

Welterweight bout: Duane Ludwig vs. Josh Neer

Bantamweight bout: Mike Easton vs. Jared Papazian

Heavyweight bout: Pat Barry vs. Christian Morecraft

 

Preliminary Card of Fuel TV

Middleweight bout: Jorge Rivera vs. Eric Schafer

Lightweight bout: Kamal Shalorus vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov

Welterweight bout: Charlie Brenneman vs. Daniel Roberts

Lightweight bout: Fabricio Camoes vs. Reza Madadi

Featherweight bout: Daniel Pineda vs. Pat Schilling

Bantamweight bout: Joseph Sandoval vs. Nick Denis

 

Guillard’s Keys To Victory

Use efficient, strong strikes in the stand-up, and avoid going to the ground at all costs. 

Guillard’s biggest problem throughout his career has been trying to defend himself on the ground. When his opponents work him to the mat, it is a virtual certainty that they will lock in a submission because he has no way to prevent it. 

What he does do well is strike. He has a lot of power in his punches and is more than capable of knocking out Miller because he is so strong and quick with his strikes. He will need to be precise in this fight in order to walk away victorious. 

 

Miller’s Keys To Victory

Don’t try to stand and trade, take the fight to the ground as soon as possible. 

What makes the main event so compelling is how different they are. While Guillard gets by with his stand-up game, Miller wants to work the fight to the ground. 

Of Miller’s 20 career victories, 11 have come via submission. He knows that the best way to frustrate Guillard is to get him down to the mat, because once he is there, he has no way of stopping anything that happens. 

 

What They Are Saying

Melvin Guillard has undergone a lot of changes in preparation for this fight. The biggest one was switching from Greg Jackson’s camp to Blackzilian. He discussed the move with MMAWeekly.com and said that he expects his decision to pay off in a big way. 

“As fighters we have to make the decision who’s going to get us ready to take us to that next level. At the end of the day, all this hype about which coach is better than who, at the end of the day we’re the ones in there doing the job. We’re the ones that have to get in there and bust our butts. All they can do is give direction and make things go from there,” said Guillard.

Guillard had to make a move in some way because he had gone as far as he was going to go with the Jackson camp. His new camp should be able to point out all the flaws in his style to bring him back to prominence in the lightweight division. 

 

Undercard Fight To Watch: Pat Barry vs. Christian Morecraft

 

Who doesn’t love a heavyweight fight? You know that you are going to get a finish when Barry and Morecraft step into the cage. 

These two men have 19 fights between them, and only one has gone to a decision. Sure, neither fighter is going to compete for a championship, unless something goes horribly wrong with everyone else in the division, but two giant fighters just beating up each other is going to be great entertainment. 

 

Main Event Prediction

Guillard struggles against upper-tier fighters in the lightweight division. He has the potential to do more, but he just has a mental roadblock that he has never been able to get past. 

It doesn’t help that Miller is one of the best wrestlers in the weight class and can exploit Guillard’s weak defense on the ground. 

Miller wins via second-round submission.

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UFC Fight Night 26: If Pat Barry Can’t Beat Christian Morecraft, He’s Done

Legendary underground hero and UFC hype machine Sean McCorkle really said it best after losing a fight to Stefan Struve late last year: “I’d like to have the worst heavyweight in the UFC. Unless that’s me, then I’d like to have the second-worst h…

Legendary underground hero and UFC hype machine Sean McCorkle really said it best after losing a fight to Stefan Struve late last year:

“I’d like to have the worst heavyweight in the UFC. Unless that’s me, then I’d like to have the second-worst heavyweight in the UFC.”

UFC matchmaker Joe Silva’s response? He booked McCorkle a date with Christian Morecraft. It turned out that Morecraft was no less than second-worst though, as the burly Washington native choked McCorkle unconscious in March and sent him packing from the UFC.

Now, it’s not fair to say Morecraft is the worst heavyweight in the UFC. He’s won fights in the promotion, and shown toughness and some evolution in his young game to this point. Having 265-pound guys hurling strikes at your head isn’t easy, and it doesn’t take much for you to look bad if one of them connects.

However, when he faces Pat Barry at UFC on FX 1 in January, there will be a definitive McCorklian feel to the fight. If Barry can’t beat Christian Morecraft, he’ll be done in the UFC.

Barry’s journey has been fascinating to this point in his MMA career, which has seen him make the jump from K-1 kickboxing into the world’s top mixed martial arts promotion. He’s gone from not aggressive enough, to too aggressive, to not skilled enough on the ground, to overconfident there, and back again.

It’s been incredible to see him bounce all over the place, wrecking people in one fight and then looking totally lost in his next.

No one can say he hasn’t been entertaining though, as, win or lose, he’s only been to a decision once, against hard-headed Joey Beltran. One can hope that such a tendency to put on a show will keep him around, as the division isn’t deep and it’s heavy on guys with sloppy standup and a plodding style. Barry’s dynamic attack, while one-dimensional, is fun to watch.

Plus he’s been victimized by surprise losses in fights that were sure wins on two occasions, to Mirko Cro Cop and Cheick Kongo. He could easily be 5-2 in the UFC instead of a pedestrian 3-4, so maybe there’s some latitude there.

At the end of the day though, a loss to Morecraft would be tough to overcome. He’s not exactly setting the world on fire himself, and Barry would be on a three-fight skid—only 6-5 in MMA overall.

Despite his affable nature and popularity, there is no more justification to keep him than there is to let him go to the regional circuit and get a bit better. Dana White has said plenty of times that the UFC is no place to learn MMA, and unfortunately that’s what Pat is doing.

All Pat Barry can hope for is another good performance that ends up in a win for him. He’s got karma on his side after losing some close ones that were within his grasp, and with the right matchmaking he can be a guy that fans will always look forward to seeing on a card.

He’s got to get by Morecraft first though, or they’ll be looking forward to seeing him in Shark Fights or Titan FC by next summer.

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