Stay tuned here for live coverage and reaction for UFC on Fuel TV 5 on Saturday in Nottingham, England. In the meantime, here’s a rundown of the main and preliminary cards… Main Bouts (on Fuel TV)Stefan Struve vs. Stipe MiocicDan Hardy vs. Amir …
Stay tuned here for live coverage and reaction for UFC on Fuel TV 5 on Saturday in Nottingham, England. In the meantime, here’s a rundown of the main and preliminary cards…
Main Bouts (on Fuel TV)
Stefan Struve vs. StipeMiocic Dan Hardy vs. AmirSadollah Brad Pickett vs. Yves Jabouin Paul Sass vs. Matt Wiman John Hathaway vs. John Maguire Che Mills vs. Duane Ludwig
Preliminary Bouts (on Facebook)
Kyle Kingsbury vs. JimiManuwa Andy Ogle vs. AkiraCorassani Tom Watson vs. Brad Tavares Gunnar Nelson vs. DaMarques Johnson Jason Young vs. Robert Peralta
UFC Nottingham Start Times
Preliminary Bouts on Facebook: 1:30 p.m. ET/10:30 a.m. PT Main Card Bouts on Fuel TV: 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT
UFC on FUEL TV comes to you this weekend with a dynamite fight in the lightweight division between Paul Sass of England and American Matt Wiman.Sass has been running through the competition in the UFC thus far, earning a 3-0 record. Wiman is a long-tim…
UFC on FUEL TV comes to you this weekend with a dynamite fight in the lightweight division between Paul Sass of England and American Matt Wiman.
Sass has been running through the competition in the UFC thus far, earning a 3-0 record. Wiman is a long-time staple of the division, and has proven to be one of the tougher guys around.
Stefan Struve, Stipe Miocic, Dan Hardy, Amir Sadollah, and the rest of the fighters on tomorrow’s UFC on FUEL TV 5 card will be hitting the scales today at the Capital FM Arena in Nottingham, England, and you can watch all the thrilling weigh-in action in the player above, beginning at 11 a.m. ET / 8 a.m. PT; we’ll be updating the results after the jump. Remember to come back to CagePotato.com tomorrow at 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. PT for our liveblog of the FUEL main card.
Stefan Struve, Stipe Miocic, Dan Hardy, Amir Sadollah, and the rest of the fighters on tomorrow’s UFC on FUEL TV 5 card will be hitting the scales today at the Capital FM Arena in Nottingham, England, and you can watch all the thrilling weigh-in action in the player above, beginning at 11 a.m. ET / 8 a.m. PT; we’ll be updating the results after the jump. Remember to come back to CagePotato.com tomorrow at 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. PT for our liveblog of the FUEL main card!
MAIN CARD (FUEL TV, 4 p.m. ET)
Stefan Struve (251) vs. Stipe Miocic (239)
Dan Hardy (169) vs. Amir Sadollah (169)
Yves Jabouin (136) vs. Brad Pickett (135)
Paul Sass (156) vs. Matt Wiman (156)
John Hathaway (169) vs. John Maguire (169)
Duane Ludwig (169) vs. Che Mills (170)
PRELIMINARY CARD (Facebook, 1 p.m. ET)
Kyle Kingsbury (204) vs. Jimi Manuwa (204)
Akira Corassani (144) vs. Andy Ogle (144)
Brad Tavares (185) vs. Tom Watson (186)
DaMarques Johnson (183)* vs. Gunnar Nelson (175)
Robert Peralta (144) vs. Jason Young (145)
* Since Johnson was coming in as a short-notice injury replacement, this fight was originally scheduled for a 175-pound catchweight. However, Johnson encountered difficulties during his weight cut and missed the limit by a full eight pounds. Yikes.
UFC on Fuel TV 5—or, as it’s also known, UFC on Fuel TV: Struve vs. Miocic—is going down Saturday in Nottingham, England. The winner of the main event between Stefan Struve and Stipe Miocic will be the newest bona fide contender i…
UFC on Fuel TV 5—or, as it’s also known, UFC on Fuel TV: Struve vs. Miocic—is going down Saturday in Nottingham, England. The winner of the main event between Stefan Struve and Stipe Miocic will be the newest bona fide contender in the UFC heavyweight division.
Lots of intrigue across the main card, though, and with that in mind, a motley crew of Bleacher Report’s finest—Jonathan Snowden, Jeremy Botter, John Heinis, Matt Roth and I—are going to set it all up and make some predictions.
Out of 20 fighters competing this Saturday in the UFC on Fuel TV card, Dan Hardy has the worst record in his last five fights.Although he won his most recent brawl against fellow slugger Duane Ludwig, it wasn’t a fight made to advance Hardy up the rank…
Out of 20 fighters competing this Saturday in the UFC on Fuel TV card, Dan Hardy has the worst record in his last five fights.
Although he won his most recent brawl against fellow slugger Duane Ludwig, it wasn’t a fight made to advance Hardy up the rankings or get him back into the title hunt.
Essentially, all it did was give Hardy’s win-loss ratio a small bit of breathing room.
Single-win streak aside, that still doesn’t change some particularly damning facts:
In the last three years, Hardy has posted a 1-4 record in the UFC
Out of all George St. Pierre’s former title challengers, Hardy is currently the lowest-ranked (active) welterweight
Hardy was almost the second fighter in UFC history to lose five straight fights
Although ‘The Outlaw’ had the good fortune of losing an exciting “Fight of the Night” battle with Chris Lytle, that hasn’t stopped some fans and critics for noting the supposed unfairness of Hardy’s extensive lifeline with the UFC brass.
But even though the British standout remains a company favorite, can he afford to lose to AmirSadollah—especially in his hometown of Nottingham, England?
Of course, no UFC fighter can really afford to lose a fight. But most main event players like Dan Hardy get extra leeway that other fighters, like “one-and-done” preliminary talent and mid-tier journeymen, simply don’t have.
Question is, how bad will it look if Hardy loses to the comparatively under-experienced Sadollah?
Considering that Sadollah, the heavily-promoted Ultimate Fighter wunderkind, is little more than the UFC’s welterweight gatekeeper, it would look awful if Hardy found himself losing a tepid split or unanimous decision, trapped on the wrong side of volume leg kicks and superior grappling.
Where Hardy at least had the option of suffering an exciting loss if he came up short against Ludwig, the strong-but-middling Sadollah represents no such upside. If Dan Hardy loses on Saturday, he’ll run the risk of looking terrible in the process.
Make no mistake, the UFC would love it if Hardy came blitzing out of the gate, belting Sadollah with hard shots, and fighting him off in the clinch. Nothing would get the Nottingham crowd more riled up, and it would generate more cheers than the main event.
Moreover, Sadollah is just flawed enough that Hardy could dominate him. But if he loses, don’t expect Dana White to entertain the thought of cutting one of their most popular international faces.
Make no mistake, Dan Hardy should be able to beat AmirSadollah. After all, he hasn’t legitimately lost to a welterweight outside the division’s “top 25” since 2006. At the very worst, it would most likely take another four-loss streak before the UFC brass ever considered dropping him.
[McKinley Noble is an MMA conspiracy theorist and FightFans Radio writer. His work has appeared in GamePro, Macworld, & PC World. Talk with him on Twitter.]
The title of this one says it all. Is Amir Sadollah good enough to be in the UFC? And you know something? I was going to argue that he’s not. I went back to all the images of him that I have in my head—most of which involve him losing fight…
The title of this one says it all.
Is AmirSadollah good enough to be in the UFC?
And you know something? I was going to argue that he’s not. I went back to all the images of him that I have in my head—most of which involve him losing fights and not living up to his potential.
Oh, and fighting Phil Baroni. Any time you can namedrop the New York Badass, you basically have to.
I thought about him as a pretty affable guy, a fighter who’d make a great media personality if he was a bit better at fighting and could provide more credibility than “Hey, I’m Amir, and I beat DaMarques Johnson once.”
And my mind was basically made up. AmirSadollahshouldn’t be in the UFC.
But then I started thinking about some other things.
I thought about him sitting at 6-3 in his career, and having only fought in the Octagon. That’s actually remarkable.
I looked back on him winning TUF 7 without ever having won a pro fight before—and beating show favourite CB Dollaway (yeah, for real. We all thought that dude was going to be something a lot bigger than a guy who always looks like he’s smelling his own lip). Twice.
I remembered some pretty impressive fights, the aforementioned tilts with Baroni and Johnson, as well as a gutsy decision loss to Dwayne Ludwig.
I considered that he lost a questionable stoppage to Johny Hendricks at a time when no one knew who Hendricks was and Sadollah was expected to do big things.
And you know what? I changed my mind.
Not only is AmirSadollah good enough to be in the UFC, he should be commended for sticking around as long as he has and winning twice as often as he loses. For a guy that picked the sport up late and had no time to develop at a reasonable pace against nobodies in fights no one was watching, he’s been remarkable.
He’s usually exciting, highly technical, and as game as they come.
Sure, he’s never going to be a champion, but that’s true for probably 90% of the roster. Sometimes being a tough kid who comes to fight is enough, and if that’s what Sadollah offers, there are worse things to be.
Saturday night in Nottingham, he’ll go into enemy territory to mix it up with a resurgent Dan Hardy. There should be some quality striking exchanges, and for however long the thing lasts, there’s a good chance the fans will get what they paid for.
I don’t expect Sadollah to win, but then again 20 minutes ago I didn’t even think he should be in the UFC.
Out of 20 fighters competing this Saturday in the UFC on Fuel TV card, Dan Hardy has the worst record in his last five fights.