(“You mean Soa Palelei, right? No? Aw crap.” / Photo via Getty)
In what might be the most obvious win-or-get-fired match in UFC history, a bout between struggling heavyweights Alistair Overeem and Frank Mir has just been added to UFC 167: St. Pierre vs. Hendricks, the promotion’s 20th-anniversary show slated for November 16th in Las Vegas.
We’re less than a week removed from Mir’s first-round TKO loss to Josh Barnett at UFC 164 — which followed two previous losses to Daniel Cormier and Junior Dos Santos — and it seems almost cruel that the UFC will be throwing him back into the fire less than three months later…especially against an opponent who certainly carries the potential to beat him up. This ain’t exactly a rebound fight; it’s like the UFC’s accountants need to know by the end of the calendar year whether they’re keeping Murr on their ledgers or not.
Of course, Overeem finds himself in the exact same situation. The Dutch striker is 0-2 in the UFC since being forced to sit out most of 2012 due to a PED-related licensure suspension, and his job security was by no means guaranteed after he suffered his second-straight knockout loss against Travis Browne at UFC Fight Night 26. But with this booking, he’ll be given another chance to prove that he’s not one of the UFC’s biggest hype-busts of all time. Your predictions on this one? And how long before the loser shows up in Bellator?
(“You mean Soa Palelei, right? No? Aw crap.” / Photo via Getty)
In what might be the most obvious win-or-get-fired match in UFC history, a bout between struggling heavyweights Alistair Overeem and Frank Mir has just been added to UFC 167: St. Pierre vs. Hendricks, the promotion’s 20th-anniversary show slated for November 16th in Las Vegas.
We’re less than a week removed from Mir’s first-round TKO loss to Josh Barnett at UFC 164 — which followed two previous losses to Daniel Cormier and Junior Dos Santos — and it seems almost cruel that the UFC will be throwing him back into the fire less than three months later…especially against an opponent who certainly carries the potential to beat him up. This ain’t exactly a rebound fight; it’s like the UFC’s accountants need to know by the end of the calendar year whether they’re keeping Murr on their ledgers or not.
Of course, Overeem finds himself in the exact same situation. The Dutch striker is 0-2 in the UFC since being forced to sit out most of 2012 due to a PED-related licensure suspension, and his job security was by no means guaranteed after he suffered his second-straight knockout loss against Travis Browne at UFC Fight Night 26. But with this booking, he’ll be given another chance to prove that he’s not one of the UFC’s biggest hype-busts of all time. Your predictions on this one? And how long before the loser shows up in Bellator?
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After dropping his UFC return fight to Amir Sadollah at UFC 106, Phil Baroni (13-12, 3-6 U…
(Image courtesy of ItalianSweatshop.com. If you decide to click that link, be advised that the "music off" button is in the upper-left corner.)
Tavares, who was eliminated on the show by eventual winner Court McGee, returned at the TUF 11 finale and scored a decision win against Seth Baczynski. Now he has a chance to make his name off a struggling veteran, while Baroni can keep his career alive by whipping the 22-year-old Hawaiian. The New York Bad Ass hasn’t tasted victory since outpointing Olaf Alfonso at a Palace Fighting Championship event in September 2008, and it’s a pretty safe bet that if Baroni loses to a barely-established upstart like Tavares, it’ll be the end of his current stint with the UFC. Can Baroni stage another career comeback, or will he catch one of these?
