Key Fights – Week of November 28

Okay, so this post is coming up a bit earlier than usual on account of my schedule for this week.  I likely won’t be able to post anything for the rest of November due to travel and various celebrations, so you’re blessed with the key fights today!  However, I’ll still be around on Twitter so be sure to follow me and check out what I’m up to!

As for this week, it’s certainly a different group of fights.  We have a UFC event but only two fights are scheduled at the moment!  We can add the bantamweight and featherweight Ultimate Fighter tournament finals to a card which also features what should be a fun Mayhem vs. Bisping fight.  The remaining undercard will likely include fights with other TUF cast members from this season.

The rest?  Well, meh.  Bellator is done for the year, but we do get a Tachi Palace fights card – one that somehow features no flyweights!  What the fuck!?  Champion Ian McCall was injured and forced to back out of his Flyweight Title defense, while former flyweight Ulysses Gomez is moving up to try for the promotion’s Bantamweight Title.  We’ll also see NCAA wrestling standout Bubba Jenkins make his MMA debut.

We’ll see the week’s only notable women’s fight at XFC when Felice Herrig takes on Carla Esparza, Pancrase has a stacked Impressive Tour 13 event featuring a couple of their own ranked flyweights, and John Alessio takes on Ryan Healy for Canada’s Score Fighting Series.  Check out the upcoming fights tab for more information about this week in MMA and much more!

Tachi Palace Fights 11 (12/2/2011)

• Bantamweight Title: Ulysses Gomez (8-2, No. 18 FLW) vs. Cody Gibson (5-1)

XFC 15 (12/2/2011)

• Women’s Featherweight: Carla Esparza (5-2, No. 15 WFW, No. 10 WLW) vs. Felice Herrig (5-3)

Pancrase Impressive Tour 13 (12/3/2011)

• 125 lbs. Title: Mitsuhisa Sunabe (14-7-4, No. 10 FLW) vs. Hiroyuki Abe (8-3)
• Flyweight: Hiroyuki Nakajima (6-1-1, No. 19 FLW) vs. Yuki Yasunaga (6-5)

UFC Ultimate Fighter 14 Finale (12/3/2011)

• Middleweight: Michael Bisping (21-3, No. 6 MW) vs. Jason Miller (24-7, 1 NC)

Key Fights – Week of November 21

Well a happy early Thanksgiving to all of my American readers!  See, I was schooled earlier in the week by a friend who knew much more about American Thanksgiving than I did – an English friend!  I certainly did a nice job of embarrassing myself, but it will all be forgotten when I’m eating my turkey, stuffing, and sweet potatoes.  Mmmm, I can’t wait!

Because of the American holiday, there’s a little bit of extra MMA this week.  We have the normal Bellator event, which is the season five finale featuring the finals of the heavyweight and bantamweight tournaments and the Bellator debut of Kurt Pellegrino.  We get a great event from Polish promotion KSW featuring top middleweight Mamed Khalidov, a Light Heavyweight Title defense by Sokoudjou, and a crazy heavyweight fight between James Thompson and Mariusz Pudzianowski.  And we’ll see the twelfth installment of Pancrase’s Impressive Tour series.

But we’ll have some Wednesday night pre-Thankgiving MMA in America, along with a Wednesday show from Japanese promotion Zst.  NAAFS will put on a show with some reliably strong women’s MMA action.  Aisling Daly and Jessica Eye are the big fighters in action, but you can check out the details about their fights and much more in my This Week in Women’s MMA feature over at Gals Guide to MMA!  You can also see information on last week’s WMMA fight and find out who the big winners were for the week.

Also make sure to check the upcoming fights tab for information on the biggest fights of this week!

NAAFS Night of Champions (11/23/2011)

• Women’s 125 lbs. Title: (c) Aisling Daly (12-2, No. 9 WLW) vs. Kelly Warren (3-0)

Bellator 59 (11/26/2011)

• Bantamweight Tournament Finals: Alexis Vila (11-0, No. 8 BW, No. 8 FLW) Eduardo Dantas (12-2)
• Lightweight: Kurt Pellegrino (16-6, No. 19 LW) vs. Patricky Freire (9-2)

KSW 17 (11/26/2011)

• Middleweight: Mamed Khalidov (23-4-2, No. 16 MW) vs. Jesse Taylor (20-7)

Pancrase Impressive Tour 12 (11/27/2011)

• Women’s Bantamweight: Fukuko Hamada (7-6, No. 15 WBW) vs. Kayo Nagayasu (7-6-3, No. 12 WBW)

Key Fights – Week of November 14

Look, I’m just going to level with you all; there are a lot of fights this week.  We’re talking dozens, probably even hundreds of fights.  UFC?  Yep.  Strikeforce?  Got it.  Bellator?  Sure.  Strikeforce Challengers notably features an exciting fight between 145 pounders Ronda Rousey and Julia Budd.  Bellator is stacked this week with a Lightweight Title defense by Eddie Alvarez, a superfight featuring Hector Lombard, and ranked fighters Marlon Sandro and Jessica Aguilar in action.  And the UFC is back after an exciting debut on Fox, this time with an interesting card headlined by Shogun Rua and Dan Henderson.

But there’s more!  Ring of Combat has a card featuring Pete Sell and Deividas Taurosevicius, Masanori Kanehara returns to action on the west coast in his first fight since joining Greg Jackson’s camp, and top women’s fighters Yana Kunitskaya, Jasminka Cive, and Chelsea Colarelli are all in action.  Special mention goes to Turkish kickboxer Hatice Ozyurt who will be making her MMA debut this weekend at age 24.

Oh, and Fedor!  How on earth could I forget about Fedor!?  Maybe because he’ll be fighting Jeff Monson very early in the morning on pay-per-view?  I think that’s it.  Nonetheless, I will be living up to my reputation as the hardest-working, least serious man in MMA pseudo-journalism and I will be live tweeting this epic contest first thing Sunday morning.  Maybe I’ll get some donuts, maybe some juice, maybe I’ll sleep through the whole fucking thing and forget I ever made this proclamation.  Who knows!?  I certainly don’t.

Check out the upcoming fights tab, which includes more details on the rest of November and upcoming fights all the way into February 2012!  The latest UFC announcements are listed, including the battle in Japan between Frankie Edgar and Ben Henderson along with Yoshihiro Akiyama and Jake Shields.  We have many months of great MMA ahead of us, be grateful monkeys.

Strikeforce Challengers 20 (11/18/2011)

• Women’s Middleweight: Ronda Rousey (3-0, No. 10 WMW) vs. Julia Budd (2-1, No. 14 WMW)

Bellator 58 (11/19/2011)

• Lightweight Title: (c) Eddie Alvarez (22-2, No. 5 LW) vs. Michael Chandler (8-0)
• Catchweight (195 lbs.): Hector Lombard (21-3, No. 6 MW) vs. Trevor Prangley (23-8-1)
• Featherweight: Marlon Sandro (19-3, No. 10 FEW) vs. Rafael Dias (15-8-2)
• Women’s Featherweight: Jessica Aguilar (11-4, No. 7 WFW) vs. Lisa Ellis-Ward (14-6)

Bushido – Hero’s World GP Lithuania (11/19/2011)

• Women’s Middleweight: Yana Kunitskaya (4-1, No. 7 WMW) vs. Arune Lauzeckaite (0-0)

UFC 139 (11/19/2011)

• Light Heavyweight: Mauricio Rua (20-5, No. 4 LHW) vs. Dan Henderson (28-8, No. 6 LHW)
• Middleweight: Wanderlei Silva (33-11-1, 1 NC, No. 18 MW) vs. Cung Le (7-1)
• Bantamweight: Brian Bowles (9-1, No. 3 BW) vs. Urijah Faber (25-4, No. 5 BW)
• Welterweight: Martin Kampmann (17-5, No. 9 WW) vs. Rick Story (13-4, No. 14 WW)
• Light Heavyweight: Ryan Bader (12-2, No. 25 LHW) vs. Jason Brilz (18-4-1, No. 20 LHW)
• Bantamweight: Michael McDonald (13-1, No. 21 BW) vs. Alex Soto (6-0-1)
• Middleweight: Tom Lawlor (7-3, 1 NC, No. 22 MW) vs. Chris Weidman (6-0, No. 25 MW)
• Lightweight: Gleison Tibau (23-7, No. 22 LW) vs. Rafael dos Anjos (15-5)
• Bantamweight: Miguel Torres (39-4, No. 9 BW) vs. Nick Pace (6-2)

M-1 Global – Fedor vs. Monson (11/20/2011)

• Heavyweight: Fedor Emelianenko (31-4, 1 NC, No. 8 HW) vs. Jeff Monson (42-12, No. 24 HW)

Key Fights – Week of November 7

OH MY GAAAAAWD I AM SO TIRED.  This is awful.  I don’t get good sleep and kicked my ass at the gym earlier, I’ve yet to recover.  JESUS WHY CAN’T I JUST WAKE UP.  Even worse, the Bears are playing and I can’t go to sleep while the game is happening.  Ugh.

So here I am with your fights for the week.  The big deal to end all big deals is the UFC Heavyweight Title fight.  On Fox.  For the first time ever.  This is going to be an absolutely awesome experience and I’m anxious to see how this all comes to play on Saturday.  Guida vs. Henderson makes for a great co-main event, but I certainly am disappointed that it apparently won’t be on Fox.

Bellator is pretty much the only other game in town, featuring the Welterweight and Middleweight tournament finals.  Shamil Abdurahimov will be in action for ProFC and that’s kind of a big deal.  Oh, and remember a couple of weeks ago when I said that Aleksander Emelianenko would be fighting?  Well he didn’t, but he is this week!  He’ll be in action for M-1 in Russia this Saturday.

There are a few other interesting fights this weekend so be sure to check out the rest on the upcoming fights tab!

ProFC 37 (11/9/2011)

• Heavyweight: Shamil Abdurahimov (12-1, No. 21 HW) vs. David Olivia (6-0)

Bellator 57 (11/12/2011)

• Middleweight Tournament Finals: Alexander Shlemenko (42-7, No. 24 MW) vs. Vitor Vianna (12-1-1)

UFC on Fox 1 (11/12/2011)

• Heavyweight Title: (c) Cain Velasquez (9-0, No. 1 HW) vs. Junior dos Santos (13-1, No. 2 HW)
• Lightweight: Clay Guida (29-11, No. 7 LW) vs. Ben Henderson (14-2, No. 10 LW)
• Featherweight: Dustin Poirier (10-1, No. 17 FEW) vs. Pablo Garza (11-1)
• Bantamweight: Darren Uyenoyama (6-3, No. 24 BW) vs. Norifumi Yamamoto (18-4, 1 NC)
• Featherweight: Robert Peralta (15-3, No. 18 FEW) vs. Mackens Semerzier (6-3)

Key Fights – Week of October 31

Mwaaaaahahahahaha!!!  Happy Halloween, spooky readers!!  We have a spoooooky week of fights ahead of us including a terribly spoooooky UFC 138 card that would be a lot spoooookier if we actually had to pay for it!  Imagine living in England and having a card this spooooky as your only live event for the year!  The hair raises on my arms just thinking about that!

But that’s not all in this creepy and crawly week of fights!  Shooto has a 115 pound Title Fight and have a couple of interesting flyweight bouts.  Flies fighting in MMA?  Ahhhh, that’s terrifying!  I’ve never seen 125 pounds before, this has the potential to be absolutely horrifying!

I saved the scariest for the last and that’s ProElite’s second event since returning to MMA!  Six heavyweight fights?  Between largely irrelevant fighters?  In Moline, Illinois.  Oh goodness gracious no!!  Somebody call a priest!!  Will these fights be held under strict quarantine so that a rare contagious strain of acromegaly won’t be distributed throughout the audience?

Tim Sylvia, Andrei Arlovski, Travis Fulton, and Andreas Kraiotakes are in the main heavyweight fights, while eight low level heavyweight fighters compete in a blood-curdling tournament.  UFC legend Pedro Rizzo was spared from having to fight at this event because…what, do I need to give you more reason than I already have?

Oooooooh, such scaaaary fights ahead of us!  Be sure to read about these fights and more of the ghastly details on the upcoming fights tab!

Shooto the Shoot 2011 (11/5/2011)

• Strawweight Title: (c) Junji Ikoma (14-12-6) vs. Mimihito Yamagami (6-2)
• Flyweight: Shinichi Kojima (11-4-5, No. 4 FLW) vs. Kiyotaka Shimizu (10-5-2, No. 6 FLW)
• Flyweight: Ryuichi Miki (10-5-3, No. 13 FLW) vs. Kentaro Watanabe (6-3)

UFC 138 (11/5/2011)

• Middleweight: Chris Leben (22-7, No. 12 MW) vs. Mark Munoz (11-2, No. 21 MW)
• Bantamweight: Brad Pickett (20-5, No. 6 BW) vs. Renan Barao (26-1, 1 NC, No. 25 BW)
• Welterweight: Thiago Alves (18-8, No. 11 WW) vs. Papy Abedi (8-0)
• Featherweight: Michihiro Omigawa (12-10-1, No. 12 FEW) vs. Jason Young (8-4)
• Light Heavyweight: Anthony Perosh (11-6) vs. Cyrille Diabate (17-7-1, No. 18 LHW)

Key Fights – Week of October 24

I’m pretty thrilled about the fights ahead of us this week.  UFC 137 leads the way, even without a GSP vs. Carlos Condit title fight.  Diaz vs. Penn is a serviceable main event and the card is pretty deep anyway, though the co-main event leaves a bit to be desired.  I’m also very excited to see what Hatsu Hioki does in his UFC debut.

Across the rest of MMA, Patricia Vidonic and Lauren Taylor are notable women in action this week.  Top flyweight Jussier da Silva will defend his Shooto 123 pound title, and we may very well see the most important fight in Bellator history.  Ben Askren and Jay Hieron are two of the best fighters not in Zuffa and they will be competing for the Bellator Welterweight Title.  Bellator’s fat boys will also regrettably be in action.

There’s so much more happening this week, but you’ll have to check the upcoming fights tab to check it out!  Maybe Royce Gracie will be fighting!  What about Hong Man Choi?  Or even Aleksander Emelianenko!  Well, one of those fighters is competing – you’ll just have to figure out who it is.

Bellator 56 (10/29/2011)

• Welterweight Title: (c) Ben Askren (8-0, No. 10 WW) vs. Jay Hieron (22-4, No. 15 WW)

Shooto Brazil 26 (10/29/2011)

• 123 lbs. Title: (c) Jussier da Silva (10-1, No. 3 FLW) vs. Michael William Costa (7-3)

UFC 137 (10/29/2011)

• Welterweight: B.J. Penn (16-7-2, No. 3 WW) vs. Nick Diaz (25-7, 1 NC, No. 4 WW)
• Heavyweight: Cheick Kongo (11-6, No. 16 HW) vs. Matt Mitrione (5-0)
• Heavyweight: Roy Nelson (15-6, No. 13 HW) vs. Mirko Filipovic (27-9-2, 1 NC)
• Featherweight: Hatsu Hioki (24-4-2, No. 2 FEW) vs. George Roop (12-7-1, No. 21 FEW)
• Bantamweight: Scott Jorgensen (12-4, No. 4 BW) vs. Jeff Curran (33-13-1)
• Lightweight: Dennis Siver (19-7, No. 14 LW) vs. Donald Cerrone (16-3, 1 NC)
• Featherweight: Tyson Griffin (15-5, No. 11 FEW) vs. Bart Palaszewski (35-14)

Key Fights – Week of October 17

No UFC, no Strikeforce, but still a pretty big weekend of fights ahead of us.  Bellator is back with the semifinals in their bantamweight tournament semifinals.  Both fights should be good, but I have the feeling we’ll see something special in Alexis Vila vs. Marcos Galvao.  Light Heavyweight Champion Christian M’Pumbu will also be in action, which I’m excited for.  Though it’s a non-title fight, I’ve really taken a liking to M’Pumbu.

Tons of smaller shows are putting on some interesting fights this week.  Paul Daley takes on Luigi Fioravanti for Ringside MMA and Joey Villasenor and Masanori Kanehara both have fights for Jackson’s MMA.  Sportfight 30 also has some interesting contests such as Ryan Healy vs. Paul Kelly and Mario Miranda vs. Aaron Stark.

Now I must bid you adieu because I have Arkham City to play.  You may never hear from me again if this game is as good as everyone says it is.

Ringside MMA 12 (10/21/2011)

• Welterweight: Paul Daley (27-11-2, No. 14 WW) vs. Luigi Fioravanti (22-10)

Bellator 55 (10/22/2011)

• Bantamweight Tournament Semifinals: Alexis Vila (10-0, No. 8 BW, No. 8 FLW) vs. Marcos Galvao (10-4-1)

Key Fights – Week of October 10

Yaaaaawn, I am so tired!  Why am I so tired?  Could it have anything to do with this past weekend of MMA being awesome and keeping me up late?  Maybe a little.  Are my sleep habits off because of significant stress in my personal life?  Well that’s none of your business.  I worry that it might have something to do with this weekend’s slate of fights.

No, kidding!  It’s not that bad!  M-1 is putting on a nice free show Friday, while we get a free Bellator show on Saturday.  That is, they’re free if you get Showtime and MTV2 – and I do!  I pay crazy amounts of money for my cable package, you don’t even know!  Showtime, HBO, CINEMAX, I’m living large over here.

The rest of the fights?  Not bad, actually.  Joe Doerksen, Marius Zaromskis, and Dan Hornbuckle will be fighting for the Score’s second MMA event.  Marcus Davis will be in action for W-1 and there’s also a fun Japanese show under the Grabaka Live banner.  Check out the upcoming fights tab for more on these fights and many others!

Bellator 54 (10/15/2011)

• Middleweight Tournament Semifinals: Alexander Shlemenko (40-7, No. 24 MW) vs. Brian Rogers (8-2)
• Bantamweight: Zach Makovsky (13-2, No. 17 BW) vs. Ryan Roberts (16-9-1, 1 NC)

Key Fights – Week of October 10

Okay, so we definitely have a big time UFC event this week featuring champions Frankie Edgar and Jose Aldo.  We’ll see the semifinals of Bellator’s season five welterweight tournament and MFC will put on a show headlined by Light Heavyweight Champion Ryan Jimmo.

All of these things pale in comparison to one very important thing: Butterbean is fighting this week.  MOTHER FUCKING BUTTERBEAN.  Sure, he weighs nearly 500 pounds and is fighting a professional boxer with no MMA experience.  THAT’S WHAT MAKES THIS SO EXCITING.  Holy shit, Butterbean.  Instinct MMA might also feature Houston Alexander and Patrick Cote, but Butterbean = gate money.

Check out the upcoming fight tabs for more details about these fights and many, many more.  Also, I will be announcing the winner of FREE STUFF!! tomorrow evening, so be sure to comment on my post from Saturday to be eligible for a free personalized UFC mini-poster of your choice!!

MFC 31 (10/7/2011)

• Light Heavyweight Title: (c) Ryan Jimmo (15-1, No. 20 LHW) vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou (12-8)

Reality Fighting – Gonzaga vs. Porter (10/8/2011)

• Heavyweight Title: Gabriel Gonzaga (11-6, No. 17 HW) vs. Parker Porter (5-2)

UFC 136 (10/8/2011)

• Lightweight Title: (c) Frankie Edgar (13-1-1, No. 1 LW) vs. Gray Maynard (10-0-1, 1 NC, No. 2 LW)
• Featherweight Title: (c) Jose Aldo (19-1, No. 1 FEW) vs. Kenny Florian (14-5, No. 3 FEW)
• Middleweight: Chael Sonnen (25-11-1, No. 2 MW) vs. Brian Stann (11-3, No. 9 MW)
• Lightweight: Melvin Guillard (28-8-2, 1 NC, No. 9 LW) vs. Joe Lauzon (20-6)
• Middleweight: Demian Maia (14-3, No. 14 MW) vs. Jorge Santiago (23-9, No. 13 MW)
• Lightweight: Anthony Pettis (13-2, No. 10 LW) vs. Jeremy Stephens (20-6)

Key Fights – Week of September 26

I must say, it’s not a bad week of fights when you get a free UFC Title fight.  That’s right, my friends – Dominick Cruz defends his UFC Bantamweight Title on Versus this Saturday.  Honestly, this is probably the best free card the UFC has ever offered.  There are some fun fights on the main card, all of which feature ranked fighters.  Blackeye Promotions, quickly becoming the premier spot for women in MMA, also has a good show this week featuring Roxanne Modafferi and Ediane Gomes.

The rest of the week?  Not as great, I guess.  Bellator has their season five fat boy tournament, where Neil Grove and Blagoi Ivanov pulverize six other sweaty heavyweights for a chance to fight king of the Bellator heavies Cole Konrad.  In Japan, where sound logic is not needed for MMA match-making, someone decided that Yuki Kondo should fight again.  Don’t worry, it only feels like the 36 year old Kondo has been around forever.  The former Pancrase Middleweight Champion will be back in action for the longstanding promotion.

Check out more fights for October in the upcoming fights tab.  I’ve recently updated the upcoming fights with more bouts for the month so make sure to take a look!

Blackeye Promotions 5 (10/1/2011)

• Women’s Lightweight: Roxanne Modafferi (15-8, No. 3 WLW, No. 5 WWW) vs. Barb Honchak (4-1)
• Women’s Middleweight: Ediane Gomes (7-2, No. 13 WMW) vs. Ashley Sanchez (4-2)

Freestyle Cage Fighting 49 (10/1/2011)

• Women’s Welterweight: Jan Finney (8-10, No. 14 WWW) vs. Kaitlin Young (4-5)

UFC Live – Cruz vs. Johnson (10/1/2011)

• Bantamweight Title: (c) Dominick Cruz (17-1, No. 1 BW) vs. Demetrious Johnson (9-1, No. 7 BW)
• Heavyweight: Stefan Struve (21-5, No. 22 HW) vs. Pat Barry (6-3)
• Welterweight: Anthony Johnson (9-3, No. 20 WW) vs. Charlie Brenneman (13-2)
• Lightweight: Mac Danzig (20-8-1, No. 20 LW) vs. Matt Wiman (13-6, No. 25 LW)