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A look at a very busy June 2014 MMA fight schedule & card slate
By Zach Arnold | June 2, 2014
Event: Bellator 121 (Friday, June 6th at Winstar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma)
TV: Spike TV
- Light Heavyweight tournament: Austen Heidlage vs. Phelipe Lins
- Light Heavyweight tournament: Carlos Eduardo vs. Egidijus Valavicius
- Heavyweights: James Thompson vs. Eric Prindle
- Light Heavyweights: Sokoudjou vs. Terry Davinney
- Bubba McDaniel vs. Matt Jones
Event: UFC Fight Night (Saturday, June 7th at Tingley Coliseum in Albuquerque)
TV: Fox Sports 1
- Light Heavyweights: Patrick Cummins vs. Roger Narvaez
- Lightweights: Jon Tuck vs. Jake Lindsey
- Flyweights: Scott Jorgensen vs. Danny Martinez
- Welterweights: Bobby Voelker vs. Lance Benoist
- Bantamweights: Yaotzin Meza vs. Sergio Pettis
- Bantamweights: Erik Perez vs. Bryan Caraway
- Lightweights: Yves Edwards vs. Piotr Hallmann
- Lightweights: Rafael dos Anjos vs. Jason High
- Flyweights: John Dodson vs. John Moraga
- Lightweights: Diego Sanchez vs. Ross Pearson
- Lightweights: Ben Henderson vs. Rustam Khabilov
Event: UFC 174 (Saturday, June 14th, Rogers Arena in Vancouver, B.C., Canada)
TV: Fox Sports 1/PPV
- Lightweights: Jason Saggo vs. Josh Shockley
- Bantamweights: Roland Delorme vs. Michinori Tanaka
- Lightweights: Kajan Johnson vs. Tae Hyun Bang
- Bantamweights: Yves Jabouin vs. Mike Easton
- Ladies 135 pounds: Germaine De Randamie vs. Milana Dudieva
- Middleweights: Daniel Sarafian vs. Kiichi Kunimoto
- Light Heavyweights: Ovince Saint Preux vs. Ryan Jimmo
- Heavyweights: Andrei Arlovski vs. Brendan Schaub
- Light Heavyweights: Ryan Bader vs. Rafael Cavalcante
- Welterweights: Rory MacDonald vs. Tyron Woodley
- UFC Flyweight title match: Demetrious Johnson vs. Ali Bagautinov
Event: UFC Fight Night (Saturday, June 28th at Vector Arena in Auckland, New Zealand)
TV: Internet
- Welterweights: Neil Magny vs. Claudio Silva
- Light Heavyweights: Gian Villante vs. Anthony Perosh
- Welterweights: Chris Indich vs. Vik Grujic
- Welterweights: Robert Whittaker vs. Mike Rhodes
- Featherweights: Hatsu Hioki vs. Charles Oliveira
- Heavyweights: Soa Palelei vs. Jared Rosholt
- Light Heavyweights: James Te Huna vs. Nate Marquardt
Event: UFC Fight Night (Saturday, June 28th at the AT & T Center in San Antonio, Texas)
TV: Fox Sports 1
- Flyweights: Ryan Benoit vs. Ray Borg
- Heavyweights: Oleksiy Oliynyk vs. Anthony Hamilton
- Welterweights: Marcelo Guimaraes vs. Andy Enz
- Welterweights: Sean Spencer vs. Luiz Dutra
- Lightweights: Colton Smith vs. Carlos Diego Ferreira
- Lightweights: Francisco Trevino vs. Joe Ellenberger
- Bantamweights: Johnny Bedford vs. Cody Gibson
- Middleweights: Clint Hester vs. Antonio Braga Neto
- Featherweights: Ricardo Lamas vs. Hacran Dias
- Middleweights: Cezar Ferreira vs. Andrew Craig
- Lightweights: Myles Jury vs. Abel Trujillo
- Welterweights: Kelvin Gastelum vs. Nico Musoke
- Lightweights: Cub Swanson vs. Jeremy Stephens
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 17 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Here are the fights I have some interest in:
Hatsu Hioki vs. Charles Oliveira: Great jitz match up.
Myles Jury vs. Abel Trujillo: really only because Jury smashed Diego.
Kelvin Gastelum vs. Nico Musoke: curious to see if Kelvin is real.
Cub Swanson vs. Jeremy Stephens: Guys I’ve known for a long time.
Otherwise: Nate (last seen as a WW now fighting at LHW….. as Dr. Evil would say “riiiiiiiiiiiiight”). Who possibly cares?
I’ll watch the Palelei fight because I like HW fights when they’re not really bad.
We’ll see how I feel when these 2 cards happen whether I watch more than the above mentioned 5 fights.
Germaine De Randamie has been replaced by Valerie Letourneau at UFC 174.
I’m looking forward to UFC 174, that’s a pretty good card, but these other events are SO watered down, I barley recognize most of the names of most of the fighters,…and I consider myself a pretty die-hard MMA fan.
UFC FIGHT NIGHT HENDERSON VS. KHABILOV looks pretty watchable, but not worth be going out to a sports bar to watch. A show like that should be on FOX/free TV.
UFC 175 I’m planning on watching, but with all the events they are presenting, (3 out of 7), that is not impressive…
I’m not a complainer, just noting that promoting so many sub-par events is more damaging then anything else.
How can you guys complain about the UFC? Dana White is super smart and knows what he is doing. He would never water down his product to the point that his core fan base stopped caring about the events.
Take the last Fox Sports 1 show. It got an amazing 609,000 viewers. That is like totally awesome. The UFC is more popular then both International Football and American Football combined.
And so far in June, the UFC has 42 scheduled fights. MOAR UFC!! MOAR UFC!! MOAR UFC!! This is the best time to be a MMA fan in the history of the galaxy.
WORLD FUCKING DOMINATION
Dana has said recently that the UFC could never put on too many fights. The guy just doesn’t get it.
I’m interested in exactly *one* of the above-listed fights: MacDonald vs Woodley.
2 Really good cards (by today’s standards) could be created from these 4 offerings.
That seems to be the trend with the UFC. If you look at March-June, they have about 2 quality cards worth of fights to offer. But instead they are putting on 4 cards per month.
Let’s do that exercise again….
UFC 174 PPV MAIN CARD
Demetrious Johnson vs. Ali Bagautinov
Tyron Woodley vs. Rory MacDonald
Andrei Arlovski vs. Brandan Schaub
John Dodson vs. John Moraga
Ryan Bader vs. Rafael Cavalcante
UFC 174 FS1 PRELIM CARD
Kelvin Gastelum vs. Nico Musoke
Myles Jury vs. Abel Trujillo
Jared Rosholt vs. Soa Palelei
Ovince Saint Preux vs. Ryan Jimmo
UFC FIGHT NIGHT
Ben Henderson vs. Rustam Khabilov
Cub Swanson vs. Jeremy Stephens
Diego Sanchez vs. Ross Pearson
Rafael Dos Anjos vs. Jason High
James Te Huna vs. Nathan Marquardt
Hatsu Hioki vs. Charles Oliveira
The PPV still wouldn’t be great, but that is mostly because the month isn’t filled with great fights. But the prelim card would be filled with that the prelim card should be filled with…. Which is good prospect fights. And the FN card would be solid from top to bottom. Nothing great but something worth sitting down to watch and see some solid contenders.
How about making one good card of that slop?
I think there is enough talent for 24 cards a year. One major and one minor per month.
MMA should be about special events not Marquardt vs. Te Huna garbage….
I hope UFC 174 gets a lower number than Bellator’s ppv, and think it is actually within the realm of possibility that such an event shall occur.
A ppv I would like to see.
First off lets get some momentum and a plan going with an 8 man lw tournament to play out over 3 events during summer. change up the matches and give alternate slots to pearson high and 2 others.
(insert fightpass undercard here)
undercard main Rafael dos Anjos vs. Jeremy Stephens
main card
Abel Trujillo vs. Cub Swanson
Yves Edwards vs Diego Sanchez
Ben Henderson vs. Rustam Khabilov
Tyron Woodley vs. Rory MacDonald
Andrei Arlovski vs. Soa Palelei
Demetrious Johnson vs. Ali Bagautinov
Arlovski Shaub, boy what a stinker.
Arlovski is now in the “over 11 ufc wins at HW club” along with Mir at 14 Kongo at 11. Notably absent from the ufcs list of winningest HW fighters is Couture with 12 wins at HW.
Other than some good asian action 174 was a total “nothing to see here move along” snoozefest. 4 boring decisions and 1 injury stopage…Tyron “heavy bag” Woodley, Ryan “blanket” Bader mighty mouse and the rest aren’t worth the PPV money imo.
Remember when dana was saying a Diaz Silva fight would never happen… its ridiculous or some such? I wonder if he’ll still try and low ball nick with that BIG fight.
Personally, I enjoyed the show overall.
But Woodley needs a new corner man. after the first round, the only thing they should have been telling him is “don’t back up, move sideways, use your angles!” And after the second round the should have been yelling that to him, saying “don’t worry about getting takedowns, worry about not letting take you apart with his striking”. It was three rounds of him standing in front of Rory letting him use him as a heavybag. Woodley has the talent & potential, he just is not ready for a shot at the title.
And I’m NOT saying Rory didn’t look great, he did: just that Tyron did just as much to lose as Rory did to dominate that fight.
Bellator 120 > UFC 174