The Sunday Sprawl 6.15.08: Volume 4 - TUF Finale, UFC 87, and More!
Posted by Alex Mattis on 06.15.2008
TUF 7 is reaching a conclusion, Fedor-Sylvia is reaching another level, and UFC 87's blueprints are laid down.
Hello everyone and welcome back to "The Sunday Sprawl." Hope all is well. Man oh' man what a couple of months we are heading into for the sport of MMA. The show that changed it all has its 7th season finale this Saturday. The #1 heavyweight in the world is looking to stay on top. And UFC 87 is beginning to take shape as the biggest card of the summer. All that will be covered in this edition of "The Sunday Sprawl." Well… let's get down to it.
The 7th Season of The Ultimate Fighter will come to a head this Saturday :
The latest season of the show that changed with UFC forever will reach its finale this Saturday night. While, of course, at this point I cannot make a clear prediction on the finals as they aren't even set yet, but I will say that I will be pulling for Amir to win the whole damn thing. He was the only one from this season that appealed to me at all and seemed like he could have a future in the UFC. With that being said, the rest of the card is definitely something to look forward to. Quick picks for the undercard: Dustin Hazelett over Josh Burkman, Drew McFedries over Marvin Eastman, and Jeremy Horn over Dean Lister. Now that that's over with... on the main card we have the returning Spencer Fisher taking on Jeremy Stephens. While logic will say that Fisher will take this fight, Stephens is slowly but surely becoming one of my favorites in the lightweight division, so I'll be going for the "Lil' Heathen." Up next on the show, Season 1 winner Diego Sanchez will take on a talented up and comer, Luigi Fioravanti. While this should be an entertaining bout, I don't see Fioravanti having the tools to beat Sanchez. I see Diego taking it in the 2nd. Then onto the main event of the evening. For sure a do or die fight for the two men involved. Former middleweight champ Evan Tanner faces TUF season 3 winner Kendall Grove. Tanner coming off a KO loss to Yushin Okami and Grove coming off of two 1st round (T)KO losses. It's not crazy to think that whoever losses here may have a fairly short amount of employment left in the UFC. These kinds of elements have the ability to mix and give us something special. Both these guys know what is on the line here and how important this fight is. Now raises the question of who is going to win? Well Grove has always looked good, but I have to give it to Tanner here. I think the experience factor could really pay off in this one. I could see Tanner grinding out a unanimous decision victory or perhaps ending it in the 3rd. Whatever the case, this should be a night of exciting fights and certainly an important night for the middleweight division.
Fedor and Timmy to fight for a title? "Dave Meltzer is reporting that the upcoming Fedor Emelianenko/Tim Sylvia fight on July 19th at Affliction: Banned will be for the brand new WAMMA world heavyweight championship."
Well this just brings even more interest to this fight. This is one of the biggest possible MMA fights to be made outside of the UFC and giving it the label of a "title fight" just makes it that much bigger. While my prediction doesn't change, I do think that the fact that a title is on the line will make each man work a little harder. But like I said, this really doesn't change much. Fedor will add another title onto his resume and cement his spot as the #1 heavyweight in the world.
UFC 87 Takes Shape:
Well what we originally had was a heavyweight showdown between Mark "The Hammer" Coleman and UFC new comer Brock Lesnar, with Coleman out with an injury we've got a different (and better) main event in the form of Jon Fitch facing off with Georges St. Pierre for the UFC welterweight title. But Lesnar isn't completely out of the event, he has been matched up against another heavyweight, a much more dangerous opponent in Heath Herring. A victory for either man will speak a lot about where they are heading. And rounding up the trio of headliners its Roger Huerta looking to prove his spot against top contender Kenny Florian. To tack on to this already stacked card the UFC announced some of the prelims for the event this past week. Cheick Kongo returns to the octagon coming off the heels of his razor thin decision loss to Heath Herring. This is a big fight for him and a chance to show that he is one of the top heavyweights in the world and deserves his spot in the UFC. In a very interesting match up of lightweights, the returning Hermes Franca will go against Frankie "The Answer" Edgar. This is a huge fight for Franca as this is his comeback from his suspension from over a year ago. If he can put away a highly touted fighter like Edgar, it could put him right back into the spot that he was in prior to his title fight. And Chris Wilson will go into his second UFC fight when he goes against Steve Bruno. Wilson showed a lot of talent in his loss to Jon Fitch, and it could even be argued that he won a round of that fight. That's got to give him confidence going into this one. This is going to be a huge card in the sense that so many of these fighters are going to be looking to prove their spot and show that they deserve to be at the top.
Well that's it for me this week.
Come back next Sunday and I'll have my thoughts on the the Ultimate Fighter 7 finale and more.
