UFC 134 Rio Preview Part Three: Luiz Cane vs Stanislav Nedkov

Columns, Features, Previews, Top Story

The UFC has a long standing tradition of introducing good prospects into the UFC with strong challenges. And that’s what Stanislav Nedkov is getting with Luiz Cane: a strong but beatable challenge to begin his UFC career.

Cane arrived in the UFC a Brazilian fighter proficient in two things: Muay Thai and BJJ. Nedkov is an Eastern European proficient in boxing and BJJ. Both are proficient in both but prefer to stand and trade. And that’s how this fight will probably turn out: two guys forgetting about the ground and just throwing bombs. How do we know this?

By looking at their fights and records.

In 25 fights combined between the two there’s only been three decisions. The majority of both their fights have been stopped due to strikes. Both guys like to come in and throw and that’s why this card, which is essentially a fight between a prospect and a former prospect turned low level gatekeeper, is on the card. Zuffa is expecting this to be a standup battle with someone’s lights being turned off violently.

Cane’s been defeated, and knocked out, by guys not really known for their hands outside of Little Nog. Nedkov hasn’t been defeated yet but hasn’t fought anyone with the sort of pedigree Cane does. It’s not that Cane has a lot of great wins on his record but he has fought a higher class of fighters than Nedkov has so far. Whether Nedkov is going to go from being a prospect to a potential contender is going to be settled with this fight. If he can’t get past Cane he won’t do any better against the division, which only gets tougher from here.

The key to the fight will be who has the better chin. Both guys are going to throw with bad intentions early and often; whoever takes a punch better will probably walk away with the victory. This situation favors Nedkov, if only because he hasn’t had his lights turned off as recently as Cane has.