UFC Fight Night 9 Card Updates

News

UFC.com has confirmed most of the card for the 04/05 UFC Fight Night 9 show, which is due to air on Spike TV as a precursor to the fifth season of The Ultimate Fighter.

Main evented by a Lightweight clash between rising stars Joe ‘Daddy’ Stevenson and Melvin ‘Young Assassin’ Guillard, UFC.com has now confirmed that the other two televised bouts will be Frank Mir vs. Antoni Hardonk in a Heavyweight battle, and Kenny Florian vs. Dokonjonosuke Mishima, also in the Lightweight division.

For the undercard, UFC.com confirmed Welterweight bouts between Drew Fickett and Keita Nakamura, and Roan Carneiro and Anthony Torres; and a Lightweight bout between Wander Braga and Kurt Pellegrino.

Also confirmed for the card were Wilson Gouveia (Light-Heavyweight), Kuniyoshi Hironaka (Welterweight), and Thiago Tavares (Lightweight). Gouveia’s opponent is expected to be TUF 2 veteran Seth Petruzelli, while Tavares is expected to face off with Japan’s Naoyuki Kotani. Hironaka’s opponent was scheduled to be Canadian Jeff Joslin, but sources suggest that ‘The Inferno’ has pulled out citing a back injury. No word on his replacement yet.

As for TUF 5? With the show less than a month away from premier now, the list of fighters has finally been leaked onto the web. With a format consisting of sixteen Lightweight (155lbs) fighters coached by Jens Pulver and BJ Penn, the following will be taking part on the show:

Allen Berube
Andy Wang
Brandon Melendez
Brian Geraghty
Coery Hill
Cole Miller
Gabe Ruediger
Gray Maynard
Joe Lauzon
Manvel Gamburyan
Marlon Sims
Matt Wiman
Nathan Diaz
Noah Thomas
Robert Emerson
Wayne Weems

April looks set to be an interesting month for UFC indeed.