UFC 89 Preview

Previews

UFC 89 looks like a pretty good fight night, which puts it on par with most of UFC’s British cards. I’m pretty happy to get Bisping vs. Leben and Jardine vs. Vera on free TV. They might not be true headline fights, but they are at least intriguing. I can’t say for sure who will win either one, both fights will have an effect on who might get title shots down the line, and both have a good chance of ending in spectacular fashion. I wouldn’t pay to watch it. Then again, we don’t have to pay to watch it, so that’s fine.

Also:

Luis Cane is a very good Muay Thai fighter and he’s fighting Sokoudjou, who is a phenomenal KO artist with an enormous neck. They will almost surely go toe to toe at some point early in the fight.

Heavyweight Shane Carwin is a well-rounded ground and pounder, and he’s facing Neil Wain, a Brit with heavy hands. Does Wain have enough wrestling to avoid being taken down and crushed?

Taylor and Lytle both have big hearts and (figuratively, at least) big balls. Their fight should be awesome, if Lytle keeps to his relatively recent pattern of letting his hands go and throwing caution to the wind. Taylor is a good technical striker, and Lytle has something close to a complete game. If Lytle can get on top of Taylor on the ground, he’ll probably finish him.

Out of the undercard fights, I really hope that Akihiro Gono makes the TV broadcast if the main card fights don’t go long enough. Gono is well into his 30s now, but he’s one of the more entertaining submission guys I’ve ever seen. He can catch anyone from anywhere. He’s awesome. The undercard fight most likely to make air is possibly Etim vs. Stout, which should be yet another stand-up war.

If you like stand-up wars and highlight KOs UFC 89 could end up much more entertaining than it looks on paper.

Also, it’s already underway, so you may want to avoid MMA websites until you’ve seen it, if you don’t want to find out the results ahead of time. Alternately, if you’ve got dumb friends you could check out the results, invite them over, then bet heavily on the outcome of the various fights.

Gordi is a former professional wrestler who has been following MMA since the very first UFC tournament. Gordi's been part of the Inside Pulse family from day one. He and his wife are currently preparing to move to Japan.