Fuel TV is the younger sibling of the FOX media group. There aren’t a lot of folks in North America that can get the station of their cable packages and the numbers are less than earth-shattering when they come in.
With that information at hand, I guess it would be safe to assume these cards are a safe bet to skip over, right? Wrong.
You don’t get the star power and magnetic personalities that you would on the larger platforms but you get a selection of hungry and talented performers looking to show off their bag of tricks to give you a few hours of entertainment on a Sunday afternoon.
The ruckus English crowd were excited from top-to-bottom as the packed house at the Capital FM Arena witnessed Stefan Struve overcome adversity once again to overwhelm hot prospect Stipe Miocic.
If you’ve peeked these pieces before, you know what it’s all about. If you haven’t, well, it’s pretty self-explanatory I think. I enter my fantasy bubble, I create some interesting dance partners for a few of tonight participants and I receive my cheque from Joe Silva and Sean Shelby later in the month.
Stefan Struve vs. Antonio Silva-Travis Browne winner
Once again, the seven-foot-tall behemoth decisively dropped the opening stanza before charging back to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Struve didn’t turn heads in the first five minutes but when he turned up the heat in the second frame he managed to tip over the Croatian-American apple cart.
With another win to his credit he has emerged victorious in six of his past seven trips to the Octagon. Whether you see the 24-year-old as a gatekeeper or not you can’t argue with success and has earned the right to tussle with some top ten talents.
Antonio “Big Foot” Silva seeks his first UFC victory on October 5 when he meets unbeaten product Travis Browne, the winner of that meeting would be the logical next step for “The Skyscraper”.
Stipe Miocic vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira-Dave Herman loser
Industry insiders had pegged Miocic to be something pretty special, and why he still might be, his hype train was de-railed for the moment with his defeat to Struve.
Following his first professional defeat, if he has a clear bill of health I’m sure he would want to get back to the drawing board and begin his road to redemption.
It might sound odd but a fight with the loser of “Big Nog” and Dave Herman might be just what the doctor ordered. Either way he will meet a well-travelled veteran with a trick of two up their sleeve that will give him a real test.
Dan Hardy vs. Kyle Noke
It’s been well documented the fall from grace for former UFC welterweight title-challenger Dan Hardy. The heavy-handed Brit recently snapped a near two year losing skid and kept the momentum rolling tonight with a pretty dominate outing against ex-Ultimate Fighter king Amir Sodollah.
Hardy showed that he has more that bone-crunching power to show off in his hands, he also has an improved wrestling base. The Brit took the reins in the second frame and controlled the rest of the fight to get his hand raised in his home Country.
Kyle Noke has been lobbying to get on the December 15 card in Brisbane, Australia since his recent trip down in weight to 170-pounds, now doesn’t that sound like all types of insane fun inside an eight-sided fighting circle?
Brad Pickett vs. Brian Bowles
I always sort of scoffed at the “One Punch” moniker of Brad Pickett. While I always thought it had a certain ring to it, the Brit was hardly known as a knockout artist and focused largely on his submission grappling.
Well, tonight he really did just need one punch. It was a competitive clash of styles when the Brit tussled with Yves Jabuoin but one hard uppercut and the referee charged in to stop the action, thus making my earlier presumption invalid and foolish.
Now he has got victories in 12 of his last 14 fights with setbacks to highly-touted fighters in Scott Jorgensen and interim 135-pound king Renan Barao he needs to continue climbing that ladder. Brian Bowles has sort of been left in purgatory recently, this fight would be a perfect way to bring his back into the sunlight.
Matt Wiman vs. T.J Grant
If you picked Matt Wiman to get a win tonight, I bet you had him racking up points of rattling the Brit with little hand-work. But who had Matt Wiman tapping the submission ace in the MMASucka office pool?
After nearly a year away from active competition the 29-year-old was happy to play on the mat with the unbeaten triangle king and wound up beating him at his own game, forcing him to quit to an armbar and lining his pockets with a Submission of The Night bonus.
He just picked up an impressive win. Last weekend T.J Grant picked up an impressive win topping Evan Dunham. Put them together and I feel you’ll get something special as either can continue to climb into the 155-pound logjam.
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