Dallas, Texas is home to a lot of things. A once great but now mediocre football team helmed by a geriatric lunatic, a basketball team starring a gangly, Teutonic weirdo, and dudes getting their heads smashed to bits by high-velocity projectiles. UFC 171 looks to add to that last item as the vacant welterweight title is up for grabs, with two hard-punching southpaws trying to become the first American 170-pound champion since 2007. Check out the With Leather Staff Predictions (Featuring special guest, @NewYorkRic) and let’s take a look at the card!
The prelims begin on Fight Pass at 6:15 PM ET, and I’m looking most forward to two things. First, Bubba McDaniel getting his face punched concave. Second, Justin “Tank” Scoggins continuing to do really fun, rad kick-punches and just be a fun flyweight.
The prelims move over to Fox Sports 2 at 8:00 PM ET, and there are a lot of exciting fights and fighters on this portion of the card. Sean “Black Magic” Spencer takes on Alex “The Dominican Nightmare” Garcia in a welterweight bout, with the winner getting the punch out a white dude. In a featherweight scrap, Jimy “The Kid” Hettes kicks off the night of guys with misspelled names as he takes on Dennis “The Menace” Bermudez. That should be awesome because when he’s on point, Hettes is really rad, and Bermudez has been putting on cool fight after cool fight for a while now. The unofficial prelim main event (The people’s main event, as it is sometimes called) is another welterweight fight, as Rick “The Horror” Story takes on The Ultimate Fighter winner and With Leather fan favorite, Kelvin Gastelum, who almost missed weight, but cut the amount needed on the second try to make 171.
The main card is on pay per view at 10:00 PM ET, and it’s got quite a bit of fun stuff to slam your eyeballs into. In an effort to confuse people into buying the event, Ovince “OSP” St. Preux kicks things off against Nikita “The Al Capone” Krylov in light heavyweight action. This should be a cool fight between two dudes who are good at both hitting things pretty hard and also doing all sorts of neato hugs on a man on the ground. Next up are welterweights, as former StrikeForce middleweight champ Jake Shields takes on former Bellator middleweight champ, Hector “Lightning” Lombard. With Shields in the mix, it’s a big toss-up on this fight’s excitement factor, but I’m confident it’ll be at least moderately cool. The next slew of bouts are pretty much guaranteed good times, though. Lightweights Myles “Fury” Jury and crazy man Diego “The Dream” Sanchez will probably scramble all over each other like some slimy lizards, then it’s two straight welterweight fights. The co-main event features Tyron “T-Wood” Woodley taking on Carlos “The Natural Born Killer” Condit. Expect spinning shit, y’all.
The main event is going to be a doozy. Tiny, bearded, yokel Okie, Johny “Bigg Rigg” Hendricks (How much more misspelled can this dude get? Hendrixx?) looks to finally win the UFC welterweight title as he takes on the old man veteran that’s actually only 18 months older than him in “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler. Both dudes are southpaws (Yay lefties!) and both dudes throw HEAT, so if someone ends up taking an early bed time, don’t be surprised. Of course, it’s also the fight that almost didn’t happen, as Hendricks missed weight at the weigh-in and very fortunately lost 1.5-pounds by the time he was weighed again.
(Burnsy note: That, of course, led to Nick-F*cking-Diaz of all people showing up in Dallas to taunt Hendricks. How cool would it have been if Hendricks went into the crowd and one-timed Diaz and then turned around and beat Lawler tonight? That would have sold a few more PPV shares for sure.)
(Also, Getty refers to Nick Diaz as a “UFC welterweight star” in the photo description. Didn’t this guy run off and quit at least two times after losing? Didn’t this guy say he was never going to fight again, and now that two way more qualified fighters are getting a chance to become the first champ since Georges St-Pierre, he suddenly wants to be in the conversation again? F*ck this guy. Go win a fight. Sorry, back to you, Jessica.)
A whole heap of fights, fans and friends, so let’s dive into these comments and have fun!
