As I’ve mentioned plenty over the past week or so, tomorrow night’s UFC 161 PPV, live from Winnipeg, Manitoba, was supposed to feature a main event battle for the interim UFC Bantamweight title between interim champ Renan Barao and No. 4-ranked Eddie Wineland. Like most fans, I was very excited about this matchup, because A) the bantamweight division has been a total mess with champ Dominick Cruz being injured, and B) Wineland’s old timey boxer pose in the banner image makes me so giddy.
Of course, Barao is also injured, so the fight couldn’t happen, and instead of stripping him of the interim title and setting up a fight involving any of the other bantamweight hopefuls, Wineland included, Dana White just decided to elevate the Rashad Evans-Dan Henderson and Roy Nelson-Stipe Miocic fights to co-main event status. This is actually kind of fun for two reasons…
1) The common consensus among the UFC and MMA media elite seems to be that the loser of the Evans-Henderson match is donezo. If that fighter isn’t fired, he’ll probably never see another title shot in the UFC. That’s some bleak reality for those two fellas, so that should make for an intense fight. Fingers crossed at least.
2) Obviously, I’ve been overly concerned with and excited about Roy Nelson’s situation this week, as his fight with Stipe Miocic is a tricky situation. Nelson’s contract is up after the fight and Miocic isn’t ranked, so a win does very little for him in either regard. But if he wins and comes to terms on a new contract – again, my prediction is that he and White will soon, suddenly and conveniently become best buddies – I’m guessing he’ll get a title shot after Velasquez-dos Santos III.
As for the rest of the card, check out tomorrow night’s fight lineup after the jump, presented to us by my favorite Roy Nelson pics and GIFs, and, as always, you can check out our very own Lobster Mobster’s UFC 161 fight primer right here. Then join us starting at 8 PM ET for the preliminary fights on FX and at 10 PM ET for the UFC 161 PPV event. I’m sure you might even catch us here earlier for the Facebook fights.
And because you have all been so nice and patient with me, I have created a brand new, exclusive set of badges just for this fight, and we will have them added very soon for you to start unlocking.
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(Image via the unparalleled Dr. Obviously)
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