This Thursday’s UFC on Versus card features four bouts with top-15 competitors. And here they are:
Light-heavyweight: #15 Cyrille Diabate vs. Steve Cantwell. I suspect this will be the end of Diabate’s stay in the top 15.
Middleweight: #7 Alessio Sakara vs. Chris Weideman. Weidman is a late replacement for Maiquel Falcao, and has only four pro fights to his name. However, he’s also a decorated collegiate wrestler, and Sakara is a striker with a spotty ground game. This could be the end of Sakara as a top-15 fighter too.
Welterweight: #6 Martin Kampmann vs. #9 Diego Sanchez. A really interesting fight between two guys who overcame embarrassing losses in their most recent welterweight stints (Sanchez to John Hathaway, and Kampmann to current #15 Paul Daley) and went on to score solid high-level wins. No idea what to expect here.
Bantamweight: #2 Brian Bowles vs. Damacio Page. By the time this fight takes place, it will have been just over a year since Bowles lost the WEC bantamweight title to current UFC champ and #1 bantamweight Dominick Cruz; Page, once ranked as high as #4 on this site, also took a long time off not long ago, going inactive between October 2009 and November 2010. Page lost his comeback fight against #7 Demetrious Johnson; one wonders whether ring rust will have a similar effect on Bowles.
