MMA NUTS TV Guide to Your Week in MMA 3/18 – 3/24

 

We are now past UFC 158, and it’s a brand-new day with limitless possibilities. There won’t be a UFC show for quite a few weeks, so what’s going on in the MMA world? Is there anything worth watching? Why yes, yes there is. This week is full of MMA goodness. Let’s dive right in and discuss, shall we?

sonnevsjonesTUF

TUF Tuesday: March 19th at 9PM EST.

Last week we saw the final ‘real’ opening round fight go down between Chael’s Zak Cummings and Jones’ Dylan Andrews, and although Cummings has been trying to get on TUF for this moment for almost a half-decade, he fell short to the majority decision of the judges to put Team Jones back into control. Control, however, doesn’t really matter anymore because the last fight to make is the wildcard matchup, something that’s different from seasons past. The eighth bracket features two men already eliminated from competition, and the two fighters picked for this week’s fight were Jones teammate Bubba McDaniel and Chael’s Kevin Casey, which solidifies the fight that we all thought was going to go down in the first few episodes of the season. I have to admit, I like the wild card bracket, and this fight has about 40 TV minutes of trash talk leading up to it, so I’m down to WATCH!

bellator

Bellator 93: Thursday, March 21st at 9PM EST.

Marcin Held and Dave Jansen are in the finals of the lightweight tournament, so they look to move forward to attempt to take on Michael Chandler for his belt in the night’s main event. Supplementing that fight is a potpourri of good matchups including the undercard debut of the UK’s current goldenboy; Michael Chandler. Now, personally, I’m not impressed by Michael Chandler in MMA. He has yet to fight anyone with a winning record, some far more undertrained than he is (dude is a million degree karate belt or something). Granted, CHandler is an awe-inspiring striker with incredible athletic ability, but let’s see how he does with even a state-level wrestler before we go crazy about “The UK’s Anderson Silva.”

The rest of the card looks like this:

Marcus Davis vs. Waachiim Spiritwold in what should be an entertaining war.

Eric Prindle vs. Brett Rogers for a shot at the next heavyweight tournament.

Travis Wiuff vs. Ryan Martinez in what should also be a slugfest in the light heavyweight division.

C’mon. WATCH IT! Then watch this Michael Page highlight.

Glory Kickboxing: Bonjanskey vs. Spong.

Saturday, March 23rd at 9PM UK time.

Tyrone-Spong

The fact that this is going down in the UK is nice because us westerners will be able to watch all of the Glory goodness in the mid afternoon, right before the World Series of Fighting. But, let it be known, outside of the main event (which is absolutely 100% must-see) between the legend Remey Bonjanskey and Tyrone Spong, there really isn’t much to write home about. Dustin Jacoby fights for the first time since his impressive two knockout night a few months back, but other than that SKIP IT! Even if Lenne Hardt and Jimmie Lennon are announcing. It might be good, but World Series of Fighting should be more entertaining. After all, we are MMA nuts not kickboxing nuts.

world-series-of-fighting1

World Series of Fighting 2: Saturday, 9:30 PM EST on NBC SPorts Network.

World Series of Fighting, eh? Get past the fact that the name of this promotion makes ZERO sense (where are the series’? Huh?) and we have an organization run by Ray Sefo, backed by NBC, with quite a few interesting names on the roster. They recently signed Jon Fitch, and this show, headlined by the punchline-inducing heavyweight fight between Andrei Arlovski and the oft-challenged weight cutting of Anthony “Rumble” Johnson.

The rest of the card is pretty solid, just no Tyrone Spong, which is a bummer, but you can’t win all the time.

Tyson Nam vs. Marlon Moraes

Josh Burkman vs. Aaron Simpson (winner supposedly faces Fitch)

JZ Cavalcante vs. Justin Gaethje

Dave Branch vs. Paulo Fihlo, of all people (we don’t believe this fight is happening until Fihlo is in the cage)

Normally, we would suggest skipping this card, but there is something about these smaller shows that creates electricity. Some of these guys were jsut released from the UFC, so this is essentially a show filled with hungry dudes facing off against guys with chips on their shoulders. And hungry people love chips (what the hell am I even talking about now?)

WATCH IT! But ONLY if you have nothing cool going down on Saturday night, like just about anything else.