UFC 119: Fighters on the hot seat
The recent release of UFC fighters Todd Duffee, Efrain Escudero and just today Jon Gunderson begs the question, who’s next? UFC 119 is Saturday and several fighters on the card should be looking at their fight as a must win. Come this Sunday or Monday there could potentially be a handful of fighters from the card looking for work elsewhere.
Let’s start off in the undercard which has the highest concentration of potential victims with five.
Mark Hunt (5-6, 0-0 UFC) will be marking his UFC debut against Sean McCorkle (9-0) who is also making his debut. Hunt is a kick boxing veteran that really hasn’t made the successful transition to MMA, having lost his last five MMA fights. He will look to spoil the party for McCorkle who will be fighting in his hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana. Should Hunt loss the fight he might be one and done inside the octagon.
Two fights also on the undercard have the look and feel of a loser go home type match. Steve Lopez (12-2, 0-1 UFC) vs. Waylon Lowe (8-3, 0-1 UFC) are both 0-1 in the UFC and the loser will move to 0-2. Next is the T.J. Grant (14-4, 2-2 UFC) vs. Julio Paulino (17-3, 0-1 UFC) fight, which has another 0-1 fighter in Paulino. Grant is a little more experienced, but has been inconsistent in the UFC and lost his last fight. Going 0-2 or being inconsistent and losing two in a row is typically the express route to becoming unemployed.
We now move to the Spike portion of the card for the next fighter on the hot seat.
Middleweight veteran Joe Doerksen (45-12, 2-5 UFC) is making his 7th stint in the UFC against C.B. Dollaway (10-2, 4-2 UFC). Doerksen hasn’t had much success in the UFC but has been called back six other times now. If he’d like to have back to back fights in the UFC for only the second time, he’ll likely need to defeat the Ultimate fighter season 7, runner-up to make that happen.
The main card fighters look to be fairly safe, but anything can and usually does happen. Two fighters that fall into that anything can happen category are Sean Sherk (33-4, 7-4 UFC) and Matt Serra (11-6, 7-6 UFC). Both fighters are former champs and both also have over 11 fights in the UFC. Fighters with these credentials usually have a much longer leash, but stranger things have happened.
No matter what happens after UFC 119, we are setting the over/under at 2 fighters being released.
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Hunt said on Ariel Helwani’s show that he only has a one-fight contract and that if he does lose, he probably won’t fight again.
@dylan
That makes sense man, thanks for the info.