Once again, the UFC is dark this weekend, but we've got their competitors showing up with some fights.
Thursday
9pm TV - (6pm Facebook/9pm NBCSN) PFL 2018 Regular Season #6
I love the PFL, its a cool concept, and I hope it works out. This night is the second regular season matches for middleweights and welterweights, those are the premier weight classes for MMA and they are all going to be fighting to earn a ticket into the playoffs for the $1MM grand prize. Everyone will be highly motivated to get early finishes, and this might be the best PFL event to date on paper.
Friday
8pm TV - (6pm internet/8pm Paramount) Bellator 204, Caldwell vs. Lahat
There is no title fight for this event, but this is still a very good card by Bellator's standards. [Reply]
File this under the category of "no one is surprised by this at all", Andrea Lee's nazi husband is wanted by the cops for domestic violence.
#UFC fighter #AndreaLee allegedly assaulted by husband with #Nazi past. #Police have not yet made contact with Donny Aaron. Charges include false imprisonment and domestic abuse/batteryhttps://t.co/qLIQ6aGtck
Watch this double amputee teenager drop both prosthetic legs and deliver a genuine beating to another 2 legged kid in a legit streetfight... some of the most gritty, badass shit I've ever seen
Kid has a big heart, watch extended clip on bottom
After a couple weeks away, the UFC returns this weekend in Lincoln with a card thats worth taking a trip over to Nebraska.
Saturday
5am - (Fightpass) - Glory 57
Its kickboxing in Europe, but its very early in the morning. Nah, I'd rather sleep.
7pm TV - (5:30pm Fightpass/7pm FS2/9pm FS1) - UFC Fight Night, Gaethje vs. Vick
This is a great main card for free TV with an awesome main event, and the prelims are pretty good too. All of the other major US promotions are still avoiding the NFL preseason, and aside from a minor PFL event next weekend, they are staying away till late September after week 1 kicks off, but the UFC wasn't going to take an entire month off. [Reply]
Well.... OK. Ultimate Fighter! We gotta talk about it for two reasons, first this next season of TUF will not be the final season, apparently ESPN has decided that they would like to have their own seasons of TUF produced next year, so the show will go on, and second... the first episode of the newest TUF will air... tonight!
It was going to start later this year, but for whatever reason they moved the schedule up, so here we go. This season of TUF is called "Heavy Hitters", for an extremely obvious reason: they feature the heaviest weight class for both men and women. So, this season is men's heavyweight and women's featherweight. This makes a lot of sense because the UFC always badly needs heavyweights, and they also badly need to find challengers (cannon fodder) for Cris Cyborg.
edit: the coaches are Whitaker and Gastelum. They will fight for the middleweight title sometime in early 2019 [Reply]