The Ultimate Fighting Championship announced today that some of UFC 104's preliminary fights will air live, for free, on Spike TV. Under card fights often never see the light of day, but frequently involve fighters with as much or more notoriety than those on the main card. The opportunity to enjoy these match-ups live is something that UFC fans have been requesting for years, but it was only recently offered for the first time--- at September's UFC 103: Franklin vs. Belfort.
The live fights preceding UFC 104 are set air from 6:00pm-7:00pm PST on Saturday, October 24th. They will be shown commercial free, except for short UFC 104 promos designed to get viewers to shell out for the Pay Per View (PPV) card that begins immediately afterward. Two fights are guaranteed to appear this time on Spike. They include, Ryan "Darth" Bader (9-0) vs. Eric "Red" Schafer (11-3-2) and Antoni Hardonk (8-5) vs. Pat "Get Hype" Barry (4-1).
Conspicuously absent is the under card bout between Chael Sonnen (23-10-1) and Yushin "Thunder" Okami (23-4). This is problematic because Okami, despite going 7-1 in the UFC and being a legit contender at middleweight, is often overlooked and mistreated due to his methodical, wrestling-based style. Hopefully, the addition of the two live Spike TV fights will free up enough time during the PPV portion of the card to fit in tape-delayed coverage of Okami's fight.
The main event at UFC 104 is a light-heavyweight championship match between, title holder, Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida (15-0) and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua (18-3).
No comments:
Post a Comment