UFC FN 54: MacDonald vs. Saffiedine

Date: Saturday, October 4th
Preliminary Card (UFC Fight Pass): 18:00 LP.net / 4pm PST / 7pm EST
Preliminary Card (UFC Fight Pass): 19:00 LP.net / 5pm PST / 8pm EST
Main Card (UFC Fight Pass): 21:00 LP.net / 7pm PST / 10pm EST
Live Streams: http://www.vipbox.tv (All MMA events are listed under the UFC button. Press the UFC button and you'll see the event in the list.)





Main Card (Fox Sports 1)

Rory MacDonald (17-2) vs. Tarec Saffiedine (15-3) (Welterweight)
Raphael Assuncao (22-4) vs. Bryan Caraway (19-6) (Bantamweight)
Chad Laprise (8-0) vs. Yosdenis Cedeno (10-3) (Lightweight)
Elias Theodorou (9-0) vs. Bruno Santos (14-1) (Middleweight)
Nordine Taleb (9-2) vs. Jingliang Li (9-2) (Welterweight)
Mitch Gagnon (11-2) vs. Roman Salazar (9-2) (Bantamweight)

Preliminary Card (Fox Sports 1)

Daron Cruickshank (15-5) vs. Anthony Njokuani (16-8) (Lightweight)
Olivier Aubin-Mercier (4-1) vs. Jake Lindsey (9-1) (Lightweight)
Jason Saggo (10-1) vs. Paul Felder (8-0) (Lightweight)
Patrick Holohan (10-0-1) vs. Chris Kelades (7-1) (Flyweight)

Preliminary card (UFC Fight Pass)

Albert Tumenov (13-2) vs. Matt Dwyer (7-1) (Welterweight)
Pedro Munhoz (11-1) vs. Jerrod Sanders (14-2) (Bantamweight)

Other

- A bout between Paige VanZant and Kailin Curran was briefly linked to this event, but delayed a month and rescheduled for UFC Fight Night 57, after VanZant suffered a minor injury.
- Aljamain Sterling was expected to face Mitch Gagnon at this event. However, Sterling was forced to withdraw due to an injury and was replaced by Rob Font. Subsequently, Font pulled out of the fight the week of the event and was replaced by Roman Salazar.
- Louis Gaudinot was expected to face Patrick Holohan at the event. However, Gaudinot pulled out of the fight in the week leading up to the event and was replaced by Chris Kelades.

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First thoughts:

• Safffiedine > MacDonald (If this match was outside Canada, I'd go big on Saff. Saff is currently +400, and is well worth a bet. MacDonald will probably win a decision though, since it will be a close fight and it's held in his home country of Canada.)
• Assuncao > Caraway
• Laprise > Cedeno
• Theodorou > Santos
• Taleb > Li
• Gagnon > Salazar
• Cruickshank vs. Njokuani (hard fight to pick)
• Mercier > Lindsey
• Saggo vs. Felder (dunno)
• Holohan > Kelades
• Tumenov > Dwyer
• Munhoz > Sanders

cant imagine a more boring fight than rory vs tarec. two tactical fighters that have good defensive wrestling, not much power and point striking. nightmare. would rather watch jake shields vs maia again

yeah, maybe they could allow them to bring guns and have a duel this time instead.

Got a big bet on Tarec Saffiedine, if I have the energy to stay up I might try to livebet Rory if the early rounds are somewhat even to freeroll. Boring as card though, so that's highly questionable.

Also on Assuncao despite the price and Tumenov. Saggo, Gagnon and Munhoz should get quick subs a lot I think. Might do something with that.

mcdonalds

Although I agree it will likely be boring, I'm very interested to see how McDonald vs Tarec plays out. McDonald likes to be defensive and sit behind his jab a lot, and that's not going to be a great strategy against Tarec who is such a good kicker. Maybe the best behind Aldo.

If Tarec can stop the takedowns then I think he's got a really good shot at winning. Kinda surprised he's +400ish.

I really have no clue how good Tarecs TDD is though.

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$150 free roll: https://www.kountermove.com/join/3302...ht-54-macdonald-vs-saffiedine-T-free/

McDonald > Saff (bet on on Saff though)
Assuncao > Caraway big time
Laprise > Cedeno
Elias > Santos
Li > Taleb
Gagnon > Salazar
Cruik > Njk
Mercier > Lindsey big time

No clue about others but Tumenov has monstrous power.

Prelims: http://ifirstrowus.eu/watch/287787/1/...fc-fight-night-54:-preliminaries.html

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Super easy win for Pedro Munhoz.

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Super easy double-head kick KO by Albert "Einstein" Tumenov!

Albert 'Einstein' Tumenov. Dude is a monster.

On October 04 2014 18:01 PuertoRican wrote: Prelims: http://ifirstrowus.eu/watch/287787/1/...fc-fight-night-54:-preliminaries.html ---------- Super easy win for Pedro Munhoz. ---------- Super easy double-head kick KO by Albert "Einstein" Tumenov!

He may have made that first kick look easy, but it was actually an insanely well set-up and technically brilliant monster-shot that he got him to lean directly into with a quick feint. To hit a high switch-kick on a 6'4 dude within miliseconds of feinting is a thing of violent beauty. I jizzed my pants on that one.

Yeah, obviously it isn't an easy kick to pull off. He made it look easy, which got him a quick win, thus the easy fight.

Tumenov and Munhoz opened up the card with good finishes. The last 6 fights have been boring. Hopefully the next 4 are better.

very smart fighting by Theodorou, totally sapped the energy and kicked the arms out of Santos and he turned that tank into a defenseless blob

Assuncao should own Caraway, but I'm wondering if the matchmaker saw something that the betting public didn't.

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Props to Caraway for fighting as good as he did while he still had gas in the tank. He continues to improve with each outing, but his gas tank will always hold him back.

Randomly woke up for this. And i'm seeing the main event start. Sweet !

Damn... Rory made Tarec fight his fight and then got the TKO like a boss... I predicted the fight wrong.

Fuck ya