Yesterday was a big day in regards to fight cancellations, fight announcements, fighters being cut, you name it. None was bigger than the main event for this weekend’s UFC Fight Night 76 event being scrapped so let’s start with that: Joseph Duffy vs. Dustin Poirier A concussion suffered by Joe Duffy less than a week before his fight forced him to pull out of the contest yesterday, which dealt a brutal blow to the event which is now renamed UFC Fight Night: Holohan vs. Smolka. This comes just days after the co-main event scrap between Stipe Miocic and Ben Rothwell was pulled. The event now has 10 fights in total and while there are plenty of decent prospects on the card, there is little to no drawing power. Duffy was the primary attraction to everyone involved. Andrei Arlovski vs. Stipe Miocic – UFC 195 This came as a surprise to many considering Miocic recently was forced out of his UFC Fight Night 76 bout against Ben Rothwell due to injury, but the injury didn’t appear to be something that would keep Miocic out long as he’s now been booked to battle former Heavyweight Champion Andrei Arlovski in the co-main event of UFC 195. Both heavyweights are surging in the division and could very well be fighting for the number one contendership. Arlovski has won all four of his fights since returning to the UFC while Miocic had a competitive battle with former champion Junior dos Santos and most recently obliterated Mark Hunt in one of the most dominant heavyweight fights in promotion history. Look for the odds to be close on this one and I wouldn’t be shocked to see Miocic open as the very slight favorite. Daron Cruickshank vs. Paul Felder -UFC Fight Night 81 Two very exciting strikers will square off this upcoming January as Daron Cruickshank battles Paul Felder. Cruickshank and Felder both possess lethal kicks and spinning attacks, so this contest should be extremely entertaining from start to finish. I fully expect this one to be a contender for Fight of the Night, although it’ll have some healthy competition with a Cruz vs Dillashaw bantamweight title main event. Felder should open as the slight favorite despite a poor showing in his most recent outing against Ross Pearson because the betting public seems to love the guy. Last but not least, more UFC cuts were announced. I’ll only break down the biggest one, but the rest are listed as well: Amir Sadollah – The winner of The Ultimate Fighter season seven, Sadollah started his professional MMA career inside the Octagon. He was never the hardest hitter, but he managed to pick up some high profile wins (including on TUF) over the likes of Matt Brown, CB Dollaway (twice) and Phil Baroni. Injuries plagued him in the latter stages of his UFC career as he only fought once since 2012, a one-sided decision loss to Yoshihiro Akiyama. Sadollah closes out his UFC career with a 6-5 record in the promotion. The rest of the cuts are listed below: William Macario (1-3 UFC) Ivan Jorge (2-2 UFC) Luke Zachrich (1-2 UFC) Leonardo Mafra (1-2 UFC) Ron Stallings (1-2 UFC) Vagner Rocha (1-3 UFC) Roger Zapata (0-1 UFC) Joe Merritt (0-1 UFC) Lewis Gonzalez (0-1 UFC) Hernani Perpetuo (0-2 UFC) Naoyuki Kotani (0-5 UFC)
