With the event just two weeks away, a pair of injuries to bantamweight fighters forced a shuffling of the cards at the upcoming UFC Fight Night 50 event. Both Rob Font and Ian Entwhistle were injured in training and today both men pulled out of UFC Fight Night 50. With their original opponents of Chris Beal and Dustin Kimura, respectively, looking for new opponents, the UFC booked Beal vs. Kimura instead and it should be a very exciting matchup when it goes down. The card takes place September 5 at Foxwoods Casino Resort in Ledyard, CT, and it’s headlined by a five-round main event middleweight matchup between Gegard Mousasi and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza. The newly-created bantamweight bout between Beal and Kimura is expected to open up the televised preliminary card. Beal (9-0) had a terrific UFC debut, knocking out Patrick Williams in the opening bout at UFC 172 via flying knee knockout. The TUF 18 alumni trains at Knuckleheads MMA alongside rising lightweight contender Tony Ferguson and fights similarly to his teammate with an aggressive fighting style that is based a powerful striking attack. At Williams he was able to follow his gameplan of sprawl and brawl and he will likely look to implement the same strategy against Kimura. Beal’s not great on the ground, having been submitted by Chris Holdsworth on the show, but he should be able to stuff most of Kimura’s takedown attempts and keep the fight on the feet, where he should have a large advantage in the standup. Kimura (11-2) is 2-2 in the UFC so far with wins over Chico Camus and Jon Delos Reyes and losses to George Roop and Mitch Gagnon. The young Hawaiian is excellent on the ground and has tremendous fight-ending ability with his submissions. His striking is improving a bit but it’s not great and he doesn’t have a great chin. But his ability on the mat to pull off creative submissions makes him a dangerous opponent for anyone at 135lbs because he can, at any moment, earn the tapout win. He has been exposed somewhat in his UFC career for a lack of wrestling and maybe some durability issues, but with his slick BJJ game he’s always a live dog at 135lbs. This should be an exciting bout between two young and rising bantamweights, but based on their last performances’, you have lean towards Beal here, and he should be the betting favorite when the lines open up for this event. As long as he doesn’t make a mistake on the ground and leave a limb or his neck exposed, he should be able to thoroughly dominate Kimura on the feet and win by either TKO or decision.
