UFC 178 will be live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday, September 27th with a stacked 11-fight card, including a five-fight main card that will be airing on Pay Per View at 10pm ET, with a four-fight preliminary card preceding it at 8pm ET on FOX Sports 1. Getting the action started for the televised prelims will be a welterweight contest between veterans Brian “Bad Boy” Ebersole and John “Doomsday” Howard. Howard is now 2-1 since returning to the Octagon, most recently suffering a unanimous decision against Long Island’s Ryan LaFlare in Abu Dhabi. After flirting with a cut down to the 155-pound division, Ebersole has decided to stick around welterweight for the time being, largely in part due to injury’s that delayed his weight-cut/dieting process. “Bad Boy” has lost back-to-back fights for the first time in his professional mixed martial arts career, and could be facing contract termination, should that streak extend to three. Next up is another welterweight contest, this one being in the form of Patrick “The Predator” Cote vs Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson. I expect this fight to be ‘Fight of the Night’ worthy and should have the crowd on its feet. This is a fight that would normally be on a Pay Per View main card, but the fact that it is only the second bout on the televised preliminary card only goes to show just how incredibly stacked this UFC 178 card is. Both 170-pounders have won their last three bouts and will be looking to extend their winning streaks to four in a row when they square off against each other at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. This scrap should be a real barn-burner and I think it is a gift to be getting for free on TV. The following bout on the UFC 178 preliminary card on FOX Sports 1 will be a lightweight scrap between Strikeforce veteran Jorge “Gamebred” Masvidal and “The” James Krause. The RFA veteran is coming off a TKO victory over Jamie Varner in his last outing, while his opponent Masvidal is coming off a pair of unanimous decision victories over Daron Cruickshank and Pat Healy, respectively. These 155-pounders are both very well-rounded and hard to put away. This is another fight that should be a real barn-burner with ‘Fight of the Night’ potential. On any other given Pay Per View card, this fight would very likely have been on the main card portion of the show. Continues to show; UFC 178 is stacked, stacked, stacked!! Proving the case furthermore is a three-round bantamweight contest that will be headlining the televised prelims; a bout that sees the return of former WEC and UFC Bantamweight Champion Dominic “The Dominator” Cruz, as he takes on Japanese veteran Takeya Mizugaki. Cruz has been plagued with injuries and out of action for three years, during which time he had to give up his championship belt. Now, finally injury free, “The Dominator” is ready to return to action. Enter: Takeya Mizugaki. The UFC and Shooto veteran is on an impressive five-fight winning streak inside the Octagon, and seven, if you count the very controversial he dropped to now-flyweight Chris Cariaso at UFC 144 as a win. Most spectators were surprised to hear Bruce Buffer announce Cariaso’s name as the winner; unanimous, no less.
