Two new UFC bouts were announced for upcoming winter fight cards, and for Wednesday’s MMA Odds and Ends I’ll give my quick thoughts on both the fights. Jumabieke Tuerxun vs. Patrick Williams, UFC Fight Night 55 A bantamweight bout between Jumabieke Tuerxun and Patrick Williams is the latest addition to UFC Fight Night 55, which is set to take place Nov. 8 at Allphones Arena in Sydney, Australia. Both Tuerxun and Williams are coming off of stoppage losses and the loser of this fight will no doubt receive their walking papers from the promotion. In Tuerxun’s case, he’s actually 0-2 in the UFC so far with losses to Mark Eddiva and Leandro Issa, but at least he won a Fight of the Night bonus for his fight with Issa, which was obviously enough to get the UFC to keep him around for one more fight. As for Williams, he’s 0-1 in the UFC with a KO loss to Chris Beal via flying knee back at UFC 172, a fight where he kept running away the whole time. As far as I’m concerned, the only reason Williams is getting another shot in the UFC is because he took the fight with Beal on short notice, because he looked downright awful in the fight. This isn’t a lock by any means but I do favor Tuerxun here and believe he should be a small favorite heading into the fight, one that I expect him to win. Gian Villante vs. Corey Anderson, UFC 181 A light heavyweight matchup between Gian Villante and TUF 19 winner Corey Anderson was added to UFC 181, which takes place Dec. 6 at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. The bout will be part of the evening’s preliminary card. Anderson needed a step up in competition after winning TUF with a blistering TKO of Matt Van Buren and Villante is the perfect guy for his sophomore UFC effort. Although Villante actually has a decent record of 2-2 in the UFC, if you look closer it could easily be 1-3 as his last outing, a split decision win over Sean O’Connell, could have gone either way, and his other win, a TKO victory over Cody Donovan, came over the worst light heavyweight on the roster. In reality, he’s one of the lowest-ranked fighters in the division and the UFC is clearly using his name value to help get Anderson a medium-sized win on his resume as they push him as a future star at 205lbs. I don’t think Anderson is going to win the belt, and I don’t even think he’ll ever break into the top 15, but I’m pretty sure he beats Villante and as such I do think he should be favored heading into this matchup, at least at 2-to-1 and possibly even closer to 3-to-1 as bettors look to fade Villante after a poor showing and overvalue Anderson after his knockout win over Van Buren.
