A couple of new fight announcements were made over the weekend, and for today’s Odds and Ends I’ll tell you what the new fights are, as well as give my quick thoughts on them. Marcus Brimage vs. Jumabieke Tuerxun, UFC Fight Night 55 Two bantamweights pulled out of two separate upcoming fights with injuries, and their healthy opponents will now square off instead. With Erik Perez and Patrick Williams pulling out of UFC 180 and UFC Fight Night 55, respectively, their original opponents Marcus Brimage and Jumabieke Tuerxun have now been matched up with each other, and the two bantamweights will meet in a three-round bout at UFC Fight Night 55, which takes place November 8 at Allphones Arena in Sydney, Australia. Both Brimage and Tuerxun are coming off of two-straight losses each, and the loser of this fight could very well be released from the UFC. Brimage’s last two fights resulted in a knockout loss to Conor McGregor and a split decision loss to Russell Doane, while Tuerxun lost a decision to Mark Eddiva and by submission to Leandro Issa in a “Fight of the Night”-winning performance. Both guys are pretty exciting, but with so many bantamweights on the roster, it will be hard to justify keeping someone with three losses in a row around, which is why I think the loser of this fight will be released. As far as how they match up, Brimage should have the takedown defence to keep this standing and on the feet he is a much better striker than Tuerxun. To be honest, I’m not exactly how Tuerxun would win this fight, but he did look much improved against Issa before a third-round submission defeat and maybe he could surprise us here against Brimage. As far as the betting line goes, look for Brimage to be favored here, but not by a crazy margin as Tuerxun is someone who often gets more support from the public than he deserves. Rodrigo Damm vs. Evan Dunham UFC 182 Two lightweights will battle it out in the New Year for a spot on the UFC roster. The promotion announced over the weekend that Rodrigo Damm and Evan Dunham will meet in a three-round lightweight bout at UFC 182, which is set to take place January 3 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The funny thing about Dunham is that he was looking so good at one point of his career, that I honestly thought he was going to be a UFC title challenger. Even just last year he lost to Rafael dos Anjos in an extremely controversial decision that most thought Dunham should have won. But he’s looked bad since then, getting destroyed by Donald Cerrone and Edson Barboza in his last two bouts, and now he seems like the perfect guy to fade after only winning one of his last five fights. The thing is, you could say the same thing about Damm, who looked great on TUF Brazil but who has looked off as of late, losing to Al Iaquinta via TKO and to Rashid Magomedov via decision in his last two fights. Damm is 3-3 overall in the UFC, which isn’t terrible, but he definitely needs a win over Dunham to save his UFC career, and to be completely honest I’m not sure if he’ll get it. I could see Damm pulling this off if Dunham has declined even worse than I think, but on paper Dunham should have some edges in this fight and I believe he should be a slight favorite here despite his losing streak.
