UFC 107, a look ahead

As it stands, UFC 107 is poised to cast a shadow over the recent UFC 106 event with a main event between two former 170 pounders who are both looking to continue their wins at 155 pounds and a co-main that may start the look for an interim heavyweight champ.  The remainder of the main card has us looking at who gets the next shot at the winner of BJ Penn/Diego Sanchez, and who moves up the ranks in the welterweight and heavyweight divisions.

So now everyone knows that BJ Penn is capable of pushing into the later rounds and retaining his cardio after he dismantled a solid Kenny Florian at UFC 101 in the fourth round and he continues to push the limit in the stacked UFC lightweight division. Others may feel that Diego Sanchez, with his ability to win at 170 and 155 (albeit via decisions), will be considered the toughest test for Penn. No matter who you pick, this fight should be fun to watch.

Frank Mir returns after his devastating loss to Brock Lesnar to face Cheick Kongo in order to begin the process of determining an interim heavyweight champion. The current champ, Lesnar, has been seriously ill for months and will be unable to fight for quite some time. The winner of Mir/Kongo will continue up the ladder to eventually fight in an interim title fight in the future, most likely sometime in 2010. We know that Mir wants this fight on the ground while Kongo wants to use his feet to create the distance. I think Mir takes this fight, but Kongo has been known to pull out the TKO win, so we’ll be talking more about this fight next week just prior to the event.

UFC 107 will be live from Memphis Tennessee from the Fedex Forum on December 12th. The full main card along with the undercard is as follows:

Main Card
BJ Penn vs. Diego Sanchez
Frank Mir vs. Cheick Kongo
Jon Fitch vs. Mike Pierce
Kenny Florian vs. Clay Guida
Paul Buentello vs. Stefan Struve

Undercard
Alan Belcher vs. Brazil Wilson Gouveia
Matt Wiman vs. Shane Nelson
Johny Hendricks vs. Ricardo Funch
Rousimar Palhares vs. Lucio Linhares
DaMarques Johnson vs. Edgar Garcia
Kevin Burns vs. TJ Grant