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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The FX preliminary card for Saturday's UFC 155 event provided some solid action in three fights that went the distance, along with another highly impressive showing from a rising prospect in the UFC.
Capping off the prelims was a good, but not great fight between bantamweights Brad Pickett and Eddie Wineland. It was a highly anticipated fight coming in, and nearly provided a great highlight in the first round, but Pickett's chin allowed him to continue. That first round saw Wineland stagger Pickett with some big counter strikes on more than one occasion, but Pickett managed to stay on his feet and recovered well.
He pressed the action throughout the remainder of the fight, landing some nice strikes of his own, but Wineland's counter-striking continued to be effective, and he kept Pickett off his game for much of the fight. Though the second and third rounds were close enough for Pickett to edge them on one judges' scorecard, the other two saw it for Wineland, who earned the split decision for his second straight win.
Prior to that, bantamweight Erik Perez continued the impressive start to his UFC career, winning his third straight fight with a brutal first round stoppage of Byron Bloodworth. Perez dropped Bloodworth with a knee to the body in the clinch midway through the round, and after a minute and a half of ground and pound, Bloodworth was finished. Perez is now 3-0 in the UFC's bantamweight division, and seems to have a bright future ahead of him.
One fighter who may not have a future in the UFC is Melvin Guillard. After winning five straight fights in 2010-2011, Guillard entered Saturday's preliminary card bout with Jamie Varner on a 1-3 run, and he left the event at 1-4 over his last five fights.
Varner took control of the fight from the final minute of the first round. A tentative start saw Guillard open things up with a series of leg kicks, but Varner came back with a flurry late in the round to take the frame. From there, he out-struck a tepid Guillard, and in the third round took him down thrice while still out-striking him. It was a smart, effective performance from the former WEC Lightweight Champion, who may have secured "Comeback Fighter of the Year" honors with his second win in three fights since his Octagon return.
In the opening bout on the night's FX broadcast, two Ultimate Fighter vets clashed in a fight that was seen beforehand as a step down for one of them. However, it was the underdog who came out on top, as Myles Jury dominated Michael Johnson for the entire 15-minute fight to cruise to an easy decision win.
Johnson had won three straight fights, and off his knockout win over Danny Castillo in October, Jury was seen as a strange opponent for his next fight. But it was Jury who surprised everyone, keeping his record perfect at 11-0 with a smart, one-sided performance. He took Johnson down in each round, and kept pressure on him throughout with punches and elbows to earn his second UFC win.
Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/UFC_2/article_15452.shtml
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