Bellator Dublin Coming Up, Rio Rancho and UFC Dublin in August.

First of all I want to talk briefly about the main event at UFC Rio Rancho at the weekend. Jan Blachovich defeated Corey Anderson by KO in the first round. Jan did to Corey what many thought Johnnie Walker would do to him. I didn't see the fight but I saw the knock out here: https://www.ufc.com/news/ufc-rio-rancho-results-anderson-blachowicz-2 . From what I gather from the Weasle's breakdown, it was a case of getting Corey's rhythm and timing down for Jan. Corey always took two steps before a major strike and Jan picked his moment.
Bellator Dublin is coming up on Saturday. I counted 19 fights on the card. It seems a bit much even with the original main event cancelled. There were 17 in September and they had to jumble around a couple of preliminaries to keep with the Paramount schedule in the USA. The Paramount main card is going to be recorded and shown in the evening across the Atlantic. Maybe that'll help scheduling issues, but it'll take a number of fights not going the distance not to put the pressure on the schedule. The real reason I'm talking about that is I don't want to miss any fights and I'm thinking of toilet breaks.
Danni Neilan, Richie Smullen and Will Fleury are the three names I'm looking out for in the prelims. Danni impressed me in her debut and it was one of the jumbled around fights, so she was fighting in front of a full house just before the main event. Will lost to an impressive Novenyi Jr. in September so hopefully he'll bounce back from that. Franz Mlambo faces a major step up in class against Ricky Bandejas in the Paramount main card. I'd like to see Franz pull off a surprise victory but he can be hit and Bandejas has an impressive KO against James Gallagher. I think Bandejas wins that one but it'll be good experience for Franz regardless of the result. Kiefer Crosbie faces Imaik Furtado. John Kavanagh said on social media that he expects Kiefer to win by second round ko. I don't know anything about Furtado except he has a 6-1 record compared to Crosbie's 7-1.
The main event for the Paramount viewers is Brent Primus v Chris Bungard. Bungard is a late replacement for Peter Queally who had to pull out of the event unfortunately. If he won this he could have been a star in the making after his fight of the night performance in September, but it's not to be for now.
Then we go to the Bellator Dublin Main card. Charlie Ward faces Kyle Kurtz in the standout fight of the two for me. Ward is always fun to watch, but is coming off a loss in his most recent fight in England so hopefully he'll be back in the win column Saturday night. The main event features Leah McCourt v Judith Ruis. Ruis is a German fighter that I don't know much about to be honest. She has a 6-4 pro record. McCourt looks like she's being pushed as a potential star by Bellator. She's coming from a rear naked choke victory in her fight at the venue in September. But I've seen analysis which suggests she's good wherever the fight goes and she did look good to me five months ago.
One more thing I want to mention today. A UFC fight night has been announced for Dublin on the 15th of August. Tickets are on sale the end of June. It's not a big pay-per-view event so Conor McGregor won't be on the fight card. Or at least I doubt he will anyway, but he did tweet "Conor McGregor v Diego Sanchez" recently. Who from Ireland fights in the UFC apart from Conor now though? They cancelled the last one in Dublin to make a fight night in Liverpool for Darren Till. I wouldn't be surprised if they did the same with this one to accommodate a new rising star and the fact that the best Irish fighters are mostly with Bellator now. So I won't be too pushed about going until closer to the date. The fact that Queally and Gallagher are out Saturday could help some make up their mind to hold out for August instead.