The Facebook portion of most UFC pay per view undercards is usually home to fighters trying to either work their way the divisional ladder or save their careers. That is exactly what happened when the night kicked off between Mike Massenzio and Steve Cantwell. The first round of the fight was clearly Steve Cantwell’s. However, once Massenzio was able to find his rhythm, he took the fight to Cantwell and turned it into a slugfest. For the second and third round he was the clear winner and had the one time WEC champion staggered on several occasions.
The action continued when Aaron Simpson took on Eric Schafer. Schafer has has been focusing on his grappling in his time away from time away from active MMA competition. It didn’t help him as Simpson looked like a golden gloves champion landing repeated body shots. It was as dominating a performance as we’ve seen out of the former Sun Devils wrestling coach.
The one time hope for the UFC’s Chinese expansion Zhang Tie Quan faced Darren Elkins in a featherweight scrap. Zhang looked good early on but continuously unsuccessfully attempted to end the fight with a guillotine choke. This would be his undoing as Elkins was free to work his game and win a unanimous decision.
Finally to close out the facebook portion of the card, Stipe Miocic successfully made his UFC debut against Joey Beltran. While there are still major holes in Miocic’s overall game, he showed poise and was able to win a convincing decision over an extremely tough opponent. Miocic is someone to watch in the future in the heavyweight division.