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UFC 80 Preview

by Jeff Gorman

Ultimate Fighting Championship will present its 80th big show, Rapid Fire, live on pay-per-view on Jan. 19 at 3 p.m. Eastern from Newcastle, England.

“The Prodigy” B.J. Penn will headline the event, as he will battle Joe Stevenson for the vacant UFC lightweight title. Previous champion Sean Sherk was stripped of the belt late last year after testing positive for a banned substance.

Penn’s last fight took place six month ago, when he choked out Jens Pulver at the Ultimate Fighter 5 finale. Penn has a record of 11-4-1 and is a former UFC welterweight champion.

Stevenson (28-7) has slugged his way into contention with four wins in a row, most recently a unanimous decision over Kurt Pellegrino in August.

The second-to-top match will be a battle between Brazilian heavyweights Gabriel Gonzaga and Fabricio Werdum.

Gonzaga put himself on the map when he knocked out Mirko Cro Cop last April. That win earned him a shot at UFC heavyweight champion Randy “The Natural” Couture, who defeated him on a TKO in August.

Werdum is 9-3-1 but lost his only UFC fight to Andrei Arlovski by unanimous decision last April.

This show will show how big UFC’s core fan base is, since it’s last big show from the U.K. aired on a tape delay on prime-time TV. This time, UFC is hoping its fans will pay for the show and watch it live on a Saturday afternoon.

The rest of the undercard includes Jess Jiaudin vs. Marcus Davis (welterweights); Wilson Gouveia vs. Jason Lambert (light heavyweights); and Jorge Rivera vs. Kendall Grove (middleweights).

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Posted in General on January 14th, 2008

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