Amir Sadollah (1-1, 1-1 UFC) vs. Phil Baroni (13-11, 3-5 UFC)

The Story So Far: The narrative of this fight centers on two fighters searching for restituion.

After winning the extremely weak seventh season of The Ultimate fighter Sadollah was plagued with constant injuries and was forced to drop to welterweight without fighting once in the middleweight division, besides the Finale.

In Sadollah's return/welterweight debut he was knocked out in thirty seconds by WEC veteran Johny Hendricks . Now Amir is out to prove that he is not an overrated TUF fighter.

Phil Baroni hasn't fought in the UFC since 2005 -where he put up a 3-5 record- but he did find some success in a second act in Pride. In Pride Baroni went 4-2 with noticeable wins over Ryo Chonan and Ikuhisa Minow. Baroni left Pride before the promotion went under and began fighting for several promotions including EliteXC and Strikeforce.

Phil Baroni was introduced to MMA fans everywhere during MMA's first network event, EliteXC: Primetime. While Baroni lost to Joey Villasenor the national exposure certainly helped as Phil was tapped to fight Joe Riggs at Strikeforce: Shields vs. Lawler.

Unfortunately for Phil, he lost to Riggs and soon found himself without a job as Strikeforce served the veteran fighter his walking papers. Unexpectdly the UFC stepped in and signed Baroni to a new contract. Now "The New York Bad Ass" looks to undergo a renaissance in the fourth act of his career.


SBN coverage of UFC 106: Ortiz vs. Griffin 2

Conventional Wisdom: Phil Baroni has really bad endurance. Even if Sadollah gets into trouble early, like the Johny Hendricks fight, there will be hope for him to come back and win the latter rounds as Baroni gasses.

WKR Analysis: Amir Sadollah vs. Phil Baroni is of questionable pay-per view quality. Now with the news that Karo Parisyan is off of the fight card (due to unknown reasons) Sadollah vs. Baroni has been elevated to the first fight of the evening. Clearly a win for the fans (does sarcasm translate in a blog post? Let's hope so).

Amir will most likely try to push the pace in order to attack Baroni's stamina.

Phil Baroni did improve upon his horrible cardio in his last fight, so the old gameplan to defeat Phil might not work in this instance. Actually check that, Baroni still gassed in his last fight, it was just in round two as oppose to round one. The old gameplan sticks!

Fun Fact: Technically this is a fight between two New Yorkers (insert "my new haircut" joke). Amir Sadollah was born in Brooklyn while Baroni is from Long Island.

Also, Amir has a white belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (according to his wiki page). I guess that means there is hope for all the arm chair warriors out there. So I wonder what color belt C.B. Dollaway has? What's lower than white? Oh, I know, a pink belt!

SBN coverage of UFC 106: Ortiz vs. Griffin 2