UFC 108 Preview: Paul Daley vs. Dustin Hazelett

Paul Daley (22-8-2, 1-0 UFC) vs. Dustin Hazelett (12-4, 5-2)

The Story So Far: When Paul Daley made his UFC debut he was stepping in to replace the injured Mike Swick. Daley went on to upset Martin Kampmann at UFC 103. Now Daley looks to avoid Kampmann's fate as Daley will be fighting a new opponent due to an injury.

Daley was suppose to fight Carlos Condit but a cut to Condit's hand sidelined the former WEC welterweight champion. While Paul Daley didn't believe Condit's story the UFC moved forward and found Dustin Hazelett to replace Condit.

Hazelett was available to fight due to his previously scheduled bout with Karo Parisyan at UFC 106 being scrapped at the last second due to Karo's personal issues.

A win here for Daley places him firmly in the top-ten and sets him up for a future showdown with a top-five fighter. Hazelett has similar ambitions, as a win over the ironfisted Daley could propel Dustin from being the "cool submission" fighter to a top-ten welterweight.

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Conventional Wisdom: Daley is a feared striker with questionable submission skills/defense while Hazelett is a submission expert with questionable stand-up. Might as well hop in a time machine and go back to 2002. Typically when these match-ups occur they favor the grappler.

WKR Analysis: While this fight might reek of 2002 stylistically times have changed. Even strikers with piss poor submission defense today are infinitely better than strikers with piss poor takedown defense in 2002, well, except for Kimbo Slice and Houston Alexander.

In Daley's last fight we saw that he was able to smoother Martin Kampmann preventing him from securing a takedown. Daley could easily employ the same strategy against Hazelett who has a similar build to Kampmann.

Fun Fact: Dustin Hazelett's nickname is "McLovin" from the popular comedy Superbad. So here is your obligatory best of McLovin montage.

SBN coverage of UFC 108: Evans vs. Silva