UFC Fight Night 20 Preview: Amir Sadollah vs. Brad Blackburn

Amir Sadollah (2-1, 2-1 UFC) vs. Brad Blackburn (15-9-1, 3-0 UFC)

The Story So Far: Amir Sadollah has had the odd fortune of having a career that is simultaneously charmed and cursed. Sadollah was a MMA novice when he fought on the seventh season of The Ultimate Fighter. Luckily for Amir he was apart of one of the weakest seasons on record. Sadollah won the season in part thanks to C.B. Dollaway's poor submission defense.

This is the point of the story where the charmed career becomes cursed as Sadollah followed his TUF victory by being plagued with injuries for over a year and drop down to 170lbs. When Sadollah did return at UFC 101 he fought WEC veteran Johny Hendricks. Hendricks won the bout via TKO though the stoppage was controversial and many believed that the referee should have let the fight continue.

In the third fight of Sadollah's career the charms started working again as the UFC matched him against Phil Baroni. Sadollah was able to defeat the Strikeforce cast off in a tailored made rebound bout. 

Brad Blackburn is a former IFL fighter  who signed with the UFC in 2008. Blackburn immediately began to find successinside the Octagon as he built up a three-fight win streak with wins over Ryo Chonan and Edgar Garcia. Blackburn also holds a victory over Strikeforce welterweight, Jay Hieron.

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Conventional Wisdom: If you have read the many Internet profiles of Sadollah or if you've seen Amir featured as a host on many Spike vehicles for the UFC then you will already know that Sadollah is a Zuffa golden boy, even more so than a normal TUF winner. Thus many observers assume that the UFC will continue to nurse the green-Sadollah along. The Blackburn fight is the latest manifestation of this trend. Sadollah should be tested early in the fight but will find his groove as the fight goes on.

WKR Analysis: It is experience vs. youth in this fight. Blackburn has been around the block, fighting in the IFL and many other organizations before joining the UFC. While Blackburn fits the script of a fighter who can test of a young prospect, in this case, Sadollah, he also fits the script of a fighter who can beat the crap out of your young prospect. Sadollah has had issues in the early portions of a fight and Blackburn could easily catch Amir in the first two minutes of the fight.

Fun Fact: We often use word "green" to describe an inexperienced fighter but WKR thinks we should start referring to them as "white." While that has obvious connotations to surrender it fits Sadollah perfectly as he only holds a white belt in Jiu-Jitsu (at least that's what Wikipedia says).

Get it? White belt, the fighter is "white." Ha ha! 

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