Originally published Saturday, July 11th

I’m always a little bit frustrated whenever the cable bill arrives at my house. I only watch about 5 out of the 200 channels I have available and my fiancé does most of her “TV” viewing thru Netflix and YouTube. Paying for cable may be annoying, but it’s nights like tonight (July 11th) that make it worth it. If you are a combat sports enthusiast like myself, you’ll be able to get your fill tonight with two great events.

First, Premier Boxing Champions will be televised on ESPN for the first time tonight and the main event features one of the best, if not thee best, boxer to come out of the Tampa Bay Area, Keith “One Time” Thurman. Keith holds the WBA welterweight belt and is currently undefeated with a 25-0 record with 21 KO’s. He is fighting Luis Collazo who has a 36-6 record and has never been knocked out in his entire career. It’s going to be a tough fight for Thurman, but I believe his power and speed will help him stay undefeated. Prediction: Thurman wins via 10th Rd TKO

If that wasn’t enough, the UFC has one of their most anticipated pay-per-views tonight with UFC 189. If you have the dough to fork up for this PPV I would highly recommend you do. If not, there are plenty free options you can take advantage of to enjoy UFC 189. The prelims will be shown on Fox Sports 1 at 7pm ET and they include several great fights including Matt “The Immortal” Brown vs. Tim “The Dirty Bird” Means. These two fighters will put on a show that will please even the most casual fight fan. As for the PPV, you can listen to Brendan Schaub & Bryan Callen, hosts of The Fighter & The Kid podcast, give a pseudo play-by-play call of the fights on Joe Rogan’s Ustream channel. I will warn you, these two guys can get very silly and go on tangents that have nothing to do with the fights. There are a ton of great fights on this card so I’ll only give my predictions for the co-main & main events: Rory MacDonald def. Robbie Lawler by decision & Chad Mendes def. Conor McGregor by 4th Rd TKO.

We will see if my predictions are right tonight and I’ll post a recap of the events later this week. Enjoy tonight fight fans!

Update

If I were a betting man, I would have lost money Saturday night with my predictions. I was correct in predicting Keith “One Time” Thurman’s victory and that he would win by TKO. Thurman was cruising early in the bout but was on the receiving end of a vicious body shot in the 5th that slowed him down significantly for the rest of the round and most of the next. He was able to bounce back and land repeated left hooks to the head that opened up a cut above Collazo’s eye and ultimately led to the TKO victory.  Predicting the outcome of the Thurman fight would be my one and only accurate predication of the night.

I choose MacDonald and Mendes to be the victors in the co-main & main events of UFC 189. MacDonald was winning on the judges scorecards going into the 5th and final round, but sustained a broken nose (among other injuries) after eating a stiff left hand from the champion Lawler. Mendes experienced the same fate when he was unable to hold McGregor down and was TKO’d by punches in the 2nd round.

Regardless of my poor predictions, both events were action packed and truly great displays of combat sports.