A pair of middleweights look to entertain us more than the opening bout this June 27, 2015 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida.
The Match Up
Middleweight Thiago Santos 10-3 vs. Steve Bossé 10-1
The Odds
Steve Bosse +165 Thiago Santos -190
3 Things You Should Know
1. Santos is a heavy hitting fighter looking to prove that TUF: Brazil is more than the sum of its obscurity.
Most fighters from TUF: Brazil will go on to never be remembered. Some will go on to at least be the t-shirt of the week. Santos will likely end up the latter, and perhaps more. He scored a suitably violent win over Andy Enz for UFC 183, and also owns a win over Ronny Markes, with losses to Uriah Hall and Cezar Ferreira. It’s not a bad 2-2 UFC record, all things considered, and he’s in a matchup that allows him to brawl his way to victory once more.
2. Steve Bossé is a former hockey enforcer so I have a hard time being objective in this one. Be still my beating heart.
As a high school student, I was pretty dumb. I know, nothing’s changed. Yeah, I get it. But I mean ‘dumb’ in a way that wasn’t even interesting. But my idiocy at least became interesting to myself once I started reading more, and my first foray into nonfiction was Stan Fischler; a hockey historian who wrote a bunch of stuff, and occasionally that stuff included documenting hockey fighters. So rather than read the Great Gatsby like a young privileged high school kid, I opted for prizefighting on ice.
This probably says something about me, none of which is good. But at least I’ve got a decent recollection of hockey goons from the true greats like Bob Probert and Nick Fotiu, to the underrated like Mario Roberge and Dan Kordic.
Steve Bossé sounds like a proper name for a proper hockey fighter, but Bossé is pretty much resigned to some LNAH violence; a division that is somewhere between the two galaxies that separate each league teams will be looking at for the NHL 2015 Draft, and the WWE.
Oh right. I almost forgot. He has some MMA experience too.
3. Sadly, Mike Keane vs. Bill Guerin this ain’t.
Bossé is a much better striker than you’d expect any hockey enforcer has any right to be. It’d be fun if he ducked his head, and threw punches aimlessly with his eyes closed until only one guy was left standing, but that’s only how he fights on the ice. In the cage, he’s offensively gifted. He’s also surprisingly restrained. He’s patient in the way he picks his opportunity to pressure. He favors the right hand, but he’s got access to knees and other assorted strikes that make more than one dimensional. Now that I think about it, it’s too bad Joe Rogan isn’t doing the commentating. He’s the one MMA commentator who would explore ad nauseam the beneficial nature of learning to fight on skates.
Problem with Bossé is that he’s never quite as active as his offense allows; against Houston Alexander, he had Houston staggered a bit, and could never finish Houston the way he “should” have. In addition, Houston throws one of the more telegraphed right hands in the history of combat. And Bossé still got hit with it. One the one hand it’s encouraging to know you can eat your opponent’s best Sunday punch. On the other, it’s discouraging to know that your head doesn’t move fast enough to avoid Bandura’s bobo doll.
Prediction
Santos has a ton of power and moves quick enough to find angles against defensively porous fighters. Just look at that fight face. Sure it screams ‘damn those enchiladas!’ but it also looks like he eats hockey enforcers for breakfast. And this Saturday Santos will be really hungry. Santos by TKO, round 3.
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