That should be just what we get when Marcus "The Irish Hand Grenade" Davis and Jess "The Joker" Liaudin try and escape the division's second tier at the other's expense. It is an entirely unexpected situation for both men given they've been written off at various points in their careers.
For Davis (13-3) in particular, the idea of becoming a contender in the UFC welterweight division once seemed as preposterous as Matt Serra (Pictures) becoming champi … oh wait, never mind.
Remembered by many for his brief stint on "The Ultimate Fighter" as "that boxer with no ground game," Davis wisely took time away from the UFC following a loss to Melvin Guillard (Pictures) and honed his skills in local promotions.
The move paid dividends for Davis, who has racked up five straight wins in the UFC and transcended the "boxer" tag by racking up submissions with seeming ease. Those newfound submission skills came in particularly handy in his last bout against British kickboxer Paul Taylor (Pictures).
After barely surviving a cranium-crunching high kick from Taylor, Davis managed to turn the tide on the ground and score a fight-ending armbar to cap off an instant fight of the year candidate. It will take, at the very least, an equal effort for Davis to knock off another one of Europe's premier welterweights.
This is a surprising role for Liaudin (12-8), who has spent most of his MMA career as a glorified gatekeeper in various organizations. The first step in his renaissance was a move to the California-based Team Quest gym, where under the guidance of Dan Henderson (Pictures), he found new form as a mixed martial artist.
That form has led to a pair of first-round stoppages in the UFC over Dennis Siver (Pictures) and Anthony Torres (Pictures). More important than the wins themselves, however, has been Liaudin's complete about-face inside the Octagon as he now sports an unorthodox yet oddly effective striking style bolstered by his already slick ground game.
Both will come in handy against Davis, but the real tipping point is just how well Liaudin's flashy striking will hold up against Davis' disciplined boxing approach. Generally, Davis likes to test the waters standing against his opponents before deciding on what approach to take, and Liaudin is hardly shy about engaging on the feet.
The early going of this bout will feature Liaudin showing off his arsenal of high kicks.
That will be his undoing against Davis, who will take the opportunity to step inside the pocket and force Liaudin into a trench war.
Not only is Davis the far more dangerous fighter with his fists, he has shown flashes of a strong clinch game as well, which would prevent Liaudin from keeping him at arm's length.
We've seen a great deal of improvement from Liaudin, but the style clash is simply not in his favor -- a fact that will be cemented when Davis notches a TKO early in the second round. With another UFC win under his belt, Davis continues his endless quest to silence every MMA "expert" on the face of the earth.
Jason Lambert (Pictures) vs. Wilson Gouveia (Pictures)
As the UFC light heavyweight division continues to settle into focus, both Jason Lambert (Pictures) and Wilson Gouveia (Pictures) will vie for the opportunity to add their names to an already long list of potential challengers. Both men could have already found themselves in such a position if not for lengthy periods of inactivity outside the cage and disappointments inside it.
Gouveia (9-4) ran headfirst into disappointment in his UFC debut against TUF alumnus Keith Jardine (Pictures). Set up as a rebound win for Jardine, Gouveia refused to play the role as written and took Jardine to the limit by punishing the Greg Jackson-trained fighter with leg kicks that left him hobbling around the Octagon. A hotly contested decision went in favor of Jardine, however, and Gouveia was left to wonder what could have been.
Disappointment gave way to renewed focus for Gouveia, and he has since looked dominant against the lesser lights of the division. Sporting no shortage of confidence and the skill to back it up, the American Top Team-trained fighter is looking to exorcise the specter of his UFC debut once and for all against Lambert.
Returning from a 10-month UFC layoff that was precipitated by the cancellation of his bout with Gouveia at UFC 76, Lambert (23-6) is coming off the biggest win of his career against perennial contender Renato "Babalu" Sobral.
Entering the bout, Lambert was regarded as little more than cannon fodder for Sobral, and a disastrous beginning saw Lambert completely outclassed on the ground against Sobral's sparkling jiu-jitsu.
After gutting through the adversity of the early going, Lambert exposed Sobral's shoddy conditioning and quickly turned the bout into the kind of close-quarters dust-up that he thrives on. Expect the same approach against Gouveia, but just how well it will work is up for debate.
Hannibal Lecter would tell us to follow the advice of Marcus Aurelius and seek out our answer using the simplest path possible. Given Lambert's one-dimensional approach and Gouveia's versatile skill set, it would be quite the leap of faith to believe that Lambert will survive Gouveia's submissions on the ground and strikes on the feet.
Don't let the marketing campaign fool you. The mystery behind this fight isn't on the scale of what the "Cloverfield" monster looks like (My guess? Crab/Ann Coulter hybrid). Gouveia has too much for Lambert, and having gone deep into fights before, he won't have the same conditioning concerns that doomed Sobral.
After a few crippling leg kicks rob Lambert's shot of its explosiveness, Gouveia should be able to put away Lambert with a guillotine choke late in the first round. Afterward, expect Gouveia to challenge everyone from "Rampage" to that kid in first grade that used to shoot spitballs at him during recess.
Kendall Grove (Pictures) vs. Jorge Rivera (Pictures)
In what is becoming an increasingly common trend, we get a TUF champion attempting to rebuild his cache after a disappointing loss. This time around, it'll be Kendall "Da Spyder" Grove looking to rebound from his calamitous loss to Patrick Cote (Pictures) by taking on another bruising middleweight in Jorge "El Conquistador" Rivera.
Things were not supposed to break this way for Grove (8-4, 1 NC), who emerged as a dark horse during the third season of "The Ultimate Fighter" and, under the guidance of Tito Ortiz (Pictures), became perhaps the most unlikely winner in the series' history.
In a division short on contenders, Grove quickly established himself with impressive wins over Chris Price and Alan Belcher (Pictures) that left the MMA cognoscenti wondering if the UFC had stumbled across its middleweight savior.
Such illusions were quickly put to bed when Patrick Cote (Pictures) reminded the world that Grove's head has the molecular composition of peanut brittle. Another loss to an unheralded journeyman middleweight could leave Grove's career back where it was prior to his time on "The Ultimate Fighter."
The time Rivera spent on the "comeback" season of the reality show didn't yield the same success as Grove, but it did get his foot back in the UFC's door. Although Rivera managed to bang out a TKO win over Edwin Dewees (Pictures) in his UFC return, he quickly reverted to past form when put up against stiffer competition.
This time around it was Terry Martin (Pictures) who left Rivera crumpled on the mat, and it took all of 14 seconds to happen. Hardly surprising when you consider Rivera's two previous runs in the UFC began with solid wins and were followed by first-round defeats.
If Rivera is to have any chance of earning a regular UFC paycheck, he'll have to follow Cote's game plan by keeping the fight standing and testing Grove's suspect chin. The problem with that approach is Grove fell in love with his striking against Cote and got away from the approach that brought him success in the first place.
Assuming Grove will make the same mistake all over again is not something Rivera can rely on, and we've seen that Rivera's ground game is hardly up to snuff. Expect Grove to keep Rivera at bay with leg kicks and jabs before closing the gap with takedown attempts that Rivera is ill equipped to repel.
All of you starving to see "Da Spyder" bust out his post-fight victory dance won't be disappointed, as Grove scores a TKO stoppage in the second round with strikes from the mount. For those of us who don't plunk down hard-earned cash to watch a Hawaiian shake his groove thing, expect to reach for the remote once the final bell rings.