UFC 110 Preview: The Main Card

Keith Jardine vs. Ryan Bader

The Breakdown: Winning “The Ultimate Fighter” comes with its perks: plenty of publicity, sponsors throwing gold bricks wrapped in contracts and matchmaking designed to make one look like a star. The last of those perks comes with an expiration date, and Bader’s ride on Easy Street will take a hard right turn when he takes on Jardine.

How Bader handles his promotion to the upper crust of the light heavyweight class depends largely on his ground-and-pound. A powerful overhand right and some decent fundamentals is about all the masses have seen from Bader on the feet, and those are nowhere near enough to make up the difference in striking ability with Jardine.

Notorious for his unorthodox yet oddly effective striking style, Jardine will starch Bader given the opportunity, but that depends largely on the undefeated Arizona Combat Sports standout since Bader can drag his wild-eyed quarry to the mat any time he pleases. Throughout his Octagon run, Bader has shown uncommon discipline for such a young fighter by sticking to his bread and butter and only testing his striking and grappling when the circumstances are right.

Having that composure will help his cause, as Bader will need to be all ground-and-pound all the time to keep his facial structure intact. Unless he suddenly decides to play Rock ’Em Sock ’Em robots with Jardine, he has all the tools to win with little difficulty.

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The Bottom Line: There may be an alternate dimension out there where Bader rams his chin into Jardine’s punches and forces Mike Goldberg to declare a new “greatest knockout in UFC history” for what seems like the 50,000th time, but that dimension exists somewhere far away from Sydney, Australia. Do not expect anything terribly exciting, as Bader takes a ground-and-pound-fueled decision.