HADLEY SCOTT

Welcome, guys and dolls, to Minsk, Belarus. I’m Hadley Scott here with none other than Ireland’s own Carrick Price. We’ve got one heck of a fight card lined up for you all tonight and I know you’re excited to see these big, beefy men and incredibly gifted and talented women wage war with one another. Unless you’re Misty Demeans, then we’re all just hoping you take Trump's advice and inject bleach into your lungs.

 

[Though the camera wasn’t focused on him, Carrick could be heard snorting at the young woman's comments, clearly amused.]

 

CARRICK PRICE

Fucks sake, Hadley.

 

HADLEY SCOTT

What? You know I’m not the only one thinking it. But lets not spend any more time on former fighters this company employed that couldn’t hack it without injecting themselves with shark urine and HGH. 

 

CARRICK PRICE

Anyway…

 

[Hadley flashes an innocent smile at the camera and refocuses the conversation.]

 

HADLEY SCOTT

Yes, anyway. Our first fight of the evening will be a middleweight contest between sixth ranked Randall Wade and twelfth ranked Josiah Euphrates. What should we be looking for here, Carrick?

 

CARRICK PRICE

Honestly, I would expect these two men to leave it all on the table. They’re both a long way away from being considered among the elite of their division. For Josiah Euphrates he’s just looking to get anything going here. He’s yet to win a professional fight and if he fails again here this evening you have to think Dante and Marissa might be looking at releasing him. Randy, on the other hand, could use this fight to get himself some real momentum going. He’s lost two tough fights against Brendan McCarthy and Simba Jrue. A win for Wade would be his second in a row, taking a victory over Bullfrog in his last outing. It could set him up with a rematch against a guy like McCarthy depending on the outcome of his fight tonight, or maybe even a shot at a guy like Aries Reed. He needs to win and with all that punching power, I’d expect him to do exactly that.

 

HADLEY SCOTT

Would a win for Randy get him back into the middleweight title conversation?

 

CARRICK PRICE

In my opinion, not yet. But a win would set him up with another fight that could get him into the championship conversation. Honestly, though, with a guy like Primarch holding the championship do you really want to be part of the conversation when it comes to who eats the next one of those head kicks? You’ve got to be a little bit crazy and I’m not sure Randy has that edge to him. Maybe he’ll prove me wrong tonight. Whatever the case, it should be an all out war with two men fighting for their livelihood.

 

HADLEY SCOTT

Our second preliminary bout is another middleweight contest, this time between two aging vets of the cage. Unranked Lars Levy takes on tenth ranked Jeremiah Ford. What are your thoughts, Carrick?

 

CARRICK PRICE

It’s interesting that Dante booked this fight. Neither of these guys really have a bright future. They’re in the dusk of their careers but at least Bullfrog has proven himself to be a stiff test for some of the young, up and coming fighters of today's generation. For that reason alone I’m going to pick him to walk away with the win in this one. At least he has the experience of being in the cage with guys like Cristian Bonnano, Talon Clem and a damned nightmare of a woman in Hanako Takeuchi. I think that experience sees him through to a nice paycheck. But man, someone let that man retire already.

 

HADLEY SCOTT

For our third preliminary bout of the evening things switch over to the Heavyweight division where we see seventh ranked Jeff Bagwell taking on unranked Billy Tweeds.

 

CARRICK PRICE

Yeah, this one might be over before you even have the chance to blink. The heavy lads always seem to get shite done quick and I don’t expect this to be any different. If you’re looking for a knockout, this will be the fight to watch as I don’t think either of these men understand what it means to get out of the way of a fist coming at your face. Bagwell should pickup his first victory in UGP and extend his career long enough to get knocked out by someone who actually knows what the fuck they’re doing.

 

HADLEY SCOTT

Language.

 

CARRICK PRICE

Shite, my bad. Trying to do better about that.

 

[Hadley shakes her head but can’t help but smile at Carrick, something that is sure to keep his fiance in good spirits wherever she was watching from.]

 

HADLEY SCOTT

Anyway, our final preliminary fight of the evening sees fourth ranked heavyweight Harmon Janssen take on ninth ranked Zander Altman. This should provide Harmon with a good opportunity to bounce back after a tough loss to Joey Byrne, right?

 

CARRICK PRICE

It’s certainly a fight set up to showcase his power. Altman doesn’t have the greatest chin in the world, but he’s a well rounded fighter who could potentially give Janssen some trouble if he’s able to avoid Harmons fists. If I’m Zander Altman and the UGP Performance Institute team, I’m looking to put Harmon on his back and see if I can’t sneak a submission in. At the end of the day, though, it’s just hard to put a guy as strong as Harmon is on the canvas and keep him there long enough to make him tap. Especially with the way the referee’s seem determined to keep fights standing rather than let the more technical guys work their skill on the ground. I think in all likelihood, this one ends in highlight reel fashion with a potential knockout of the night by Harmon Janssen. And that’s saying something given that Natalie King is on this card.

 

HADLEY SCOTT

And we’ll get there, but we’ve got the undercard and co-main event to talk about before we even start discussing that much anticipated main event. The pay per view crowd gets to kick things off with a lightweight contest between the eighth and ninth ranked fighters in the division. Talk to us about Erick Costa and Warren Leibowitz, Carrick.

 

CARRICK PRICE

Man, I think Erick Costa is part of that core group of young lightweights that could potentially be the next Delaney Donovan or Natalie King. I think he’s as talented as Bellamy DeSilva and if you’re a fan of the lightweight division you’ve got to be thrilled with what the next year or two holds competitively in this division. Tonight, though, I think this fight is all Erick Costa. I would expect him to finish Leibowitz off early and be on social media talking as much shit as humanly possible to get even more eyes on him. Six months from now, depending on how things unfold and what Double and The Bandits contract situations look like at that point, you could be looking at a man whose trajectory skyrockets quickly after tonight. For Warren Lebowitz. Sorry bud, I don’t see much hope for you. But at least you’re getting paid.

 

HADLEY SCOTT

Shifting to the bantamweights we see the third ranked Saffron Harris, one of Unions longest tenured fighters, taking on Arnie Hunyh. What should we expect?

 

CARRICK PRICE

Punches in bunches. This is probably the first really intriguing fight of the night. When you look at a guy like Arnie, he’s coming off a tough loss to Griffin Dawson where he was really performing well in the early going but got caught by a flurry of blows from Grif. Now, there’s no shame in that. I get to see Grif in the gym on a daily basis and there’s no one more dedicated to their craft than she is, and talented to boot. If you’re his camp, though, you’re preaching that it was a fluke loss. That if he had a shot at her again that things would turn out different. On the other hand, Saffron Harris has proven time and again that she’s good enough to earn fights with the likes of the best in the division, like Zari Aaliyah, Lauren Moore and Dallas Meechan, but doesn’t quite seem to have the gear to get her past those sorts of fighters. A win tonight for her would earn her another shot at being in title contention, and you know she’s hungry. I just don’t know how many times you can get almost there only to fall short and not have it effect you mentally. If this fight goes into deep water, I expect Saffron to win. She fights in a way that is favorable to the judges scorecards. Whether or not it can go that distance, though, is yet to be seen as Arnie hasn’t had a fight escape the first round yet. My money would be on the vet, but I wouldn’t be shocked if Arnie puts an end to this one quickly either.

 

HADLEY SCOTT

Gun to your head, who wins?

 

CARRICK PRICE

Saffron. Final answer.

 

HADLEY SCOTT

The final fight of the undercard features one of your own, Carrick, in fourth ranked Brendan McCarthy taking on eighth ranked Nigel Musgrove.

 

CARRICK PRICE

It took everything in me not to just say Brendan and move on. But, looking at this one a little bit more closely, it might not be so cut and dry. McCarthy is a fighter with terrifying power, especially on the ground. But he’s also coming off a nasty injury to his hand and you don’t know what that will do to the mind of a fighter whose entire game plan focuses on using that hand like a hammer, trying to beat someone else's face in. I think this one still goes his way, but it might end up being a little closer than expected. And if the magic man can pull a rabbit out of his hat, he might just shock the world and turn the cruiserweight division on its head.

 

HADLEY SCOTT

And we’re into the big money fights now. Our co-main event of the evening sees a rematch between number one ranked Ardan Kelly taking on third ranked Michael Santos. When these two fought the first time, Kelly finished the fight with a beautiful north south choke in the first round. However, there’s a bit of drama surrounding the build to this fight after the ScrapYard twitter account and cruiserweight contender Wenzel Kautz got into a war of words where Wenzel asserted that both Michael Santos and Daniel Fisk were more deserving of a shot at Roscoe Robinson than the number one ranked fighter in the division. You have to think that the exchange opened up an opportunity for both Santos and Kelly to prove themselves. For both it likely earned them a bigger payday, giving them a feature in the Co-Main event. But do you think this one could turn out differently than the first fight?

 

CARRICK PRICE

Absolutely it could. When Michael Santos throws a punch he does it with more than just bad intentions. He does it with more than just a desire to hurt his opponent. He’s looking to alter lives and all it takes is one punch. This could end up being the fight of the night and it’s one of those clashes of styles that you can’t help but be excited about. Can Ardan find a way to neutralize the power of Santos? Can Santos find a way to stay on his feet or, at the very least, slow down the impressive ground game of The Angel? Sequels are always fun, especially for the fighter who came out on the losing side of things, because we all get to see how well they adapt and learn from their mistakes. 

 

HADLEY SCOTT

What about from Kelly’s perspective. How do you handle having to take a step back and face a fighter you’ve already beaten in order to earn a championship opportunity.

 

CARRICK PRICE

Well, one, you have to put that shite out of your head. Whatever you think you deserve, it doesn’t matter at this point. This is the fight you’ve got and if you’re busy thinking about the fight you think you should have, instead of the one you’re actually fighting, you’re just setting yourself up to get caught. More than that, though, he’s got to come in with a game plan that looks a little different than what it did their first time around. His kicks are underrated and if I was him I would lean heavily upon them to keep Santos at range, and use them to set up his takedowns. If he can get Santos on the ground then he’s putting the fight in his wheelhouse and forcing a big time striker to expend energy defending his transitions and submissions, rather than throwing those big fucking paws at his head.

 

[Hadley shoots a warning look at Carrick, as once again he’d slipped on his language.]

 

CARRICK PRICE

Sorry.

 

HADLEY SCOTT

Do better. And give us your winner.

 

CARRICK PRICE

Can’t go against a ScrapYard lad. Ardan wins, but this one goes the distance this time and the judges decide. Fight of the night, if I had to guess.

 

HADLEY SCOTT

That brings us to the main event of the evening. The number one ranked lightweight challenger in the world, The Bandit Natalie King, takes on Byron McCall. This will be McCalls first fight at 155 after an impressive but perhaps anticlimactic tenure in the middleweight division. You would think in moving away from a division that's got Asher Jrue and Robert Guilliman that life would be a little bit easier. But instead he finds himself in what is possibly the deepest division in all of Union GP going against a woman that has absolutely mauled anyone and everyone not named Delaney Donovan. Do you think he’s up to the task?

 

CARRICK PRICE

If there’s anyone who could change divisions and make that sort of immediate impact, it’s Byron McCall. My biggest concern for him is the weight cut. He walks around at one ninety five so he’s being asked to cut a full forty pounds to make weight. I can’t emphasize enough how brutal of a cut that is. But, again, if anyone is going to overcome it it would be Byron McCall. He’s got the resume to back his self confidence up. Sure, his last couple of fights have been tough losses to Aries Reed and Primarch, but there’s no shame in losing to either of those men. Especially when you’re carrying victories over the likes of Navorro Williams, Brendan McCarthy and Asher Jrue in recent memory as well. I’m just not sure that, stylistically, this is a fight that favors him. When you break what both of these fighters do well down, it just feels like, on even footing the fight would favor Natalie and I do believe the weight cut is going to come into play. What’s McCall’s stamina going to look like? Are his reactions going to be as quick as they usually are? Are his strikes going to have the power behind them that we’re used to seeing? I know I said if anyone could do it it would be him. I just don’t know that even he can pull it off.

 

HADLEY SCOTT

If you’re Natalie King how are you approaching this fight?

 

CARRICK PRICE

Full of confidence. I think you fight your fight. If I’m in her corner I’m telling her to throw those big head kicks and then put McCall against the cage and drive your knee into his skull until he breaks. A win in this fight sets up what will likely be her last opportunity to grab the lightweight championship a second time as long as Delaney Donovan is king. I think she takes care of business tonight and is immediately back to trying to find some way to get the better of Double D in the near future.

 

HADLEY SCOTT

Ladies and gentlemen, you heard it here first. Make sure you tweet out your own predictions for the evening if you missed the opportunity to vote in the fan polls, and use the hashtag BF18. Enjoy the fights tonight and I’ll see you after the shows over to breakdown everything that happened and analyze what it means for each division going forward. Mwah!

 

[The blonde blows a kiss to the audience and then flashes a smile, waving to the fans around the world. Carrick, meanwhile, is busy pulling the wires of his microphone off of himself so that he can shoot off to the commentary booth to call the fights for the evening.]