I say boom boom boom… a lemme hear ya say way-oh?
The Pitbull, only hours after FSA posted a speculative feature about who he could fight, has had his first One FC opponent confirmed for Manila in August; CFC’s Australia star Soa Palelei.
This should be a good scrap; in Andrei, you have a former UFC Heavyweight champion with good hands (offensively at least) and a highly underrated sambo base with decent throws, submissions and good balance. The big man can do damage when focused, and providing he doesn’t have a “flying knee” moment, where he makes some fundamental mistake (which cost him against Sylvia, Fedor and Brett Rogers) he is as an elite heavyweight fighter as they come. But it remains to be seen, post-2008, which Andrei will show up!
Soa is a beast who has crushed the CFC Australian division, and is looking to fight in front of larger crowds and reach a worldwide platform, which One FC provides. Soa is a big boy, who just crushed token “big boy”, Japan’s fifth Beatle Bob “The Beast” or alternately, Bob “Tap” Sapp, in something like 0.00033946 seconds, but in facing even a depleted Andrei, the experienced 17-3 fighter would be coming up against a fighter the calibre of which he has never faced (not counting his loss to Daniel Cormier and a UFC loss to Eddie Sanchez in his shot at the big stage). The step up in competition will be made more apparent if a motivated, sharp Pitbull arrives determined to claw his way back to prominence – can Palelei produce a performance the likes of which he was unable to do so in his sole PRIDE and UFC appearances on the big stage? Or will we see a vintage Arlovski cave his skull in to the sound of “Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi!” dying in the throats of hundreds of travelling Australians?
WHO KNOWS?
Should be fun!
Twitter @ Daniel Fletcher
