ANOTHER IRISHMAN HAS been added to the card for UFC Fight Night 87, which will take place in Rotterdam on 8 May.
Joining Neil Seery on the bill will be fellow Dublin flyweight Paddy Holohan, who’s set to take on 29-year-old American Willie Gates.
The card will be headlined by heavyweight contenders Alistair Overeem and Andrei Arlovski, while Seery will face former title challenger Kyoji Horiguchi.
Holohan (12-2-1) will be aiming to return to winning ways after he was submitted by Louis Smolka in the second round of the main event at UFC Fight Night 76 at the 3Arena in Dublin last October.
It’ll be a busy night for Straight Blast Gym head coach John Kavanagh, with SBG welterweight Gunnar Nelson also booked for a showdown with Albert Tumenov.
Holohan was 3-1 in the UFC until Smolka halted his progress. Gates (12-6) has a 1-2 record since he was signed by the UFC in December 2014. A first-round TKO of Darrell Montague last July is sandwiched between defeats to Dustin Ortiz and John Moraga on his ledger.
The news was first reported last night by Ariel Helwani on MMAFighting.com. Gates later took to social media to confirm the match-up.
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About time
@Marcus Massey: lipstick on a pig is still a pig. Can’t wait for more provincial hammerings…..
@Marcus Massey: Not really, provincial championship still part of it. Until it’s got rid of your going to continue to see hammerings in early rounds
This will last about 2 years before they change it again. No one will care about the secondary competition, been tried before. No more handy routes to all Ireland’s for Dublin, Kerry or Mayo right enough
@mel roberts: in fairness ye could give Mayo a pass direct to the final and they still wouldn’t win it
@Neill Trebble:
@Neill Trebble: I have to agree with you old chap
@mel roberts: if whatever came out of ulster was good enough Kerry and dublin wouldn’t have all those “handy” all irelands. Unfortunately 90 per cent of the time despite ulster being competitive they don’t produce teams good enough to beat kerry and dublin. The number of all Ireland’s each county has shows that .
@WESHALLNOTBEMOVED: or you could turn that the other way and say by the time teams came out of Ulster they had already had 3 tough games and had to peak considerably earlier than Kerry or Dublin did
@mel roberts: or you could turn it around and say that the team that comes out of ulster are more battle hardened and have more competitive games and dublin and kerry have more of a chance of being caught cold . You can spin it anyway you want but at the end of the day one way or another you have to beat the best teams to win an all ireland
@WESHALLNOTBEMOVED: That’s not technically true is it though because almost every year in division 1 there are 4 Ulster teams, every chance there will be 5 Ulster sides in Division 1 next year. Dublin, Kerry and Mayo have only had to play one of those sides come championship. Dublin played 1 division 1 side to win all Ireland 2020. Tyrone played 3 and a Team going back to division 1 last year. Still trying to say the routes the same?
@mel roberts: 4 ulster teams and give a look at who still ends up winning. So your completely contradicting yourself there. If they are so competitive why do kerry and dublin still win the league the majority of the time ?
@WESHALLNOTBEMOVED: You just don’t get it do you. Dublin and Kerry can go for the league because they don’t have a competitive game to worry about for 3 months after it. Ulster sides don’t have that luxury as we actually have a competitive province. Stick Kerry and Dublin into Ulster and see how many leagues they go to win
@mel roberts: This is correct. Good to see change
@mel roberts: it works in hurling. It works at club level
@Neill Trebble: This is the year
Sounds good as long as the 2nd Tier Cup is promoted well and their is good incentive for teams to do well in it
Doesn’t matter what system they introduce it will be the same big teams at the business end of the Championship.
@O’Brien Michael: your completely missing the point and don’t understand the significance of this move for the whole Gael family.
@O’Brien Michael: eh, the big “better” teams will aways be there at the business end of any sporting competition, do you want some kind of handicap system to allow poorer teams win?
@O’Brien Michael: the big teams like Liverpool
Far too many games for the players
@Magoo: how many will it take to be winners of the championship, is it 9?
@Magoo: yeah players much prefer training….
Nonsense. Open draw is the fairest option. GAA just thinking of revenue as always
@Ciaran O Cuisin: no doubt they’re thinking of revenue. They’re a business after all. But could they also be trying to create something for the weaker teams to aim for? Granted it needs promoting for full buy in
Great to see some sort of changes being made and ideas being tried out. No matter what they do, people will complain about new plans and ideas. If I doesn’t work, what difference, an AI winner is still going to have to beat top teams to win Sam.
@Eoghan O’Leary: You are correct , no matter what is proposed it will not satisfy everyone. Something new has to be tried. Hopefully, they will make a big thing out of the Tailteann Cup , maybe we would see better games in it than in the Sam.
I would like to see an open draw , and what would be wrong with Kerry going to Clones to play Monaghan, and Dublin maybe. going to Hyde Park ??.
The road to professionalism has begun
@Brendan Devlin: why do you think that?
@Brendan Devlin: that started about 15 years ago.
Ya ya
@Darren Mullins: kolo kolo
As long as it doesn’t effect the club championships with the increased number of games at county level
It’s like the champions league and the Uefa league right?
T
Someone do the maths for me there. How many games is that, league and championship?
@John O’Dowd tier 2 gets rid of the weaker counties. More money to be made and invested in tier 1. The provincial championship will be next for the delete button. One sided games in the provincial championships are counter productive to those pushing an elitist agenda. Only for resistance within some counties the provincials would already be done away with. Doing away with the provincials could also save the gaa millions on Casement Pk.
@Brendan Devlin: funny guy! Come here, do you buy your tinfoil at the wholesalers or in a regular shop??