UFC on FUEL TV 1 weigh-in: Sanchez looks healthy at 170 pounds

Diego Sanchez was the man to watch during today's UFC on FUEL 1 weigh-in.

In this ever evolving sport, welterweights are getting bigger and bigger. At 5-foot-9 Sanchez is small for the weight. He looked bloated on fight night for his battle last March against Martin Kampmann. This afternoon, he looked much healthier.

Sanchez explained to USA Today that he screwed up the weight cut before the Kampmann fight.

The last fight for Martin Kampmann, I really messed up on the diet. I didn't cut out salt. I didn't cut out carbs. I ended up having to cut 14 pounds the day of the weigh-ins. That's three hours of cardio and another 30 minutes in the sauna.

Sanchez said it cost him late in the fight when he couldn't pour it on.

I felt it in the fight, and even though I still was able to fight hard and put a hard pace, if I would have done the weight cut properly, I would have been able to press the fight even harder in the second and third rounds and, I believe, finished the fight.

So there's no excuses for Sanchez and that means a victory for Jake Ellenberger is worth that much more.

UFC on FUEL TV 1 weigh-in: (Courtesy MMAjunkie)

MAIN CARD (FUEL TV)
Jake Ellenberger (170) vs. Diego Sanchez (170)
Dave Herman (234) vs. Stefan Struve (256)
Ronny Markes (185) vs. Aaron Simpson (186)
Philip De Fries (241) vs. Stipe Miocic (240)
T.J. Dillashaw (136) vs. Walel Watson (135)
John Albert (135) vs. Ivan Menjivar (135)

PRELIMINARY CARD (Facebook)
Jonathan Brookins (145) vs. Vagner Rocha (145)
Sean Loeffler (185) vs. Buddy Roberts (184)
Anton Kuivanen (156) vs. Justin Salas (155)
Bernardo Magalhaes (155) vs. Tim Means (155)

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/ufc-fuel-tv-1-weigh-sanchez-looks-healthy-003641493.html

José Aldo  John Alessio  Houston Alexander Ricardo Almeida  Eddie Alvarez

Jake Ellenberger survives against Diego Sanchez at UFC on Fuel TV 1; was it enough to earn a title shot?

Just when Jake Ellenberger could see himself signing a contract to fight for the UFC interim welterweight title, along came a relentless Diego Sanchez in the final minutes of what was previously a one-sided fight.

Ellenberger survived an absolute onslaught down the stretch to gain a unanimous decision victory, 29-28 on all three cards, in the main event of the UFC's first main card on Fuel TV.

Georges St-Pierre's status for the remainder for the rest of 2012 is very up in the air. The promotion looks like it wants interim champ Carlos Condit to fight at least one more time before he could possibly get GSP. Ellenberger (27-5, 6-1 UFC) is in the mix, but one has to wonder if he did enough against a guy who many feel is on the downside of his career.

[Related: Yahoo! Sports pound-for-pound MMA rankings]

At minus-350, Ellenberger entered the fight as a sizable favorite, but Sanchez wouldn't give in.

The Nebraska native was schooling Sanchez on the feet. The former "Ultimate Fighter 1" champ looked tired by the middle of the second round and was whiffing on most of his shots. All that while eating jabs and counterpunches. A hard punch in the first appeared to have broken Sanchez's nose, but he kept coming.

"Diego's known for that. He's the toughest guy I've ever fought. No matter what, he's in there every minute of the fight. It's a great test for me. It's an honor to fight him," Ellenberger told UFC announcer Jon Anik.

By the middle of the third round, Ellenberger had outstruck Sanchez 85-32. He was cruising but then mysteriously hit the wall and stopped using his right hand.

With just over two minutes left, Sanchez caught Ellenberger with a left body kick that forced the hunter to become the hunted. Sanchez landed a straight left that jarred Ellenberger. That's when the underdog decided it was go time.

He landed a left to the body which convinced Ellenberger to go for a takedown. He got it with 1:30 left, but Sanchez refused to stay down and got right back up where he scrambled to work hip control. Ellenberger was exhausted so Sanchez jumped on his back and got a hook in. He tried to get a choke on two occasions in between getting off 29 shots. There were still 34 seconds left and Sanchez actually flattened out Ellenberger for a few seconds. Sanchez again tried to get his arm in there for a choke, but Ellenberger had just enough presence of mind to keep his chin tucked.

"That's a tough position. I was tired, but I'm just trying to fight through. I've been there a million times. You just gotta stay in it mentally," said Ellenberger.

[Also: 'Rampage', 'Dragon' or wait: What to do with Dan Henderson?]

Sanchez, 30, explained after the fight that he battled an ankle injury three weeks before the event but didn't want to pull out of this televised fight.

"Jake's incredibly tough. I was hitting him with some hard shots. I thought he was going to go out. I thought he was going to give me the back. I was just trying to get the stoppage. but it didn't go my way this time," said Sanchez.

Sanchez (23-5, 12-5 UFC) finished the fight with a huge lump on his nose and deep vertical cut on his eyebrow. He absorbed three huge elbows in the second round that could've finished a lot of fighters in the welterweight division, but that's not what Sanchez does.

Struve's improved striking too much for Herman

Stefan Struve got off to a slow start, but once he heated up Dave Herman was in big trouble.

The tallest fighter in the UFC began putting his strikes together in the second round. A left hook, inside kick-uppercut combination dropped Herman to his back where Struve mounted him and got off 52 unanswered shots before referee Josh Rosenthal stopped things at the 3:52 mark of the second to give the 23-year-old Struve his seventh victory in the UFC.

[Also: Watch Jon Jones get attacked by a police dog]

Herman (21-3, 1-1 UFC) is either crazy or fearless. Those aren't always good qualities when you reached the highest levels of fighting. He's super athletic at 6-foot-4, 235, but Herman simply made it too easy for the 6-foot-11 to reach him on the feet.

Herman won the first round with a varied striking game and good head movement. But he got too comfortable at the end of the round. His corner told him to standing right in front of Struve (23-5, 7-3 UFC), but he didn't he listen and continued to do so in the second.

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Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/ellenberger-survives-again-sanchez-ufc-fuel-tv-enough-042140418.html

Alex Andrade  Jermaine Andrè  Yoji Anjo  Tank Abbott Hiroyuki Abe

Yahoo! Sports and Heavy present UFC 144 Fight Day Live!

Fight Day Live is back on Saturday, Feb. 25 (5:30 p.m. ET/2:30 p.m. PT). The UFC's official pre-show, hosted by Dave Farra and Megan Olivi, will prepare you for all the fighting action at UFC 144 including the big UFC lightweight title fight featuring champion Frankie Edgar and challenger Benson Henderson.

As always, you'll get the inside information from our panel of experts, Matt Brown from HeavyMMA, John Morgan from MMAjunkie and Joe Ferraro from UFC Connected. We'll also sit down with UFC welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre to get an update on his recovery from knee surgery, and Carlos Condit, who chats about his battle with Nick Diaz.

And finally, we'll go inside the training camp of Jake Shields. Be sure and tune in on Saturday.

Watch UFC 144 right here on Yahoo! Sports

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/yahoo-sports-heavy-present-ufc-144-fight-day-155355718.html

Terrance Aflague Yoshihiro Akiyama  Gilbert Aldana  José Aldo  John Alessio