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The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to Philadelphia this weekend for the first time since 2011, when Tito Ortiz fought Rashad Evans at UFC 133 at the Wells Fargo Center.

This time around it’s a “Fight Night,” event, live at The Center on ESPN and unfortunately sandwiched into a window that will overlap with a Phillies home game and a Sixers road game.

“But that’s okay!” as Joe Cordell once said. There are some interesting fights on different portions of the card, so even if you only catch a fight here or there, you’re bound to see something intriguing.

The lineup:

Main Event: Edson Barboza (#6) vs. Justin Gaethje (#8) – lightweight

Should be a total war between two guys who recently ended losing streaks with solid wins.

Gaethje is 19-2 and coming off an August victory over James Vick. That was a bounce back for him after a couple of outrageous battles against Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier. Barboza recently took out Dan Hooker with body shots after a couple of lopsided losses against Kevin Lee and Khabib Nurmagomedov.

Barboza and Gaethje are both stand-up fighters with violent tendencies, guys who throw crazy shots and hit pretty damn hard.

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Grays Ferry native Paul Felder improved to 16-4 last night with a unanimous decision win against James Vick in his 12th UFC appearance.

He went the distance in that bout, finishing the fight with… what sounds like a pretty bad injury according to ESPN’s Ariel Helwani:

Paul Felder suffered a collapsed lung in the closing minutes of his fight against James Vick last night, his manager Brian Butler told ESPN. Doctors believe the lung was punctured when he took a shot to the ribs at the end of the third round. …

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) February 18, 2019

Butler told Helwani that Felder was being held an extra day in a Phoenix hospital and that the injury will keep him out of his color commentary duties for UFC Prague, which takes place this weekend. There are, however, no long term issues resulting from the injury.

He himself didn’t seem to be too fazed:

I got two lungs… I just want a beer for shitsake

— Paul Felder (@felderpaul) February 18, 2019

Not sure about you, but if I suffered a collapsed lung in a UFC fight I’d probably ball myself into the fetal position and immediately tap out.

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It’s been a while since the UFC held an event in Philly.

You’d have to go way back to 2011, when Rashad Evans fought Tito Ortiz at UFC 133 in front of 11,500 fans at the Wells Fargo Center. Vitor Belfort, Chad Mendes, Alex Gustafsson, and Rory MacDonald were also on the card. The only prior event in Philly was UFC 101, which featured a main event of B.J. Penn vs. Kenny Florian.

Dana White is bringing his promotion back to Philadelphia on March 30th for a “Fight Night” that will air on ESPN.

So far only two bouts have been announced, which are:

• Women’s Strawweight: Michelle Waterson vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz
• Women’s Strawweight: Alexa Grasso vs. Marina Rodriguez

Waterson vs. Kowalkiewicz is a good get. Karolina is a former title challenger while Waterson has won two straight fights. Both are popular with fans. Grasso is 10-2 but has lost two of three fights since signing with UFC while Rodriguez is a product of White’s Contender Series.

Philly native Eddie Alvarez is no longer with the promotion, so you won’t see him on March 30th, but Ridley High School grad Paul Felder has not fought since July of 2018 and would be a good candidate to appear on this card. The most recent UFC event to take place in our region was last year’s Fight Night in Atlantic City between Kevin Lee and Edson Barboza.

Wee met a few years ago on @invictafc now we will meet in the @ufc octagon. It’s a great honor for me that I can fight one of my idols 😎💪
March 30th 2019 Philadelphia!!!
Let’s go baby!!! 💪💪💪😎 #ufc #love #my #job #Philadelphia #stt #kk pic.twitter.com/d1rYv78WOS

— KarolinaKowalkiewicz (@KarolinaMMA) January 9, 2019

Edit: My bad. Felder is fighting James Vick in February:

And I’m fucking booked…

— Paul Felder (@felderpaul) January 8, 2019

Not sure if y’all were watching UFC 228 the other night, but me and Snoop Doggy Dogg were.

Here’s the back story:

Welterweight champion Tyron Woodley was defending his belt against undefeated challenger Darren Till out of Liverpool, England. The other main challenger for the title is Colby Covington, a former Oregon State wrestler who talks a lot of shit and professes his love for President Donald Trump. He wears a MAGA hat and met Trump at the White House. 

During Saturday night’s fight, Snoop posted an Instagram video ripping into Till, calling for Woodley to “beat his mother fucking ass” while shouting “fuck Donald Trump” over and over again:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

King Kong.

A post shared by snoopdogg (@snoopdogg) on Sep 8, 2018 at 9:11pm PDT

Right, so the only explanation is that Snoop thought that Darren Till was actually Colby Covington, because nothing in that rant makes sense. Till isn’t even an American and has said nothing about Donald Trump ever, at least not that I know of. He spent more than three years of his life living in Brazil.

I’m 99% sure Snoop had the wrong guy, but the rant is great, so allow me to transcribe part of it for you after the jump:

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Colby Covington is what we’d call a “heel.”

The guy is a great fighter but a total asshole, a trash-talking former collegiate All-American wrestler who now competes in the UFC’s Welterweight division.

Covington beat Rafael Dos Anjos at UFC 225 on Saturday to claim the interim belt and set up a future fight with division champion Tyron Woodley. He used part of his post-fight press conference to slag the Philadelphia Eagles for “disrespecting” the country:

Colby Covington puts the "Filthadelphia" Eagles on blast for not visiting the White House #UFC #UFC225 pic.twitter.com/pKPAPYCrnZ

— Sports Illustrated MMA (@SI_MMA) June 10, 2018

Well, they didn’t kneel for the anthem, but whatever. We’ve been over this before.

Covington said similar stuff about the Eagles (and threw in the Warriors) during weigh-ins:

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