UFC 121 preliminary card action will air on Spike TV on Oct. 23, live from the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., when The Ultimate Fighter 11 winner Court McGee faces off with Ryan Jensen, and former middleweight contender Patrick Cote takes on Tom Lawlor.
Spike TV made the announcement on Thursday.
The broadcast of the two UFC 121 preliminary bouts will begin on Spike at 9:00 p.m. CT/6:00 p.m. PT, one hour prior to the start of the normal Pay-Per-View time of 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 PT.
McGee makes his first Octagon appearance since winning his TUF 11 Finale fight over Kris McCray via submission back in June. McGee now holds an impressive 10-1 record and is riding a four fight win streak. His lone loss was a unanimous decision to Jeremy Horn back in 2007.
McGee’s opponent, Ryan Jensen is coming off a first round guillotine submission win over Jesse Forbes at UFC 114 in May. Jensen is a longtime veteran but seems to always fall short against top tier talent. The recent victory over Forbes is arguably his biggest win. Jensen is 2-2 in his current UFC incarnation and went 0-2 in the organization back in 2007.
Cote returns to the Octagon following a second round rear-naked choke loss to Alan Belcher at UFC 113 in May. His most recent fight prior to that was his 2008 title shot against Anderson Silva at UFC 90 that ended with him suffering a freak knee injury.
Now with back-to-back losses, Cote needs a win more than ever if he is to be considered even a partially legitimate player in the UFC middleweight division.
Cote’s opponent, Tom Lawlor is also coming in to the fight with back-to-back losses, having given up a submission loss to Joe Doerksen at UFC 113 and a split decision loss to Aaron Simpson at UFC Fight Night 20 in January.
Lawler, and possibly Cote as well, will likely be fighting for his job, as he is now 2-2 in the UFC since his 2008 arrival via The Ultimate Fighter season 8.
Good first fight for Court. Good luck to him and all, but I just don’t expect him to have much success right now with Strikeforce’s middle and top tier 185ers.