Canadian lightweight Olivier Aubin-Mercier and his moustache plan to be in a happy place during Calgary’s Fight Week ... Dallas card taking shape ... Silva suspended
Olivier Aubin-Mercier seems happy, and why shouldn’t he?
The Montreal native is riding a four-fight winning streak and earned himself a $50,000 Performance of the Night bonus the last time he stepped into the octagon.
He’s calling himself ‘The Canadian Gangster’ these days, and on Wednesday unveiled a ‘starter pack’ for fans of the nickname that includes a fanny pack, sunglasses, a Canadian flag and moustache oil.
Instead of copying Conor
McGregor or mimicking UFC stars who have come before him to get attention, Aubin-Mercier is following his own path.
And it’s working.
“I think the difference you’ll see with me and other people is I’m kind of a happy guy, and I’m in a happy place during fight week,” Aubin-Mercier said.
“My weight cut is not too bad, I love the sport, I love what I do for a living, so for me, it is all joy and I think that shows.
“I like to be positive and I try to show that to people.”
Next week, Aubin-Mercier is going to be one of the featured attractions at UFC Fight Night: Calgary (July 28, Scotiabank Saddledome), where he’s set to take on Alexander Hernandez.
While there’s no shortage of Canadian talent on the card, Aubin-Mercier is the only one who will be fighting on the main card that will air on CTV Two.
That’s a high-profile slot that is befitting a young man who has been quickly ascending the ranks of the UFC’s lightweight division over the past couple years.
After losing a split decision to Chad Laprise in the finale of the Ultimate Fighter: Nations reality show in 2014, the 29-year-old has rattled off wins in seven of his eight
UFC fights, including a highlight reel TKO win over Evan
Dunham in April at UFC 223. With that win, Aubin-Mercier likely is hovering just outside the top-15 in the promotion’s stacked 155 lbs. division. A win over Hernandez almost certainly would see him get a spot there.
Aubin-Mercier should be considered the favourite heading into the Calgary fight week. The only problem is that it’s hard to know exactly what Hernandez is all about in the octagon.
He has fought only once in
the UFC, after all, and that fight ended in only 42 seconds when he knocked out Beneil Dariush.
“He’s a crazy, crazy man,” Aubin-Mercier said of his opponent. “He’s a mystery. He fought once in the UFC for maybe 50 seconds and he fought with real intensity.
“For some reason, he really hates handshakes. I think it’s going to be a tough first round and he’s super explosive and really dangerous, but we’ll see what happens after the first round.”
For anyone wondering what Aubin-Mercier is talking about when he refers to Hernandez’s aversion to handshakes, the American courted controversy when he appeared to fake a respectful glove-tap against Dariush in order to get an upper-hand.
That’s something Hernandez has denied, but Aubin-Mercier acknowledged he may have to be careful.
“Probably, if I try to do a handshake (with) him he’s going to try to kick me in the face,” Aubin-Mercier said.
TAKING SHAPE
The UFC has begun filling in the lineup for the UFC 228
event in Dallas, Texas, in September.
This week, the company announced that women’s flyweight (125 lbs.) champion
Nicco Montano will defend her title for the first time when she takes on Valentina Shevchenko.
This is a fight that fans have been expecting for a long time, and it’s one of the rare occasions where the challenger will be considered a sizable favourite over the champion.
While Montano is a well-regarded fighter, she won the 125 lbs. belt by winning a season of the Ultimate Fighter last year and hasn’t defended her title since.
Shevchenko, meanwhile, was a perennial contender at 135 lbs. and ran through
Priscila Cachoeira in her flyweight debut.
But the UFC wasn’t done with the announcements, as the company added a number of other intriguing matchups to the card. Maybe the most interesting will see
Top 5 strawweights Jessica
Andrade and Karolina Kowalkiewicz face off in a fight where the winner almost surely will receive a title shot against champion Rose Namajunas.
Bantamweights Jimmie Rivera and John Dodson will face off, while featherweights
Zabit Magomedsharipov
and Yair Rodriguez will square off in a fight that seems destined to end on many best-of-2018 lists.
RESULT IN
Former middleweight champion Anderson Silva won’t be returning to the octagon until November, but he avoided a harsher sentence from UFC anti-doping partner USADA.
Silva tested positive in a drug test last November but defended himself by claiming he had accidentally taken a tainted supplement.
On Wednesday, USADA ruled that it accepted his explanation and handed him a one-year suspension that is retroactive to Nov. 10, 2017.
“The past nine months have been extremely difficult,” Silva said in a statement to MMAJunkie.com.
“I felt like my career and everything I had worked so hard for was dying and my future was hanging in the balance. I knew in my heart that I had done nothing wrong and fully cooperated with USADA during their inquiry to prove it.”