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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Saturday's UFC on Fuel 5 main event between Stefan Struve and Stipe Miocic may be a five round main event fight, but don't expect the fight to go the distance. Struve all but guaranteed this week that the fight wouldn't be anywhere near a 25-minute bout, expecting one or the other to finish things in quick fashion.
"Five round fight? It's not a five round fight. This isn't going five," Struve said after the open workouts in Nottingham, England. "It is a one or two round fight, depending on when I finish him. I am not worried about going five rounds if it happens, I hit pads for an hour at a time and every Thursday at my gym it is pretty much fight night where we do 15 x five minute rounds. I've changed nothing in my training. If it goes longer, okay, but I think this is a quick fight."
He also thinks a win over the currently undefeated Miocic will send him flying up the ranks, and believes it's a good matchup for him to showcase his continually improving skill set.
"A win here puts me in the top five in the world," Struve said. "There's a lot of hype on this guy and he's also coming off a big win. I'm only 24 but this is my twelfth fight in the UFC. I am going to do my business on Saturday night. I've been in the UFC for five years and I am really putting it together now as a mixed martial artist. I think this fight is a great showcase of what I can now do as a fighter."
Penick's Analysis: A win over Miocic will not be the fight that puts Struve into the top five, but a fourth straight win will still be impressive. He's got to avoid the heavy hands of the undefeated Miocic, as that's been his issue throughout his UFC career thus far, but he's got a great ground game and can showcase that once again on Saturday. That said, he's not wrong about the fight itself. There's almost no way this matchup produces a five round decision, as both fighters are proven finishers. Struve's only gone to decision once in his entire UFC career, so it's not likely he'll hit a fourth round let alone a fifth, and that makes for an exciting matchup in Nottingham this weekend.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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