At UFC 134 "Silva vs. Okami", A Resurgent Luis Cane Will Try To End The Substantial Hype Of Stanislav Nedkov

Hello and welcome to the final entry in the first day of posts for “A Closer Look At UFC 134”. The previous two entries both focused on the UFC 134 undercard, covering the multitude of free fights fans will be treated to both on Facebook and on Spike TV. To see part 1, click here. Part 2 is available here. Now it’s time to get into the meat of the affair: five full articles that go ultra in-depth on all five UFC 134 Pay-Per-View bouts. Let’s start with a Light Heavyweight bout that pits Luiz Cane against Stanislav Nedkov.

Back in late 2007, Luiz Cane entered the UFC as a very hot prospect. He was 7-0 with one No Contest and all seven wins by stoppage, most of them TKO’s. Cane would end up losing his UFC debut by disqualification, but immediately rebounded with a pair of TKO wins, one of which earned him a “Knockout of the Night” award. Add in a decision victory over Steve Cantwell, and you had a bonafide contender-in-the-making by the time Cane locked horns with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.

But in one of the most impressive UFC debuts in recent years, “Little Nog” turned the tables on the heavy-handed striker and gave Cane his first legitimate loss, TKO’ing him in under two minutes. Things got worse when Cane came back and immediately lost by TKO again, this time to Cyrille Diabate, this time in just over two minutes. Back in March of this year, however, Cane finally got back on the winning trail with a TKO victory over Elliot Marshall.

His opponent, Stanislav Nedkov, is almost a mirror-image of Cane when Cane seemed poised to take the UFC by storm. Nedkov has only been competing in MMA since 2006, but his record stands at a perfect 11-0. Even better, Nedkov does have some international experience, competing twice in the Japanese-based Sengoku promotion.  Of his eleven wins, nine of them have been by stoppage: five (T)KO’s and four submissions, although it should be noted that one of those submissions was due to punches. Nevertheless, Nedkov seems to be a diamond in the rough, with striking power and submission speed.

If Cane wants to beat Nedkov, he’ll have to channel the old Luiz Cane. He has to become the destroyer again, he has to be willing to go for broke and be confident that his skill, movement, and chin will allow him to close the gap often and get the better of any striking exchanges. I don’t mean to play favorites and I don’t have anything against Luis Cane, but if it weren’t for his previous flashes of brilliance I’d be 100% behind Nedkov.

MMA fans and insiders always talk about this “new breed”, and I think Nedkov is one of those fighters. His first five fights never left the first round, only two of them went past two minutes. He can knock people out but he can also submit them as well. And you have to figure that Cane’s chin will be a giant bullseye to Nedkov, since Can is only one fight removed from back-to-back TKO losses.

In the end, I still think I’ll be siding with Nedkov. Cane is going to make it competitive, he’ll really show us what Nedkov is made of, but eventually the Bulgarian fighter will catch something and it’ll be lights out once again for Luis Cane.