Ross Pearson and Dennis Siver in their first fight: Photo by MMAWeekly.com
Two talented strikers who previous faced off at lightweight will rematch at featherweight this time as Ross Pearson and Dennis Siver have agreed to fight on the UFC's Fuel-televised card in Sweden on April 14th. MMAnytt.se reports on this match-up as well as the addition of another featherweight bout between TUF 14 contestant, Hamid Corassani and Jason Young:
The Ultimate Fighter 9 winner Ross Pearson will fly to Sweden in time for April 14. The reason is a rematch against German Dennis Siver in a match at the Globe during the UFC: Sweden, this is something that MMAnytt have been able to confirm with sources close to the organization.
There have been some rumors flourished that Hamid "Akira" Corassani would go one match at UFC Sweden on April 14, but his opponent was dead wrong. MMAnytt has exclusively been able to confirm with sources close to the organization that Akira will face Jason Young in Stockholm.
Pearson and Siver first met back in March of 2010 at UFC Fight Night 21 in a exciting back-and-forth bout that saw Pearson earn the unanimous decision, but with both men taking home a "Fight of the Night" bonus check. Pearson, winner of the 9th season of The Ultimate Fighter has since alternated wins and losses, but his first cut down to 145 lbs. was successful as he took a decision victory over Junior Assuncao at UFC 141 just a few weeks ago. Siver hasn't yet competed at featherweight, and in fact, his UFC debut was at welterweight, but a test weight cut was apparently successful for the German kickboxer and after getting outclassed by the much larger Donald Cerrone at UFC 137, he'll look to rebound against an opponent he's familiar with in Sweden.
Corassani, a Swedish native, was one of the more interesting characters on TUF 14, but his brawling style only got him as far as the semifinals where he was choked out by Dennis Bermudez. An injury prevented Corassani from competing on the season finale, but he'll now get the opportunity to fight in front of his hometown fans. Young hails from England as is a muay thai specialist, and although he's yet to find victory after two UFC fights, he was still quite competitive against two talented opponents in Dustin Poirier and Michihiro Omigawa. This might be a make-or-break fight for Young though as a loss to Corassani would leave him with an 0-3 UFC record.
UPDATE: The official UFC twitter feed, despite retweeting the MMAnytt.se story earlier today, is now claiming that the Pearson-Siver rematch is not happening:
@SEvanM88 good news - not happening - misreported info!
0 recs | 37 comments
What an odd rematch
It was an exciting fight but Pearson outboxed him quite comfortably from what I remember, and he also didn’t land his signature spinning-back kick.
Pearson by decision again.
SSreporters - January 11, 2012
I think so too
But something tells me this fight will be much closer, I believe Siver has closed the skill gap considerably.
menckenstein - January 11, 2012
Siver is the exact same fighter he was when he lost to Pearson two years ago
Dennis’ problem is that as soon as you put him in with a fighter with equal or superior striking skills he’s got nothing and then gets his ass kicked (See: Guillard, Pearson, and Cerrone).
I think Pearson can be a legitimate top 5 FW. Excellent, technical kickboxing. He’s like if we took Michael Bisping, made him 40 lbs smaller, and a ton more likable and fun to watch.
SSreporters - January 11, 2012
So not like Michael Bisping at all then?
menckenstein - January 11, 2012
Yes. I'm 80% sure.
SSreporters - January 11, 2012
I admire your intellegence
Want to go out and grab some ketchup?
menckenstein - January 11, 2012
You are over-rating Pearson
and under-rating Siver
Chris Groves - January 11, 2012
agreed.
RECE ROCK - January 11, 2012
I am really high on Ross
But Siver’s losses are all to anyone who can strike with him, and he arguably lost the Matt Wiman fight (although Wiman is a badass) so he should be on a two fight losing streak.
His ground game is improving as evidenced by the G-Sot win but I think Pearson is just the better overall fighter.
SSreporters - January 11, 2012
We'll see I suppose
I think it will be a good fight though, either way.
Chris Groves - January 11, 2012
I’ll give you the Pearson fight, but Siver’s losses to Cowboy and Guillard have much more to do with getting rocked by an early punch than being soundly outstruck. Siver doesn’t recover very well when he gets tagged.
Also, the only grappling I remember from the G-Sot fight was Siver repeatedly tossing him away when he shot lazy takedowns; not much ground game to see there.
skeebop - January 11, 2012
You lost me at
Wimam is a badass
OneFitchTwoFitchRedFitchBlueFitch - January 11, 2012 via mobile
Sweden is getting a damn good card, I must say.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they number this bitch.
Rob Young - January 11, 2012
They've already made it UFC on Fuel 2
Also, can we laugh at the UK again? The place that doesn’t even allow 5 round fights is getting a better card than UFC 138!
SSreporters - January 11, 2012
It’s also the first time they’re coming here, which usually wields better cards than what may come later.
Horselover Fat - January 11, 2012
this
the main event of the next Sweden card will be something like Igor Pokrajac vs. Cyrile Diabate
Rob Young - January 11, 2012
Yeah, and it’ll probably take two years or something before they get here again. I’m not expecting them to visit very often, anyway.
Horselover Fat - January 11, 2012
At 145, that's awesome.
mma.ly - January 11, 2012
This is f'cking weird
I was just thinking to myself about how Siver was moving down to 145 and if one day he would rematch Pearson.
I think I’ll take Siver in the rematch. They say Siver had the flu in the first fight.
Chris Groves - January 11, 2012
Akira vs. Jason Young should be an exciting fight.
Jason Young has only one submission victory, which came via strikes. Akira is getting a fight is tailor made for his strong stand up and complete lack of ground skills.
Snatchl - January 11, 2012
Seriously this card is so stacked
And it’s LIVE, so hopefully you have time to watch live MMA on a Wednesday afternoon.
SSreporters - January 11, 2012
It’s on a Saturday though
Horselover Fat - January 11, 2012
To soon
Not interested in a rematch. It benefits Siver a ton more than Pearson, doesn’t make any sense to take it at this stage in Pearson’s career.
KJ Gould - January 11, 2012
Kinda lame
I want to see these guys vs new people, not against each other again.
Tats16 - January 11, 2012
Pearson has said he has not accepted this fight
and not even been offered it. So this is premature to say the least.
mcpeepants23200 - January 11, 2012
UFC retweeted the article on their official Twitter feed.
I doubt they would do that if the fight wasn’t at least verbally agreed to.
Scott Haber - January 11, 2012
I see no reason why Pearson would take this fight
When there are so many better fights for him at 145. Hopefully he’s telling the truth on twitter when he says he’s not agreed to this.
YPG - January 11, 2012
Unnecessary rematches
annoy me. They’re both in a new weight class with a smorgasbord of potentially exciting and compelling match ups and instead they’re gonna fight each other again, only this time 10 pounds lighter? What’s the point? The first fight was exciting (I guess) but it wasn’t particularly memorable or relevant, and I’m not aware of any drama between the two that would serve as good build-up fodder. I’d like to see them both against some of the triued and true imported WEC featherweight talent, ie. Mike Brown, Rani Yahya, Diego Nunes, etc.
mburtoni - January 11, 2012
rec'd for use of smorgasbord
on a post about a card in sweden
the guy with the big nose - January 11, 2012
Agreed
Horselover Fat - January 11, 2012
us jews call it the shmorgasbord and rec for you good sir
benten20 - January 11, 2012
I’m a half. I have several relatives that say it that way :)
mburtoni - January 11, 2012
that’s fucking bullshit and one of the few times joe silva has made a bad decision.
pearson won CLEARLY last time no reason for a rematch at all.
The Omaplatapus - January 11, 2012
They should be building both Siver and Pearson as future contenders at 145
No reason for this right now.
alxn - January 11, 2012
I thought they would match Siver against a guy like Nam Phan
Just another striker coming off a loss, but what evs.
discoandherpes - January 11, 2012
UFC's twitter feed is now claiming
that this fight is not happening.
Scott Haber - January 11, 2012
Smörgåsbord it is..
..and Im hungry!
Frank Fenster - January 12, 2012
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