UFC 195 is the first big event of 2016 thing place on January 2nd and is the UFC new Years card even though it takes place in the actual New Year. The card is headlined by the Welterweight title fight between the champion Robbie Lawler and current number one contender Carlos Condit. Their fight was supposed to happen this year in Australia, but it was pushed back due to an injury. Also, they just added a potential number one contenders fight for the Heavyweight division between Stipe Miocic and Andrei Arlovski. now, they have two big fights at 170 with four fighters at some very distinct points in their respective UFC careers.
First, will be Neil Magny’s first fight of 2016. This is the same fighter who fought five times in 2014 and four times in 2015 including a 22 day turn around. In that span, he went 8-1 with his only loss coming to Damian Maia, but he turned around and had a spectacular performance taking a decision victory over Erick Silva. He will take on Stephen Thompson who has gone 6-1 in the UFC. He lost his second fight in the Octagon to top ten Welterweight Matt Brown, but has turned around and won five straight fights including three TKO victories and two performance of the nights. A win in this bout could put the winner in line for a fight with a top five Welterweight in the near future.
The second big fight at 170 looks for two surging contenders looking to crack the top 15. Former Strikeforce contender Lorenz Larkin had a rough start to his UFC career with only winning one fight in his stint at Middleweight in the Octagon with four losses to round that out. Also, this is a fighter who started out his MMA career at Light-Heavyweight. The losses made him drop another weight class to Welterweight where he has found success again. in 2015, he has won two fights by finish and now he faces off with slightly unknown but tough as nails Albert Tumenov.
Tumenov entered the UFC with a record of 12-1 with seven straight TKO/KO victories. Unfortunately, he lost his debut by split decision before to Ildemar Alcantara, but his fate has reversed with four straight wins after shaking the Octagon jitters. Three of those victories come by way of TKO/KO and include a performance of the night bonus over Alan Jouban at UFC 192. These are some interesting fights that add a lot of intrigue to the UFCs first fight card of the year.