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StumbleSteve Cantwell looking for win in rubber match with Brian Stann
UFC
Steve Cantwell applies an armbar to Razak Al-Hassan in the first round of their bout at UFC’s Fight for the Troops show on December 10, 2008. The bout ended when Cantwell won by TKO after dislocating Al-Hassan’s elbow.
Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2009 | midnight
Ultimate Fight Night 19
- Who: Co-main event Nate Diaz vs. Melvin Guillard, Roger Huerta vs. Gray Maynard; undercard includes Carlos Condit vs. Jake Ellenberger, Nate Quarry vs. Tim Credeur, Steve Cantwell vs. Brian Stann, Mike Pyle vs. Chris Wilson
- When: 8 p.m. Wednesday (tape delayed on West Coast)
- Where: Where: Cox Convention Center, Oklahoma City
- TV: Spike TV (Cable Channel 29)
When Steve Cantwell opens the Octagon door Wednesday night in Oklahoma City, he’ll be looking to close a different door on an old rivalry.
Opposing him will be Brian Stann, a man Cantwell knows all too well from two previous fights in World Extreme Cagefighting.
“I’m looking to put an end to this rivalry and expose his weaknesses,” said Cantwell, who renews his rivalry with Stann at Ultimate Fight Night 19 at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City on Wednesday.
In their first meeting in March 2007, Stann shocked Cantwell by knocking him out 41 seconds into the bout with a blow to the jaw that sent the Las Vegas-based fighter to his knees.
Both were undefeated light heavyweights at the time — Cantwell fighting in his first WEC match and Stann fresh off signing a five-year deal with the UFC’s sister organization.
“He caught me with a shot early and the ref stopped the fight,” said Cantwell (7-2), who is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Luiz Cane at UFC 97 in April.
“He broke my shot at the title and I wanted him again.”
Cantwell got that wish the following August, this time with a title on the line.
Cantwell won via second-round TKO, claiming the WEC light heavyweight belt, making him the last fighter to do so, as the organization has since eliminated the division.
“Obviously, it was an honor,” Cantwell said. “But I wanted more.”
That carrot came in the form of a UFC contract late in 2008.
But his first fight was a disappointment as he lost to Cane at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
“It was close,” he said. “We stayed close until the third but I let him slip away. He threw a couple of combos and stole it from the judges.”
Although on the losing end, Cantwell, who is dubbed “The Robot,” credited the bout as the best experience of his fighting career.
“That fight did wonders for my mental game,” he said. “To bang with someone like that for a full match on national television in front of 23,000 fans, you can’t get that kind of experience in a gym.”
And now they meet again in a rubber match on a much higher stage.
The two are polar opposites in the Octagon. Stann is known as the heavy-handed, durable ex-Marine, while Cantwell is a young submission artist who came to Las Vegas as a rebel from California.
But both have one thing in common: They each are in desperate need for victory as back-to-back losses for the loser paints an uncertain picture for their future in the UFC.
Still, Cantwell insists he has the upper hand.
“The pressure’s on him,” he said. “He hasn’t earned his respect in the UFC yet. Brian Stann would get more respect from beating me than I would for beating Brian Stann.”
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| June 1 | "The Ultimate Fighter Live" finale | Jake Ellenberger vs. Martin Kampmann | Las Vegas: The Pearl at the Palms |
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brutality for money? Maybe so.... The truth is the guy that posted the comment before me is entitled to his own opinion in which he expressed publicly, which is his own right. Now I will excersise my own..... If you dont like the sport, dont watch it! If you despise it so much why are you watching and even wasting your own "valuable time" to comment on it? Just because we love this sport doesnt make us suckers, some of us just like a little mayhem now and then, if we do pay to see the fight then maybe thats just what we want, we do have the right, "you" deciding that it should be illegal is not your right, apparently this is not illegal because the collective (everyone else), does not believe it should be illegal. This country is definately in need of therapy, but stopping this sport and wasting the time trying to do so is not going to be therapeutic. Let us enjoy what we like and in the mean-time you can go do what you do enjoy. Just know some of us who do like this sport happen to be well educated and realise that just because we have the right to excersise our freedom of speech, doesnt mean that we do just to bash something that we dont agree with. I am speaking for myself and nobody else. Have a great one!