LY: CANADA’S BULLDOZER BACK IN THE WIN COLUMN
Canada’s Tanner “The Bulldozer” Boser is back in the win column with a KO/TKO victory in the second round over Ovince St. Preux in the Co-main event of the Gane vs Volkov UFC fight card which happened Saturday night.
That is a relief considering the last two fights Boser was in; he, unfortunately, lost them both, one of them to Andrei Arlovski then the other one to Lillr Latifi.
There are not as many UFC Canadian fighters that the UFC promotes compared to the old days.
For example, the most famous Canadian fighter of all time Is Georges St-Pierre, and he was a double UFC Champion in two divisions ( Welterweight and Middleweight).
Pierre, for one, had one of the best records in UFC to celebrate (26 wins and two losses), so his UFC fights were always must-see.
The last fight that Pierre did was in 2017 when he beat then UFC Middleweight Champion Michael Bisping with a rear-naked choke in the third round.
After that fight, Pierre retired for a second time, and this left the UFC without a Canadian star for its audience.
The one fighter that I believe the UFC missed maximizing was Rory “ The Red King” MacDonald.
MacDonald had amazing fights with Robbie Lawler for the Welterweight belt in 2015 and other amazing fights with the likes of B.J. Penn and Tyron Woodley.
MacDonald played out his contract with UFC in 2016; when they did not decide to re-sign him, he decided to go to the rival MMA promotion Bellator, according to the Province’s Peter Darbyshire.
While in Bellator, MacDonald won the Bellator Welterweight Championship and is now currently fighting in the PFL( Pro Fight League).
Another Canadian fighter that the UFC missed the mark on was UFC Ultimate Fighter Nation edition winner Elias “ The Spartan” Theodorou.
Theodorou fought 11 times while in the UFC and only had three losses in that span.
According to Nick Baldwin of SB Nations, on June 9 of 2019, he reported that Dana White released Theodorou to “ free up space” despite having a winning record.
The Spartan is currently on a two-fight winning streak, with his last being on March 13, 2021, when he beat Matt Dwyer on the Rise 6 FC fight card by TKO in the third round.
Hopefully, UFC can promote Boser and not squander what they have, like they did with previous Canadian fighters.
Besides Boser on the UFC fight card that happened on June 26, we had Ciryl Gane, who won by unanimous decision, vs Alexander Volkov, and he improved his undefeated streak to nine wins and zero losses.
I was impressed with Gane as that fight proved his ranking as the third-best Heavyweight fighter in UFC behind Derrick Lewis and Stipe Miocic.
I am excited for Gane as he will face off against Derrick Lewis for the Interim UFC Heavyweight Title on August 7, this will be an interesting fight to see as both are great strikers.
Out of all the fights that happened on the Gane vs Volkov main card, only one fight went to a no contest where the match-up of Andre Fili versus Daniel Pineda ended with an accidental eye poke.
Here are other fight results on the UFC’s Gane vs Volkov main card:
Bantamweight bout: Timur Valiev beat Raoni Barcelos by majority decision
Welterweight bout: Tim Means beat Nicolas Dalby by majority decision.
Lightweight bout: Renato Moicano beat Jai Herbert by submission in round two.
The next UFC fight card is Conor McGregor vs Dustin Poirier, and it will be the third fight of their trilogy, and it will happen on July 10.
(Follow Allan Ly on Twitter @Allantheintern)
