Penick's Take
PENICK: 3 reasons to still watch UFC on Versus 4 after Nate Marquardt's removal
Jun 25, 2011 - 6:45:58 PM PENICK: 3 reasons to still watch UFC on Versus 4 after Nate Marquardt's removal

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Nate Marquardt's removal from Sunday's UFC on Versus 4 event and subsequent firing from the UFC has been a shocking and entirely unexpected series of events on Saturday night. The loss of the main event for the card is a massive blow, but there are still a few reasons to tune in to the event on Versus from the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Penn.

Pat Barry vs. Cheick Kongo

It's a much poorer main event than the one scheduled, but I'm still excited to see this heavyweight fight between Barry and Kongo. There's a possibility it turns out to be a disappointment, but it could also be a very good matchup. Kongo's out to have a better performance than he did last October against Travis Browne, and Barry wants to prove that he's gotten better in all aspects since beginning work with Brock Lesnar's Death Clutch camp. It's certainly a lot less intriguing than the Marquardt-Story matchup, but it should be a good fight.

Rick Story

Rick Story is taking a risk in accepting the replacement fight against Charlie Brenneman. Considering he took the Marquardt fight on short notice and just fought last month, he's in a spot now where he's fighting an opponent a lot further down on the ladder in the division. If Story takes him out quickly and in impressive fashion then he won't lose any status, but he could be in for a difficult last minute fight, and if Brenneman pulls off the upset then Story will take a precipitous drop in stature. A loss to Marquardt wouldn't have brought him down a ton, but one to Brenneman will, so he's at a major risk. That risk makes this a very important fight for him, and watching him either rise to the occasion or fall short is worth tuning in for.

Preliminary card fights

Ok, so none of these are guaranteed to make the Versus broadcast, but it's worth tuning in to the Facebook stream to catch a number of the preliminary card fights tomorrow. The featherweight debuts of Tyson Griffin and Joe Stevenson are very intriguing, and actually the bout between Nik Lentz and Charles Oliveira could be a very good fight. The fact that Lentz has had a number of boring fights has people down on him, but Oliveira's the right type of opponent to pull out an excellent performance from him and it's a fight I want to see. Throw in Daniel Roberts and Joe Lauzon in fights where they both have a chance to be impressive, and there's a lot to see there.


Obviously this is an attempt to find some positives to a really negative situation, but even though the main event has been lost there is some redeeming value to the card here. It's certainly a much more skippable event than it would have been with Marquardt-Story still intact, but if you were going to tune in as it is, it's still worth checking out.