UFC on Versus 5 Fight Card: Are We Going To See the Fight of the Year?

On paper, you would think August 14's "UFC Live on Versus 5" fight card, live from the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, Wis., is "just another free card," despite the inclusion of Jim Miller, Ben Henderson, Chris Lytle, Dan Hardy and unquestionable bantamweight prospect Edwin Figueroa on the undercard, as well as current bantamweight speed-demon Joseph Benavidez. Karlos Vemola, a Leonard Gacia-Alex Caceres clash and an Amir Sadollah-Duane Ludwig collision, among others.

In reality, however, this card is more of an underrated candidate for "Fight Card of the Year" than what people think just by glancing at it.

Why is that?

To fully understand it, we have to ask the question of whether we are going to see the Fight of the Year on this card.

It is difficult to look at this card with a straight face and say we aren't likely going to see it, because everyone in the MMA community with a basic knowledge of the name "Georges St-Pierre" knows that Dan "The Outlaw" Hardy and Chris "Lights Out" Lytle are two of MMA's most exciting welterweight talents.

While Hardy is a more brash personality than Lytle and a former title contender—something Lytle has come close to becoming but has never been—passionate UFC and MMA fans will never turn down the opportunity to watch Lytle or Hardy fight, regardless of how much of a chance they have to win.

By looking at the Hardy vs. Lytle headliner, we should already be convinced that a potential Fight of the Year contender is on the rise, but then again, there's the grappling clinic between Miller and "Ben Smooth."

Even when Henderson and Miller go all three rounds, they always entertain, and they always deliver something worth remembering—even if one of those memorable thing is being on the business end of some punishment from Gray Maynard or Frankie Edgar or even being on the business end of the head kick from off of the cage walls that made the last WEC lightweight title bout just a smidgen more decisive than what it was for the four-and-three-quarter rounds before it.

Now, we could run down the entire card and decipher why they all pack excitement within them, and the Joseph Benavidez vs. Eddie Wineland bout should be one of the obvious choices for Fight of the Night simply because of their styles, but let's go back to the original question.

Are we going to see the Fight of The Year at UFC on Versus 5?

Every fight, even a relatively "just there" bout with C.B. "The Doberman" Dollaway welcoming quietly-rising star Jared Hamman to the middleweight division after the latter's loss to Kyle Kingsbury, packs its own potential for excitement and explosiveness all throughout and provides its own case for being a potential "Fight of the Night" contender at the least.

Even a late-notice bout of Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone vs. Charles Oliveira, which replaces a planned-yet-deteriorated clash between Paul Taylor and John Makdessi, could have everything it takes to become one of the best fights of 2011 in mixed martial arts.

So to answer the question of if we will see the Fight of the Year, yes we will.

It may or may not be the fight we're thinking about from this card, but in one form or another, we will see the Fight of the Year or at least a candidate for that title, come August 14.