Preview: UFC 89, Kelly Pavlik/Bernard Hopkins Headline Big Saturday night

If you like seeing guys getting punched in the face, Saturday night is going to be fun for you. Combine UFC 89 on SPIKE with Kelly Pavlik vs. Bernard Hopkins on ppv and those pesky Red Sox/Rays in Game 6 and it's going to be a HUGE sports day.

-UFC 89: I love the fact that SPIKE airs these cards for free. Love. It. Here's the five fights you can expect to see on the telecast, airing live from Birmingham, England.

> Michael Bisping vs. Chris Leben: The main event should be a slugfest in the 185-pound division as Bisping (17-1) takes on Leben (18-4) with the winner likely getting a title shot with Anderson Silva. These are two of the most polarizing personalities in the UFC as they're brash, confident and trash-talkers, evident by some of their Boxing-and-MMA.html">pre-fight comments. This one won't go more than two rounds and we're going to pick Leben to knock Bisping out and get a little karma back for that terrible Matt Hamill decision "The Count" got. Great main event.

> Keith Jardine vs. Brandon Vera: Both Jardine (13-5-1) and Vera (9-2) need a win here in the jam-packed light heavyweight division. As I've said before, I've never been sold on Vera and why we should pay so much attention to him. Jardine is a coin-flip fighter: either he's really good (see Chuck Liddell, Forrest Griffin wins) or really bad (Wanderlei Silva, Houston Alexander). He's 3-3 in his last six fights while Vera is 1-2 in his last three, coming off a snoozefest win over Reese Andy in July. We'll take Jardine by three-round split decision.

> Rameau Sokoudjou vs. Luiz Cane: Another light-heavyweight tilt, this is difficult to call. This will be Cane's third UFC fight as he lost by DQ to James Irvin in December 2007 and defeated Jason Lambert via first round TKO in June of 2008. Sokoudjou (5-2) came with some buzz from PRIDE but lost his first fight to Lyoto Machida in December 2007 and defeated Nakamura due to a leg injury in in May of 2008. Someone needs some buzz here and we'll pick Cane to pull it out.

> Paul Taylor vs. Chris Lytle: A 170-pound tilt, Taylor (9-3-1) is 2-2 in his UFC career, having beaten Jess Liaudin via split decision in June following losses to Marcus Davis and Paul Kelly. He will have a test going up against the veteran Lytle (35-16-4) who hasn't put together a string of wins in over two years and is coming off a June unan decision loss to Josh Koscheck. Lytle hasn't lost two in a row since back-to-back defeats to Matt Serra and Matt Hughes in 2006/2007, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt here.

> Marcus Davis vs. Paul Kelly: No big writeup here as we're huge Davis fans and will pick him to win no matter what. What you need to know? Davis (19-5) is 11-1 in his last twelve fights and is coming off a loss to Mike Swick in June while Kelly is 8-0 with a win over Paul Taylor in January of 2008.

For the rest of the untelevised card, head to the UFC 89 website which is freakin' awesome.

-Kelly Pavlik vs. Bernard Hopkins: A week after the fight community got to see the emergence of a new star in Chad Dawson, another rising name will get his chance to take down a legend as Kelly Pavlik faces Bernard Hopkins in Atlantic City, NJ, Saturday night.

The undefeated Pavlik (34-0, 30 ko's) is 26 years old and is the WBC and WBO Middleweight Champion. In Hopkins, he will face a guy that is past his prime and probably has just a few name-value fights left. "The Executioner" is 48-5-1 and spent a decade as Middleweight Champion, defending it 20 times. Wow.

He last was seen losing a split-decision to Joe Calzaghe in April, so Pavlik can't take him for granted. However, Pavlik is one of the best in the world and will have his shot at knocking out the 43-year-old Hopkins. We predict an eighth-round ref stoppage for Pavlik in this non-title fight.

Josh Nason has written and maintained Ropes, Ring and Cage since 2007. He can be reached at [e-mail].