This Friday in Tampa, Fla. the University of South Florida Sun Dome will host Titan FC 31 – a card headlined by Mike Ricci vs Yoshiyuki Yoshida. The fight is for the Titan organization’s lightweight title, and features two fighters who have taken their games to the next level since being cut by the UFC.
The co-feature brings bantamweight veteran Miguel Torres facing off against Desmond Green. Torres was once considered one of the top fighters in the weight class, but a rocky WEC run led to a 2-2 stint with the UFC that saw Torres cut for a boneheaded post on Twitter. He then washed out of the World Series of Fighting, going 0-2 for that group. He is still only 33 years old, but with a 43-7 record it is fair to ask whether Torres best days are behind him.
Green has good experience, at 12-3 overall and with a 3-2 stint in Bellator under his belt. Whatever the line, Green will have an advantage in athleticism that gives him a great chance to win.
Veteran Matt Thompson is riding a solid five fight winning streak, and he faces Ken Hasegawa, who brings an undefeated record from Japan’s Deep organization. Thompson is an experienced veteran at this point, and with all due respect to Hasegawa, Japanese heavyweights of quality have traditionally been few and far between. Though he is undefeated, Deep is not exactly a hotbed for heavyweights.
The main card is rounded out by the welterweight bouts between Felipe Portela and Hayder Hassan as well as Jose Figueroa and Tyler Stinson. There’s good matchmaking here as Portela and Hassan are both newcomers with less than 10 fights, and Figueroa and Stinson are both seasoned veterans. Though a few have competed with Bellator and WSOF, but there is no UFC experience in the bunch. Be prepared for roughly UFC preliminary-level bouts.
The full 11-fight card starts at 7 p.m. EST, with preliminary bouts available at CBSSports.com and the main card airing on the CBS Sports Network. Despite a very strong ‘local’ card, the lines for the five fights above are likely all we are going to get as far as odds go.
Check out the Titan FC promo vid:
