FanHouse Marcus Davis

Rebounding from a tough loss at UFC 99 in June, Ben Saunders got back on the winning track Saturday night at UFC 106, defeating Marcus Davis by first-round knockout in a fight that showed some off some absolutely vicious knee strikes.

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Ben Saunders made an impression last December when he destroyed Brandon Wolff with knees, but after falling short in his next fight in June to Mike Swick, Saunders will have to wait longer to be considered a contender as he now has to reestablish himself in the welterweight ranks.

In this exclusive interview with FanHouse, Saunders talks about fighting Marcus Davis at UFC 106 and learns through this interview of friend War Machine's new career in the adult film industry.

The UFC is targeting a Mike Swick-Dan Hardy matchup to determine the top contender to Georges St. Pierre's welterweight championship, company president Dana White confirmed to FanHouse in a text message.

Swick (14-2) had been scheduled to face off with Martin Kampmann at UFC 103 for the right to face St. Pierre, but suffered a concussion in training about two weeks before the fight. The UFC brought in Paul Daley to replace him, and the debuting Brit upset Kampmann with a first-round TKO, shaking up the title picture.

Marcus Davis and Dan Hardy engaged in a long, drawn-out war of words prior to their fight at UFC 99 on Saturday, and Davis now says that verbal battle helped Hardy win their physical battle in the Octagon.

This is the UFC 99 live blog for the undercard fight between Dan Hardy and Marcus Davis.

Hardy and Davis have engaged in a war of words leading up to this fight, and that has made what would otherwise seem like a fairly ordinary welterweight fight into one of the most anticipated undercard bouts at UFC 99.

UFC 99 has begun, and the Dan Hardy vs. Marcus Davis live blog is below.

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The run-up to the UFC 99 fight between Marcus Davis and Dan Hardy has focused mostly on the fighters' personal animosity for each other, and the above video pretty well shows that animosity on display.

The news that Kimbo Slice will appear on Season 10 of The Ultimate Fighter (which is filming now and airing in the fall) was met with approval from the four established UFC fighters who spoke to the media today on a conference call to promote UFC 99, all of whom said appearing on the reality show was an appropriate first step toward becoming a UFC fighter.

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The June 13 UFC 99 fight between Marcus Davis and Dan Hardy was already expected to be a grudge match, with Hardy talking trash about Davis on various Internet MMA forums, and Davis responding by writing at UFC.com that he hates Hardy. But that grudge match got even more heated Tuesday on a conference call to promote UFC 99, with Davis and Hardy insulting each other over the phone while the media listened.

It started with Hardy claiming that he hadn't posted all the negative things about Davis that had been attributed to him, and Davis responding to that by saying, "You're a liar." And it devolved from there.

Before UFC 93, Marcus Davis and Chris Lytle promised that their fight would be a stand-up battle. They delivered.