FanHouse Ryan Bader

Former Ultimate Fighter winner Ryan Bader stayed undefeated with perhaps the biggest win of his MMA career, beating Eric Schafer by unanimous decision at UFC 104 in a fight that started fast, ended slow and represented a small step forward for one of the UFC's rising stars.

This is the UFC 104 live blog for Ryan Bader vs. Eric Schafer, a light heavyweight bout on the Spike TV card.

The Ultimate Fighter 8 winner Bader will look to wrestle his way towards 11 straight wins when he takes on Schafer, the dangerous grappler out of Duke Roufus' gym.

The live blog begins below.

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The Ultimate Fighter 8 winner Ryan Bader says his keys to beating Eric "Red" Schafer at UFC 104 is to dictate the fight and avoid Schafer's experienced Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu game.

Bader, one of the many wrestler-turned-MMA fighters out of the Arizona Combat Sports camp in Tempe, recently spoke with FanHouse as he looks to improve his undefeated MMA and UFC records to 11-0 and 3-0, respectively, on Nov. 24 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Calif.

The UFC will show two live undercard fights on Spike TV during its UFC 104 show, once again giving fans a couple of fights for free to whet their appetites for pay-per-view.

Spike said today that it will air two preliminary fights -- Ryan Bader vs. Eric Schafer and Antoni Hardonk vs. Pat Barry -- live at 9 PM ET on October 24, an hour before the UFC 104 pay-per-view broadcast begins. The one-hour broadcast will air without commercials and could include other fights on tape delay, time permitting.

As an assistant coach for nine years at Arizona State University, UFC middleweight Aaron Simpson watched as wrestlers Cain Velasquez, CB Dollaway and Ryan Bader all successfully translated their collegiate wrestling backgrounds into a career in MMA.

Training with Arizona Combat Sports, Simpson (6-0) finally gave MMA a shot in 2007 and in exactly 13 months, debuted for the WEC and won by knockout in 18 seconds. This past Saturday, the two-time All American wrestler extended his streak of TKO wins to six by knocking off Ed Herman at UFC 102.

UFC President Dana White has pulled the plugs on his popular but controversial video blogs, but that doesn't mean YouTube-loving MMA fans will be short on content. A number of mixed martial artists have launched their own YouTube channels, including former Ultimate Fighter winner Ryan Bader, who is out today with his first UFC 104 video blog.

During our FanHouse UFC 99 live chat, we got an interesting question from a reader: Who is the best young fighter in MMA? Mike Chiappetta and I discuss below.

So, how has Arizona Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart been spending his offseason? Why, he's doing some MMA training with FOX Sports' NFL reporter, Jay Glazer, of course.

The light heavyweight division is the most talented weight class in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, but after watching Lyoto Machida dominate Rashad Evans for the title Saturday night at UFC 98, I'm having a very hard time seeing how anyone is going to beat him any time soon.

That might sound like a crazy thing to say, because upsets happen all the time in mixed martial arts, and the light heavyweight title has changed hands four times in the last two years. But the fundamental way to win a fight is to hurt your opponent without getting hurt yourself, and there's no one better at that than Machida.

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Making his first appearance in the Octagon since winning The Ultimate Fighter, Ryan Bader beat Carmelo Marrero Wednesday in a fairly boring unanimous decision at UFC Fight Night 18.