Keith Jardine vs. Trevor Prangley Set for Shark Fights on September 11
In his first fight since being released by the UFC in June, veteran Keith Jardine is set to face Shark Fights light heavyweight champ Trevor Prangley in a 205-pound non-title bout at Shark Fights’ September 11 event in Lubbock, Texas, Sherdog reports.
Jardine (15-8-1) dropped a majority decision to Matt Hamill at The Ultimate Fighter 11 Finale last month for his fourth-straight loss and has since vowed that he’s “more motivated than ever” to return to the top.
Prangley (22-6-1) was submitted by middleweight contender Tim Kennedy in Strikeforce in June after going 5-0-1 in his previous six fights.
No additional matchups have been announced for the event, which will air live on pay-per-view.
For the latest MMA news and MMA rumors stay tuned to MMAFrenzy.com.
Pictured: Keith Jardine
Tags: Keith Jardine, Trevor Prangley
Loading ...
I’m rooting for you, Keith!
Pretty good fight actually, I wonder if this was the best fight offered to Jardine anyways should be interesting to see how this match turns out…
Smart call making this a non-title fight.
Its entirely possible that Keth Jardine is the best MMA 205er OUTSIDE of the UFC, and it might not look too snappy for Shark Fights to have their new champion be a guy who just got cut from the UFC on the back of a recent 1-5 record.
Maybe, maybe not, but IMO guys outside the UFC are going to have a tough time handling a guy who is used to stepping in with strikers like Rampage Jackson and Thiago Silva, and wrestlers like Ryan Bader and Matt Hamill…
I’ve never really understood non-title fights in MMA. Didn’t understand why Mousasi fought Sokoudjou for a non title match. If the person is not worthy of a title shot, for whatever reason, then they shouldn’t fight one another. I’m not a fan of “exhibition fights” in MMA. I think it adds to the whole “freakshow” aspect of it.
I know there are certain promotional and maybe even contractual reasons for non-title fights, but generally I agree that they are sort of pointless.
If the champ loses, what, the challenger has to beat him AGAIN for the title?
If the UFC doesn’t make a challenger beat the champ TWICE for one belt, why should any other org with presumably less talent at each weightclass do so?
And if the champ wins, what was the point really, other than to score coin from the ticket sales and PPV buys?
All I can think of here is that maybe SharkFights didn’t want someone coming in on a 4 fight losing streak and lifting their 205 title from their champion.
I mean consider that Prangley lost to Tim Kennedy at 185 in less than 4 minutes, and now he’s going to take on Jardine at 205?
Jardine is a pretty strong 205er, and has been in with some of the best in the world at this weight, so no one should be surprised if he throws Prangley a beating.
And if for whatever reason he doesn’t, then the man seriously needs to reconsider his career options…
Well either way, title or no title. It doesn’t look good for the champ to get beat regardless. But it looks worse if its non-title IMO.
I’ve thought to myself for a while that if a champ fights in a non-title fight it should be at a catch-weight, that way you didn’t exactly beat the champ at his weight and thus shouldn’t be the champ ’cause you won; sort of elimates a bit of controversy should the non-champ win. Still looks bad though.
I always root for jardine been a fan of him since his ultimate fighter days, hope he puts on a show
I agree with you jcohl, you always have a good statement, if the dean of mean can’t win this one, idk what he could do next
If jardine wins this one , I ‘d like to see him fight sobral next .
Jardine should win this, and I’m thinking there’s a possibility that there may be a clause in the SharkFights contract that requires the champ to defend, which Jardine would not like since he will be hoping to get back in the UFC. It’s also possible that SharkFights doesn’t want to have to pay Jardine to fight for them again in the future if they don’t make enough money off of him participating in this upcoming event.
Do you think if Jardine impressively finishes Prangley he’ll get an immediate invite back to the big show, or maybe he needs 2 or 3 such wins?
He’ll probably need another win or two, but Prangley is a good start. There’s a couple other former UFC guys floating around that maybe he could get a fight with at a regional show to help him get back in.
Yeah prolly about two impressive wins for an invite back
This will be a good fight for Jardine and will really let us know where he is career wise. By that I mean… was he just catching tougher fighters at a bad time or if he really just doesn’t have it anymore.
If Jardine loses to Prangley, then he definitely doesn’t have it anymore.