Stefan Struve celebrated his 25th birthday on Friday, one day before what was supposed to be his biggest win for his young UFC Heavyweight career. And he knew his matchup with Mark Hunt was going to be a big one, because a win would put him one step closer to a championship fight. In fact, Struve even said this prior to his co-main event match on UFC on FUEL TV 8 in Japan:

“It’s going to be another step to the belt, in my opinion,” Struve said in explaining the benefits of topping Hunt this weekend. “With five wins in a row, I think I have a good bid for being one of the top contenders in the division. Perhaps I’ll earn a title shot at the end of the year.”

That would have been awesome, considering his young age and unique size at 7-feet tall, because the Heavyweight division could certainly use some new blood and personality. That would have been awesome. Would have.

Unfortunately, Struve’s grand scheme hit a minor snag in the form of a left hook from Hunt that looked like this…

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On one hand, I was very surprised to recently learn that my favorite UFC ring girl in the history of the universe, Brittney Palmer, has her own action figure. I was also very surprised to learn that she’s an awesome painter and she sells prints on her website. Then, as I thought about it, I decided that it’s better that I don’t know because I would probably end up blowing all of my money on her art and collectibles, and I’m already two exit ramps from full-on Stalker City as it is, so I should probably chill out.

That said, hello Japan and free fights! Tomorrow night at 9 PM ET on FUEL TV, the pre-fight show begins for UFC on FUEL 8, live from the Saitama Super Arena in Tokyo. Now I’ve never pretended to be some big shot, fancy pants, city slicker UFC super fan type. I’m still growing into this whole MMA game knowledge-wise, but I like to think that I’ve picked up enough wisdom along the way to tell you that for a free fight, this card is outstanding.

But I will let you animals decide for yourself if this event is worth our time tomorrow night with another one of our UFC live discussions that Barack Obama has referred to as “The glue of American society”. Make sure to check out our own Lobster Mobster’s fight primer, and then join us tomorrow night for our special guest, South Dakota State Representative Steve Hickey. Wait, what’s that? Hickey canceled? Damn. Okay, then I’ll let this event’s special ring girl, SuJung Lee take us through the fight card instead.

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