UFC 129 Prelims Live on Spike to feature Pierson vs. Ellenberger, Diaz vs. MacDonald

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Though Sean Pierson lost his originally scheduled opponent for UFC 129 in Brian Foster, he's not losing his spot on the Spike TV preliminary card broadcast for the event.

The UFC and Spike TV confirmed this week that his welterweight bout with Jake Ellenberger, as well as one between Nate Diaz and Rory MacDonald, will air live on the network in the hour-long "UFC 129 Prelims Live" special prior to the pay-per-view broadcast.

Ellenberger stepped in this week for Foster, who was pulled out of the fight when a pre-fight MRI revealed a brain hemorrhage. He comes into the fight on just over two week's notice, riding a three fight win streak in the Octagon.

UFC 129 marks the UFC's stadium debut, where they've already sold 55,000 tickets for the Rogers Centre in Toronto. The full lineup for the night's card is below:

Main Pay-Per-View Card

* Georges St-Pierre vs. Jake Shields (Welterweight Championship)
* Jose Aldo vs. Mark Hominick (Featherweight Championship)
* Jason Brilz vs. Vladimir Matyushenko
* Randy Couture vs. Lyoto Machida
* Mark Bocek vs. Ben Henderson

Spike TV Preliminary Card Bouts

* Nate Diaz vs. Rory MacDonald
* Jake Ellenberger vs. Sean Pierson

Preliminary Card

* Claude Patrick vs. Daniel Roberts
* Ivan Menjivar vs. Charlie Valencia
* Jason MacDonald vs. Ryan Jensen
* John Makdessi vs. Kyle Watson
* Pablo Garza vs. Yves Jabouin

Tomasz Drwal Joe Hybrid Duarte Aldrin de Jesus  Todd Duffee  Marvin Eastman