General MMA News - Page 12

Former WWE star and longtime MMA enthusiast Dave Bautista is slated for his pro-fighting debut on Oct. 6. The 43-year-old, perhaps best known as "Batista" during a WWE title reign, will fight New York-based heavyweight Rashid Evans (1-2 as an amateur) at a CES MMA event at Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence, R.I., TMZ today reported. Back in 2010, Bautista told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) he was in talks with Strikeforce about a possible deal. Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker confirmed negotiations, but a deal was never inked. The CES MMA event will be televised in some form, according to today's report.

Add your comment  

Strikeforce women's champion Ronda Rousey is featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine's "Body Issue" which hits newsstands July 13th. Rousey is one of 27 athletes featured in the magazine's online photo gallery which is online now. Previous MMA fighters featured in the issue include UFC Light Heavyweight champ Jon Jones, Gina Carano, and Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos and his wife Cristiane "Cyrborg" Santos.

Add your comment  

The longest-serving fighter, and unquestionably one of the biggest fan favorites, in the Maximum Fighting Championship has decided to hang up his gloves for good. Former light-heavyweight title challenger and 15-time MFC competitor Dwayne “D-Bomb” Lewis recently announced his retirement on his Facebook page. The announcement comes not as a major surprise as injuries have taken their toll on the family man over the past couple of years. Lewis had hoped to fight on the MFC 33 card back in May but hand issues forced that fight to the backburner. Although he had considered taking a run at the MFC 35 event coming up in October, Lewis opted to say goodbye instead. “Finally making it official … I’m done fighting,” Lewis wrote. “I’ve had a blast. For five years I tried my best to put in as much time as I could to be able to compete. It’s just been too busy of a schedule for me to keep up with and compete with guys who train and fight full-time. “I’ve met some great people and made some great friends. I’ve won fights that I shouldn’t have won and I’ve definitely lost fights I shouldn’t have lost but they have all been memories I will cherish. Walking away with a 14-8 record, 9 KOs, a 7-fight win streak and a ton of memories! Thanks to everyone who had supported me.”

Add your comment  

There's no longer a question of how well flyweights fight into the UFC. The answer? Pretty darn well. It's only natural, then, for one of them, Louis Gaudinot (6-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC), to wonder why his phone isn't ringing at the moment. Still unbooked after his first octagon win at UFC on FOX 3, he wants a fight. "I fought two months ago, and I still done have an opponent lined up," he today told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). "I want to get back in there." Gaudinot fought at flyweight before bulking up to bantamweight for a stint on "The Ultimate Fighter 14." At the conclusion of the show, he dropped back to 125 pounds and earned a first-round submission win over John Lineker, which won him a $65,000 "Fight of the Night" at UFC on FX 3. His next step, however, is unknown.

Add your comment  

Virgil Zwicker was once a man walking his own path of destruction. The Strikeforce fighter spent as much time in trouble as a youth as he did in school, bouncing in and out of jail for much of his life growing up on an Indian reservation in California. But Zwicker was able to pick himself up, dust himself off and not only pick up the pieces of what was quickly becoming a broken life, but he was able to put it all back together again. Now with a growing family of his own, Zwicker’s tale is one that could be simply told for inspiration, but that’s not good enough for the 30-year-old mixed martial artist who now wants to serve as an example of somebody who grew up wrong, but made things right. While Zwicker has been working as a youth coordinator at his Indian reservation, recently he got the opportunity to speak in front of a group of young people that could truly relate to everything he had gone through. At the Alamansor Academy in California, kids routinely join the program due to similar upbringings as Zwicker and seemingly walking down the same destructive path. The school’s job is to help lead them back in the right direction and at their recent graduation they invited Zwicker to come be the keynote speaker. “When I first looked them up and checked them out I thought it was going to be strictly troubled youths, gangs, kids being locked up, but I would say probably only 20 to 30 percent of the kids were like that. The rest of them, there was a lot that had physical disabilities, autism, and a lot of them were not in trouble or anything. They basically told me that 90 percent of those kids are the worst of the worst in that area,” Zwicker told MMAWeekly.com.

Add your comment  

Leandro Issa shocked many in the MMA world when he was able to defeat leg-lock master Masakazu Imanari at One FC’s latest show, so he might try to do the same in his next fight. Issa is now riding a seven-fight win streak and may have his eyes set on another tough challenge as the fighter to welcome former Dream champion Bibiano Fernandes to the One FC arena.

Add your comment  

Resurrection Fighting Alliance invaded the Viaero Events Center in Kearney Nebraska, with a fight card that included some former big names, as well as some up-and-comers, as RFA 3 took place on Sat., June 30, 2012. It was somewhat of a star-studded affair, as Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones was in attendance, and even joined the boys in the booth for a few minutes. Also, fellow light heavyweight Stephan Bonnar and former UFC heavyweight Justin McCully were onhand to call the fights. The main event featured former UFC lightweight contender Joe Stevenson taking on former Ultimate Fighter (TUF) contestant, Dakota Cochrane.

Add your comment  

It was recently revealed via Twitter that former UFC champion B.J. Penn had been approached by VADA (Volunteer Anti-Doping Agency) about submitting to drug testing along with his opponent Rory MacDonald ahead of UFC 152. Penn has long been a very outspoken advocate against the use of performance enhancing drugs, and volunteered when asked by VADA to submit to the testing. A few moments later, MacDonald responded to Penn’s request and accepted as well. While Penn and MacDonald’s enthusiasm around the drug tests should be commended, they weren’t the first people in the UFC to be approached by VADA.

Add your comment  

If you had assumed Joe Stevenson had been retired the last year or so, you could probably be forgiven. After all, the former UFC title challenger and "TUF" winner had been next to nowhere to be found. If Joe "Daddy" went anywhere, he said, it was to get a new mental focus. And now, with that in hand – or in head – he's finally rejuvenated for his Saturday return to the cage against Dakota Cochrane at Resurrection Fighting Alliance 3.

Add your comment  

HDNet's near-11-year run comes to a close on Monday, July 2, but the all-high-definition cable channel's replacement promises to have a familiar feel for MMA fans. In January, HDNet announced a joint venture with AEG, Ryan Seacrest Media and Creative Artists Agency that sees HDNet rebranded as AXS TV (pronounced "access"). On Monday, that relaunch goes live, but AXS TV officials promise MMA-related programming such as "Inside MMA" and "HDNet Fights" will continue to feature prominently on the rebranded outlet.

Add your comment  

Following a disappointing loss in her last XFC outing in February, Heather “Hurricane” Clark was looking to make a statement at this past Friday’s event against Avery Vilche. “I think I performed pretty well,” said Clark. “I think I could have done some a few things better, but all in all I listened to my corner and stuck with the game plan and it worked pretty effectively. “She actually pulled me on top of her into half-guard and from there I kind of baited an arm bar to pass to side and from there I set up mount, and from mount I did a little ground and pound and made her turn her back and finished with the rear naked choke.” The victory over Vilche gives Clark five wins in her last six fights, but it’s that loss in February to Marianna Kheyfets that still bothers her.

Add your comment  

Jun 28, 2012 - The California state athletic commission is one of the largest combat sports sanctioning bodies in the nation, overseeing 190 events during its 2011 fiscal year, but it is also in chaos, a fact highlighted by a Tuesday meeting in which it was revealed that the agency is insolvent, with expenditures far outpacing revenue. CSAC is already in the red, and according to numbers released in a memorandum from Department of Consumer Affairs budget officer Taylor Schick, if the commission continues its current projections, it would face a deficit of nearly $700,000 by the end of fiscal year 2013, a shortfall that could have a catastrophic effect on MMA and boxing in the state, because it could cause the commission to halt its programs, thereby denying regulation for combat sports. They're broke.

Add your comment  

The sport of wrestling has produced some of the top fighters in all of MMA, and now there’s another contender throwing his hat in the ring. 2009 NCAA champion Darrion Caldwell will officially make his transition into mixed martial arts this year. Caldwell wrestled at North Carolina State University where he captured the NCAA title at 149lbs in 2009, and was also a two-time All-American while wrestling at the ACC school.

Add your comment  

While performance enhancing drug use in sports is always a hot-button issue, none has been hotter recently than talk about testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) in mixed martial arts; well, except maybe the latest doping salvo launched at Lance Armstrong in cycling. But with high profile fighters such as Chael Sonnen, Frank Mir, Nate Marquardt, and others involved in the talk about TRT, and particularly in getting a therapeutic use exemption from athletic commissions for its use, it is the topic on nearly everyone’s lips. And the talk covers all aspects. Some say that if there is a proven deficiency that a fighter should be allowed to use TRT to bring his testosterone level up to what is considered normal. Others say that TRT should only be allowed for individuals that have a proven condition, not just a deficiency.

Add your comment  

From Croatia to India to Poland to Australia, disgraced mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter (and I use the term lightly), Bob Sapp continued his "tour of shame" when he took on Tolegen Akybekov in Astana, Kazakhstan, at Bushido Lithuania 51 this past Friday (June 8, 2012). And once again, he lost without putting up much of a fight, bringing his record to a lowly 11-14-1 with eight straight defeats ... all in the very first round. However, unlike his previous two contests, this fight actually made it past the opening minute. He may not be racking up the wins, but his frequent flyer miles should be sky high by now.

Add your comment  

Three-time Strikeforce veteran and undefeated middleweight prospect Derek Brunson (9-0) will fight for ShoFIGHT's first-ever 185-pound title. MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) today learned that Strikeforce officials have granted Brunson permission to face Kendall Grove (14-10) at Saturday night's ShoFIGHT 20 event. ShoFIGHT CEO J.T. Tilley confirmed Grove's original opponent, Terry Martin, was unable to obtain medical clearance with the Missouri Office of Athletics and was forced to withdraw from the bout, opening the door for Brunson. Featuring a welterweight title fight between UFC veterans John Gunderson and Karo Parisyan, ShoFIGHT 20 takes place June 16 at O'Reilly Family Event Center on the campus of Drury University in Springfield, Mo. The card airs live on the Fight Network in Canada and on a tape-delayed pay-per-view on July 1 in the U.S. The new Brunson vs. Grove fight serves as the evening's co-main event.

Add your comment  

Top-ranked bantamweight Bibiano Fernandes isn't making his way to the UFC just yet, but the Brazilian submission ace isn't ruling out an eventual move to the octagon. But after UFC officials announced he would be competing at UFC 149, only to later say an injury forced him out of a planned matchup, Fernandes wants the world to know he's healthy and ready to fight for the right offer. "UFC is one of the largest promotions in the world," Fernandes told MMAjunkie.com. "Unfortunately, we weren't able to agree to terms this time around. In the future, who knows?"

Add your comment  

Well, well, well. As if it wasn’t bad enough that a mild-mannered, unassuming guy like Chael Sonnen lost *his* UFC middleweight championship due to a misunderstanding of the rules back at UFC 117, and shortly thereafter found himself thrust into the center of an elaborate conspiracy (that’s right, conspiracy) that attempted to invalidate the four and a half round ass whooping he laid out on Anderson Silva, now he has this to deal with this. The poor guy.

Add your comment  

Steve Mocco, 2008 Olympian and a two-time NCAA heavyweight wrestling champ for University of Iowa and Oklahoma State, is now entering mixed martial arts (MMA) competition, Yahoo! Cagewriter Maggie Hendricks reported Thursday. According to Hendricks, Mocco decided to get into MMA after helping Antonio Silva train for his UFC 146 match with former Arizona State All-American wrestler Cain Velasquez Memorial Day weekend. (Velasquez scored a first-round TKO.) "This decision was a whirlwind," the former Hawkeye/Cowboy heavyweight told Sammy Perez of Joe Show Radio. "I was down there training and all the guys were great. Once they discovered I was interested in fighting, everything fell into place."

Add your comment  

Earlier this year, the future of undefeated Bellator heavyweight prospect Blagoi Ivanov appeared uncertain for the most unfortunate of reasons. However, Sherdog.com is reporting that Ivanov has made a “miraculous recovery” over the past ten days, and has been released from Pirogov Hospital in Sofia, Bulgaria. Ivanov will still require treatment, but is determined to eventually fight again. In February, Blagoi Ivanov was attending the after party of a boxing tournament when a fight broke out. Ivanov attempted to break up the fight when he and two of his friends were attacked by eight men carrying guns and knives. While his friends only suffered minor injuries, Ivanov was stabbed in the armpit, with the blade piercing his heart. While surgery immediately following the stabbing was successful, Ivanov was placed in a medically-induced coma and remained on life support six weeks after the stabbing. At the time, his physicians did not comment on whether or not they expected him to fully recover from the attack.

Add your comment