The main event participants of UFC 108 have sat down for their pre-fight interviews. Thiago Silva and Rashad Evans both promise an exciting fight for the fans.
Both fighters claim they would like to finish the fight by knockout. Evans hopes to use his speed and Silva plans to overwhelm Rashad with his strength.
Here are the interviews:
Several reports including one from MMAMania.com which stated Phil Baroni and Marcus Davis had agreed to fight at UFC 111 appear to be false.
Baroni has said that he still is not healthy following the beatdown he received at the hands of TUF 7 winner Amir Sadollah at UFC 106.
Baroni is planning on taking some time off to change and that will include a change of scenery.
According to MMAWeekly.com:
The Long Island, N.Y. native said he wanted to move from his adopted home of Las Vegas to experience different training camps, most notably, a possible permanent move to San Jose, Calif. for a permanent residence with American Kickboxing Academy. In the past, Baroni has trained often with the camp for hard sparring.
Big changes were in store, he assured.
“I can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results,” Baroni said.
He hoped to link up with Strikeforce middleweight champion Jake Shields, who trains often with AKA.
Chief among Baroni’s goals was to reduce his walk-around weight. Two days before his fight with Sadollah, he was 25 pounds from the welterweight limit.
Baroni had no answer when asked when he would be ready to step back into the octagon.
“I haven’t had fun training in a long time. A lot of people were asking me, ‘how does it feel to be back in the UFC?’ I was like, no different. Just like any other fight. At this point in my life, it’s just become my job. That’s the problem. It’s like punching the time clock to go train. It’s not fun at all. It hasn’t been fun at all. It’s just been miserable. I’ve just got to find fun and be happy. Not to just feel like I have to go train….(expletive) that.”
The injury-plagued UFC 108 is will take place on Jan. 2 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Headlining the event is a light-heavyweight battle between top contenders Rashad Evans (13-1-1) and Thiago Silva (14-1). Also on the card is a bout that will put English striker Paul “Semtex” Daley (22-8-2) against submission wizard Dustin Hazelett (12-5).
Two prelims are set to air on Spike TV before the live Pay-Per View. The two fights have been announced and they will be a welterweight battle with Martin Kampmann and Jacob Volkmann as well as a lightweight bout featuring Cole Miller and Dan Lauzon.
Here is the official UFC 108: Evans vs. Silva fight card:
MAIN CARD
* Rashad Evans vs. Thiago Silva
* Paul Daley vs. Dustin Hazelett
* Joe Lauzon vs. Sam Stout
* Duane Ludwig vs. Jim Miller
* Junior Dos Santos vs. Gilbert Yvel
PRELIMINARY CARD (Spike TV)
* Martin Kampmann vs. Jacob Volkmann
* Dan Lauzon vs. Cole Miller
PRELIMINARY CARD (Un-aired)
* Steve Cantwell vs. Vladimir Matyushenko
* Ryan Jensen vs. Mark Munoz
* Jake Ellenberger vs. Mike Pyle
* Rafaello Oliveira vs. John Gunderson
UFC 111 is set to take place in Newark, New Jersey and the event will be headlined by a welterweight title match between Georges St. Pierre and Dan Hardy. MMAMania.com is reporting that two other heavyweights will be throwing down for the fans.
Hard-hitting (and crowd-pleasing) welterweights, Marcus Davis and Phil Baroni, have verbally agreed to throw leather at UFC 111 from the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., on March 27, 2010.
The promotion has made no official announcements about the 170-pound match up or the actual pay-per-view (PPV) event at this time; however, that’s expected to change very soon.
More on this breaking news in a bit.
UFC 111 is expected to feature a 170-pound title defense by promotion superstar Georges St. Pierre as “Rush” answers the call of British striker Dan “The Outlaw” Hardy. Heavyweights
Both fighters are coming off of two straight losses.
The Bellator Fighting Championship has made a huge splash today. They have signed one of the top welterweights in the world, “Judo” Jim Wallhead (18-5). Wallhead joins Dan Hornbuckle (19-2), Jacob McClintock (6-0) and Ben Askren (3-0) as participants in the organizations welterweight tournament.
Here is a sample from the Bellator press release:
Wallhead—also known as “Judo Jim”—has won each of his last six fights and nine out of his last 11. He was recently lauded by Sherdog.com as “the top 170-pound fighter in Europe yet to be signed by a major promotion.”
With his signing, Wallhead has been invited to compete in Bellator’s upcoming eight-man welterweight tournament, which commences during Bellator’s Season 2 kickoff on April 8, 2010. Bellator will also conduct tournaments at 145, 155, and 185 lbs. with the winners of this year’s tournaments being declared No. 1 contenders to Bellator’s current roster of champions.
“Adding Jim to our welterweight division is magic for Bellator,” said Bellator founder and CEO Bjorn Rebney. “As one of Europe’s top welterweights, Jim will no doubt use our April tournament on Fox Sports Net to introduce U.S. MMA fans to what European fans already know. Jim is the real deal. As a fan, I can’t wait to see Wallhead, Askren, McClintok and Hornbuckle face off.”
A native of Leicester, England, Wallhead, 25, earned his black belt in Judo at age 16 and won Britain’s under-21 Judo championship at the age of 19. He made his professional MMA debut in 2005 at the age of 21 and has since compiled wins over top MMA talents like UFC veterans Jason Tan and Steven Lynch. In his most recent fight, Wallhead won a unanimous decision against former TUF participant Che Mills in Wales.
“I’ve been looking for a home in a big promotion for quite a while, so I’m just over the moon about signing with Bellator,” said Wallhead. “I watched the Bellator shows last year, and it’s really just a great, high-standards promotion. I’m relishing the challenge to let it all hang out, to take some risks, and hopefully, to have some success against the top competition in the world.”
Season two of the Bellator tournaments will get underway in April. The season will air on Fox Sports net affiliates on Thursday nights and highlights will be shown on Telemundo and NBC on Saturdays.
Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker has big plans for his organization. They have been pulling in top fighters from organizations around the world and putting on exceptional fight cards throughout 2009.
After Saturday’s Strikeforce: Evolution, Coker had many questions directed his way concerning the future of his promotion.
It has been rumored since the announcement of another CBS televised card for Strikeforce that Fedor Emelianenko and newly signed Dan Henderson would appear on the card.
“It’s not confirmed… (but) on that fight card, you’ll most likely see Fedor fighting Fabricio (Werdum),” Coker said. “It’s not guaranteed, but you will see Dan Henderson fighting on that card, and Gina Carano, we’ll invite her if she’s ready.”
Fedor is coming off of a spectacular knockout of Brett Rogers on his American television debut in November. Werdum will be a much tougher test than Rogers. Fabricio “Vai Cavalo” Werdum is riding a two fight win streak and he has been victorious in four of his last five bouts.
While Dan Henderson’s opponent has not been announced, reports state that he and current middleweight champion Jake Shields are very close in contract negotiations.
World Extreme Cagefighting will kick off their 2010 schedule on Jan. 10 with WEC: Varner vs. Henderson. The event will take place at the ARCO Arena in San Jose, Calif. The event is headlined by a lightweight unification bout between champion Jamie Varner and the interim champ Ben “Smooth” Henderson.
WEC announced last night that former featherweight champion Mike Brown (22-5) would make an early return to the cage as he is set to face Anthony Morrison (10-7) at the event. The fight will be only two months after Brown lost his title to Brazilian sensation Jose Aldo.
Also returning to action on the card is Urijah Faber. This will be Faber’s first fight since June of 2009; he has been out of action with a broken hand. He has lost two of his three bouts with both losses coming at the hands of Mike Brown. His opponent will be top contender Raphael Assuncao.
Here is the rumored fight card for WEC 46:
MAIN CARD
* Champ Jamie Varner vs. interim champ Benson Henderson (to unify lightweight title)
* Raphael Assuncao vs. Urijah Faber
* Mike Brown vs. Anthony Morrison
* Mackens Semerzier vs. Deividas Taurosevicius
* Akitoshi Tamura vs. Charlie Valencia
PRELIMINARY CARD
* Wagnney Fabiano vs. Frank Gomez
* Dave Jansen vs. Kamal Shalorus
* Mark Hominick vs. TBA
* Rafael Rebello vs. Eddie Wineland
* Will Campuzano vs. Coty Wheeler
* Jesse Moreng vs. George Roop
Gilbert Melendez put on an impressive performance in the Fight of the Night on his way to unifying the Strikeforce lightweight championship. Melendez pushed the pace and was the more aggressive fighter all night in a slugfest that could receive some Fight of the Year talk.
Here is Gilbert’s post-fight interview with Strikeforce where he discusses the fight and calls out DREAM lightweight champion, Shinya Aoki:
Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal looked spectacular in his Strikeforce debut on Saturday night as he easily disposed of Mike Whitehead. After the fight, King Mo sat down to discuss his performance and his future plans with the organization:
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