Some more news from Houston-based Legacy Fighting Championship was released today. After last week's announcement about the signing of Robert Drysdale, there were some questions regarding who would be his first opponent on May 11. Bloody Elbow learned from Legacy Promoter Mick Maynard that Drysdale would be facing off with Ike Villanueva (8-6). This will be Robert Drysdale's first fight in the promotion and will take place in the light heavyweight division.
Also on tap for the card is Brazilian vale tudo legend Jorge "Macaco" Patino making his lightweight debut against Jesus Rivera. Macaco won the vacant welterweight belt at Legacy 8 with a split decision victory over Pete Spratt. The 38 year old Patino defended his belt later in 2011 at Legacy 9 against Mike Bronzoulis. The Macaco/Rivera fight will be for the vacant lightweight belt which would make Patino the champion at both light and welterweight.
Legacy Fighting Championship 11 is on May 11 at the Houston Arena Theater.
Fight Card
Lightweight Title Fight - Jorge Patino vs Jesus Rivera
Chad Robichaux vs Joseph Sandoval
Robert Drysdale vs Isaac "Ike" Villanueva
Legacy Fighting Championship 10 is this weekend and features Gerald Harris and Chidi Njokuani making their debuts. The fights air on HDNet.
Here is a fight announcement I did not expect. Former UFC Heavyweight champion Maurice Smith is stepping back out of retirement to once again compete in MMA. The 50 year old veteran will fight on March 30 in Kearney, Nebraska as part of the second show from Resurrection Fighting Alliance. No opponent for Smith has yet been announced.
Smith started his career as a well respected kickboxer in the 1980's and early 90's, and took part in the inaugural K-1 World Grand Prix in 1993. Starting in 1993 he committed himself to making the transition to MMA. After some troubles getting his career going, Smith reached his greatest fame in 1997 when he defeated the then unbeaten Mark Coleman to win the UFC Heavyweight title. He defended the belt once against Tank Abbott before losing it to Randy Couture later that year at UFC Japan. After the title loss, Smith competed in various organiations, including the UFC, Pride, Rings, and K-1. He unofficially retired in 2001, but has taken sporadic fights in K-1 and MMA since then. His last MMA run came in 2007-2008 when he went 2-1 with wins in Strikeforce and the IFL (where he also served as a coach). This will be his first pro fight of any kind in nearly 4 years.
While not a household name for casual MMA fans, Smith deserves recognition as a pioneer of the sport. He was one of the first to succesfully translate his kickboxing credentials into an MMA career. He's also known for forming an early team with Frank Shamrock and Tsuyoshi Kohsaka. Dubbed "The Alliance", this was one of the earliest MMA super-teams where fighters discovered the importance of cross-training, becoming complete mixed martial artists instead of one discipline specialists.
Smith's more recent fights have been essentially showcases against other legends, and I would expect the same here. It will be interesting to see who he is paired with, and what he still brings to the table.
Also on the card is a main event fight between Houston Alexander and Gilbert Yvel. Yvel is 1-0 since his 0-3 UFC run in 2010, while Alexander is 4-2 (1) since leaving the UFC, including a good win over Sokoudjou. This is not likely to be the most technical fight you've ever seen, but it's pretty great match-making and should be a wild, action-packed war.
Wushu expert and URCC Champion Eduard Folayang (11-1) will be facing Muay Thai star and fellow Martial Combat champ, Ole Laursen (5-3) on March 31. Officials from the Singapore-based ONE Fighting Championship promotion announced the news earlier today, stating that the lightweight bout will be part of their stacked main card at ONE FC 3.
The duo was first booked to face each other as the headliner of the inaugural ONE FC event last September, until Laursen had to pull out after suffering a knee injury. Folayang was left to to headline against top Korean fighter, A Sol Kwon which won them Fight of the Night honors.
When I spoke to them during the lead up to what was supposed to be their fight last September, both Folayang and Laursen expressed hesitation in accepting a fight against a fellow Filipino, but neither fighter rejected the bout knowing that it's nothing personal and they can continue their friendship after. That wasn't the only time their paths have crossed though.
The Team Lakay Wushu product is coming off an entertaining 56 second TKO win over Wadson Teixeira, who is a Muay Thai champ and a BJJ Brown Belt. His corner man, Laursen, was visually disappointed as his teammate was mere inches away from pulling off the upset.
Ole Laursen on the other hand, is coming off that war against Felipe Enomoto on ONE FC 2. The Muay Thai champion was winning handily until Enomoto landed a head kick that led to a rear naked choke finish, snapping Laursen's 5-fight winning streak.
Most people assumed that loss derailed the planned bout against Folayang, and while the timing is less than optimal, both guys are huge stars in Singapore and their styles guarantee fireworks. That alone was probably enough for the promotion to decide to push through with it.
Both Filipino fighters have been featured at the World MMA Scouting Report with Laursen being the #8 ranked lightweight in the 2010 report, and Folayang being ranked at #6 on the 2011 edition. This fight becomes part of the already stacked main card which so far, includes 4 guys from the scouting report, along with other very popular fighters.
After the jump, check out the rumored fight card so far. Follow me on twitter -- @antontabuena
In some huge news from the American regional MMA scene, famed grappler Robert Drysdale has chosen to sign with Houston-based Legacy Fighting Championship as his new home for MMA. Drysdale is one of the most recognizable names in grappling circles, but has remained a relative unknown to MMA fans because of his lack of exposure.
He was expected to be a cast member of The Ultimate Fighter but the required medicals revealed that Drysdale was living with a brain aneurysm.Once he resolved this incredibly dangerous medical issue, he started his professional MMA career in the Canadian-based AFC, where he submitted three straight opponents in just over five minutes, collectively.
Last night, Bloody Elbow learned from Legacy FC that Drysdale had signed a three-fight contract and is set to make his debut for the promotion on May 11th at the Houston Arena Theater in Houston, Texas. He currently is without an opponent. This is a major signing for a promotion that is trying to build a reputation as the top fight league in Texas. Drysdale adds legitimacy due to his grappling credentials which should increase not just the visibility but also the marketability of the overall Legacy product.
Legacy Fighting Championship airs on HDNet. Their next show is February 24th at the Houston Arena Theater. The card features Gerald Harris in a middleweight fight against Artenas Lewis and Chidi Njokuani making his Legacy debut against Jon Harris.
MMA in Indonesia has been dormant in the past few years with almost zero programming and promotions running in the country. Interest in the sport has recently been jump-started with ONE FC hosting their second event in Jakarta a few days ago, and it looks like the resurgence will continue.
Legend Fighting Championship held their 7th show this past weekend, and during the show, they announced plans to venture out of their home-base of Hong Kong and Macau, and host a show in Jakarta. Legend FC 8 will happen next month, and Indonesian fans will be fortunate enough to have yet another quality card coming to the country.
The event will be at the Jakarta Convention Center on March 30, and the moment the announcement has been made, it has been assumed that Indonesia's biggest MMA star, Fransino Tirta (10-0-1) will be competing on the card. BloodyElbow.com has exclusively confirmed with reliable sources that Tirta will indeed be part of two title fights that have been recently signed and set to headline the event.
Tirta will be in his home country, gunning for the Legend FC featherweight title against Yusuke Kawanago (8-3), a talented Japanese fighter coming off a win over Chengjie Wu at Legend 6, and a split decision loss to Mark Striegl at Legend 5.
Another title fight on the top of the card will be Sengoku veteran, Jadamba Narantungalag making his first defense of the Legend FC championship he recently won against Adrian Pang. The Mongolian will be taking on Nam Yui Chul (13-3), the top Korean lightweight who is coming off a monumental win over the highly regarded ONE FC fighter in Vuyisile Colossa.
Much more Asian MMA News after the jump. Don't forget to follow me on twitter -- @antontabuena.
A little under a year ago we started to see stories come out about Gary Goodridge and issues he was suffering from his long fighting career. In an article on TheStar.com last May, Goodridge had talked about how he had significant memory problems and was on a series of drugs "fit for an Alzheimer's patient."
With the release of Goodridge's autobiography, he is once again in the news and talking about brain injuries. In an interview with MMA Weekly, Goodridge talks about his recent diagnosis for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)/pugilistic dimentia:
"You get the news you just have to deal with it, live with it," Goodridge told MMAWeekly.com on Monday. "There's no treatment that goes along with it. There's pills to make it slow down the process, but it's inevitable."
...
"I would like to share with people, but I think most of my damage came from K-1. MMA really wasn't an issue because there's hardly any shots to the head," said Goodridge. "90-percent of my injuries came from K-1, where there's nothing but head trauma, head injuries over and over again."
Obviously, yes, a sport with more strikes to the head will have more of an impact over time. It still is a little unfortunate to hear Gary phrase it the way he does though. His minimizing the impact MMA had on his health will allow fans to continue ignoring the reality that we will see CTE impact MMA as time goes on. It's not just about in competition injuries but also about training, where sparring accounts for much of the trauma a fighter will endure over the course of his career.
The Hollywood Reporter broke the news Monday night that former Strikeforce star Gina Carano is set to star in her second movie, an "action thriller" called Into The Blood. The film is expected to start filming in Puerto Rico this spring or summer.
So what's it about? THR and director John Stockwell explain:
Described as being in the vein of Taken, Blood is set in motion when a husband disappears while vacationing in the Caribbean with his wife, to be played by Carano. The grieving wife passionately and recklessly pursues the men whom she believes kidnapped and killed him.
"This role will showcase not only Gina’s fighting skills, but also her acting abilities as her character struggles to reign in her violent past," Stockwell tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Carano broke out onto the silver screen this year with Haywire, an action movie that features a star-studded cast and Carano in a lead role. To date, the film has done over $24 million worldwide. THR added that the same stunt team that worked on Haywire are also in consideration for this new project.
Jon Koppenhaver was once considered one of the best young fighters in MMA. Having the opportunity to train with Ken Shamrock and Oleg Taktarov, Koppenhaver had coaches that most regional level fighters could only dream of having. It was on the sixth season of the Ultimate Fighter that fans became aware that Koppenhaver may have some real demons that he had to deal with in his life.
After his tenure in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Koppenhaver's life too a turn for the weird. He legally changed his name from John Koppenhaver to 'War Machine' in hopes of blocking a battle over his likeness. A series of nihilistic tweets about wanting to die in the Philippines after a knife fight and a stint as an adult actor soon followed.
Koppenhaver admittedly views this as an extremely self-destructive time in his life. He was training less and partying more and was having difficulty balancing the various segments of his life. He was incarcerated for a year due to a fight in San Diego and during this time he had nothing to do but think. Fans were able to follow his life via a weekly blog and it quickly became apparent that he saw the error of his ways and was using is time in prison to better himself as a person. He wrote about opening a gym and trying to mentor at-risk fighters so they would not make the same mistakes that he once made.
Once released War Machine cut a deal with the District Attorney's office about an incident that took place at a local San Diego bar called 'Thrusters Lounge'. In his deal with the DA, he agreed to pay for the victim's medical bills and serve probation.
On February 2, 2012 War Machine appeared before Judge Valerie Adair of the Clark County district court in Nevada. It was intended to be a sentencing hearing with War Machine and his attorney expecting the judge to sign off on the plea bargain with the DA. A transcript of the hearing shows that this wasn't as typical of a sentencing as one would come to expect.
NOTE: This is an issue where the news is being presented as news. State your opinions but try not to go overboard.
Full transcript after the jump...
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