Quick Hits: Bitetti Combat Lineup, Lawal-Frye Booked, Marshall-Brilz at UFC 103, PFC Ceases Operations, and More
Posted by Kris Karkoski on Jul 21, 2009 at 11:35 am ET14 Comments
Ricardo Arona vs. Marvin Eastman, Paulo Filho vs. Alex Schoenauer, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs. Alex Stiebling, and Pedro Rizzo vs. Jeff Monson are among the fights slated to take place at Bitetti Combat on September 12 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.- Light heavyweight Mike Whitehead, who cut an astonishing 80 pounds over 6 weeks to reach the 205-pound limit for his June Strikeforce victory over Kevin Randleman, will next fight at an October Strikeforce event. An opponent for Whitehead and location and venue for the event are still to-be-determined. [Fanhouse]
- Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal vs. Don Frye has been signed for M-1 Global “Breakthrough”, which takes place on August 28 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. [MMAjunkie]
- The UFC is reportedly in the preliminary stages of planning an outdoor event at the 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii, with BJ Penn expected to co-headline the event.
- The UFC will go head-to-head with boxing’s biggest stars this fall, as UFC 103, headlined by Dan Henderson vs. Rich Franklin 2, takes place on September 19, the same day as Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s scheduled return to action against Juan Manuel Marquez and UFC 105, slated for November 14 in the UK and likely airing free on Spike, will air opposite Miguel Cotto vs. Manny Pacquiao.
- A light heavyweight bout between The Ultimate Fighter 8 cast member Eliot Marshall and Jason Brilz has been added to the rumored lineup for UFC 103. [MMAjunkie]
- Palace Fighting Championship and the Tachi Palace Hotel and Casino in Lemoore, California have ended their long-running relationship, with MMA Weekly indicating that the split was not amicable and that the PFC has ceased operations, but could eventually resurface under a different name. The Tachi Palace is already in negotiations to form a partnership with another promotion to hold events at the venue. [MMA Weekly]
[Pictured: Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal]
Tags: Alex Schoenauer, Alex Stiebling, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Don Frye, Eliot Marshall, Jason Brilz, Jeff Monson, Marvin Eastman, Mike Whitehead, Muhammed Lawal, Paulo Filho, Pedro Rizzo, Ricardo Arona
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Miguel Cotto vs. Manny Pacquiao is happening in november
Misprint on 105 being in October, I will fix it shortly.
Patrick Cote vs Micheal Bisping at UFC 105
i want bisping v maia or cote
Don Frye is still fighting?? And at what weight?? Doesn’t Mo fight at 185???
I see now why UFC wanted Biggest name possible. So they could go head to head with Moter mouth Mayweather!!
Yeah totally dude. But i think that having hendo vs franklin 2 on that night actually hurt the card. UFC 103 is a great card and imho this “main event” messed it up. Who wants to see franklin vs hendo 2? atleast @ the moment? This fight just doesn’t sound appealing. After an epic ko, i expected hendo to be in a “bigger” match than this, no offense to franklin. Just cuz I never miss a card, i’m going to buy it, but, i don’t know how the casual fans feel about it.
I can’t believe whitehead cut 80 lbs in 6 weeks! Crazy dude.
Mo fights at 205 I believe.
King Mo is a really big 205′er at that.
Yea Franklin Hendo 2 isn’t the headline fight I expected to see. But then again all of their titles are booked up and most of the larger names are already fighting, which kinda left Joe scrapping the bottom of the barrel.
As far as King Mo, this is the exact thing Rampage was talking about. He has a small following in the hardcore MMA circles, but he’s a nobody that’s proven nothing and you run your mouth to a guy that has held belts? Mo needs to sign with the UFC and see if he can swim with the sharks before he runs his mouth anymore.
If memory serves Lawal fights at 205, but the last time I saw Don Frye he looked to be maybe 240 or more, so unless he’s gotten in a lot better shape, maybe they’re going to fight at some catchweight?
And for me the UFC now running in Hawaii is like Nabisco announcing that Oreos are now the best thing nutritionally in the world for someone to eat.
I love MMA, I love Hawaii, and I love [for the most part] the UFC. For years the Islands have hosted quality MMA, like Icon Sports, Rumble on the Rock, etc.
As I mentioned over in the forum section, Hawaii has a great MMA following, so I’m expecting a big turnout. If they do run an event in Aloha Stadium it’ll be something to see. I’ve seen a couple ProBowls there, and there really isn’t a bad seat, however for MMA the layout might be different.
And yes, I’ll be there, and hopefully BJ Penn will still be the LW champion, and defending against maybe Diego Sanchez?
In the matter of the UFC going “head to head” with boxing, its not as big a deal as one might think. Boxing is a dying sport, and has so few interesting match-ups and marketable fighters, that they have to jam everything they can into 1 or 2 decent events a year, if that. The UFC runs quality events every what, 45 days now? So even if boxing were to somehow manage to come off as more successful specifically during UFC 103 and UFC 105, overall their sport is in serious decline, and MMA is rising like a rocket with no end in sight.
After all, when was the last time you saw a kid on the boardwalk or in the mall wearing a Mayweather t-shirt, or even a hat promoting boxing, as opposed to the load of MMA walkout wear flying off of the shelves? When I work in Las Vegas, every third kid has a TapOut shirt or hat on. When I work down in Florida, close to half the high school kids I see bombing thru Universal is sporting a wool cap or shorts from Punishment Athletics or UFC/MMA something or other.
When I’m in Hawaii, a good portion of guys that bother to wear shirts will be wearing something from Hawaiian Fight Gear, or 808 Fight Factory, or Gracie Technics, and of course BJ Penn stuff. Even a lot of the thicker girls will wear their boyfriend’s MMA shorts to the beach.
Compare how their sport’s reality show, the Contender, stacks up against The Ultimate Fighter. Look at their PPV numbers, the national interest in their sport, and so on. It’s pretty grim if you’re a boxing fan, in spite of the spin-doctoring and misrepresentations by men still trying to eke out a living announcing that sport like Jim Lampley.
Boxing is a great amateur Olympic-type sport, and of course is a great fitness method, a la boxercise, once taught by none other than Dana White himself. If mentors use it to keep kids off of the streets, then thats great, but in 2009 every other strip mall doesn’t have a boxing establishment in it, but rather a martial arts school in it, and reportedly 80% of them are no offering some sort of MMA. Pretty telling, that is IMO.
As for Mayweather, let him run his mouth. The only time anyone outside of boxing pays attention is when he talks about MMA, or talks about professionally wrestling some poor man afflicted with giantism or acromegaly at one of their PPVs.
I would call Mayweather pathetic, but that would be doing a disservice to those that truly are pathetic.
The writing is on the wall for boxing, for any who care to read it. To paraphrase an old saying, I don’t want boxing and Floyd Mayweather to go away mad, I just want them to go away, and recognize that MMA is the far superior combat sport…
I think the one of the big problems with boxing is they have no marketable “big men” The heavyweights of boxing have allways been the star attraction. But right now there is just a bunch of Russian guys with the same name and a few up in comers.
Sucks about PFC, they seemed to be a good proving ground for young fighters, or decent place for has-beens to finish out their career, I guess they just couldn’t hack it though.
hopefully the ufc does the hawaii event and its the next fan expo like was mentioned on the forums. if its true i will definitely be there. the ufc will make me finally go to hawaii. 50k plus in the stands will be insane. if they sell that one out maybe, just maybe, they could take a crack at the new cowboys stadium that holds 80k-100k plus. that would be sick if they are able to pull that one off.
PFC folding wasn’t about the lack of monies earned honestly it was the Tribe attempting to take “full control” of the org and fighters contracts, its going to become rather messy and it is unfortunate, it was easy to shoot out there to catch some good fights and well even when it was the original WEC it was awesome.. But now they just have had issues with fighters and venue issues but hey none the less it is a bad deal
Frye v King Mo well just simply wow… Is Mo ready to take on the Stache?
50,000 people to watch the UFC outdoors NICE good stuff right there
Ricardo Arona’s return and that card looks freaking AWESOME