The first of the co-main events was a welterweight superfight that saw Nick “The Goat” Thompson take a unanimous decision victory over Paul “Semtex” Daley. Thompson kept Daley at bay with his reach and jab during the first and second rounds on the feet, as well as dominating the fight from top position in those two rounds, despite taking some heavy leg kicks from Daley in the first minute of the fight. Besides the leg kicks in the first minute, Daley only really looked strong after a looping punch caught Thompson behind the ear in the second, leading to some ground and pound before the bell sounded to end of the round. The third round, howeverm was nothing but domination by the eventual winner Thompson.

The other co-main event was a barn burner on the ground between Pat Healy and Ryan Ford for the MFC Welterweight Championship. Healy was the more dominant fighter much of the fight, but Ford showed a lot of resiliency and great submission defense throughout the fight. Each round saw both fighters scoring takedowns and reversals in what was a great, evenly matched fight. However in the end Healy retained his belt via split decision (48-47 three times).

The event’s full results were:

• Pat Healy def. Ryan Ford via split decision
• Nick Thompson def. Paul Daley via unanimous decision
• Antonio McKee def. Derrick Noble via unanimous decision
• Bryan Baker def. Rory Singer via KO (punches) — Round 1, 4:55
• David Heath def. Roger Hollet via submission (guillotine choke) — Round 1, 2:30
• Solomon Hutcherson def. Dave Mewborn via unanimous decision
• Ryan Machan def. Simon Marini via submission (rear naked choke) — Round 1, 1:48
• Evan Sanguin def. Alain Hernandez via TKO (slam) — Round 1, 2:50
• Josh Russell def. Donovan Foley – Submission (triangle choke) — Round 1, 1:00
• Brad Zazulak def. Richard Symons via TKO (strikes) — Round 1, 3:54

Kang improved his record to 31-10-1 in the victory, while Eastman fell to 15-9-1.

Also victorious at the event were Tim Hague and Ryan Ford, who both earned unanimous decision victories.

I would like to take this opportunity to offer a personal response to comments and actions taken by Drew Fickett over the past 72 hours.

Drew had agreed to and signed a contract to fight on the Maximum Fighting Championship how on July 25 for the welterweight title against Ryan Ford. Over the last few days, Drew has caused  severe problems and therefore we find him in complete breach of his contract.

We were shocked to learn Drew agreed on one day’s notice to fight as a middleweight in another organization’s event this past Friday. When I contacted this other organization, its owner immediately cancelled Drew’s fight when informed that he was under contract to fight on the MFC show and as part of Mr. Fickett’s contract he was not allowed to take another fight up to five weeks before the MFC show.

Maximum Fighting Championship

When I learned of Drew’s intentions to take this fight, I repeatedly attempted to reach Drew’s manager to find out why. After numerous attempts to reach his manager went unreturned, I did leave a voice mail which has since been made public. I admit to being very upset, angry and frustrated not only by Drew’s action but also by not being able to reach his manager and the tone of that voice mail reflected my feelings.

Shortly afterwards I realized that I should have taken a deep breath and calmed down before leaving that message and I profusely apologized to Drew’s manager. I am not proud of that message but as the owner of a major fight organization I felt that I and my staff which works tirelessly to put on a first-class show were being treated very disrespectfully by Drew. If he had read his contract he would have realized he shouldn’t have taken the fight and he should not have attempted to get away with it.

Then for Drew to post the private voice mail – which was not left on his phone – was just ridiculous and petty.

This was the last straw in a series of unprofessional acts by Drew. He failed to send a promotional photo that we wanted to use for advertising the fight even after the MFC had sent him gloves and even went as far as being willing to book a photographer to take the pictures. He also failed to send any documents pertaining to his medicals, passport and border information.

Drew even stated in an email after the posting of the voice mail that he was still willing to fight in the MFC. But after that he added that he would want to be paid after the weigh-in one day before the fight. There is no question in my mind that Drew would have stiffed us completely and run off with our money without fighting as some sort of warped payback for the MFC protecting its investment in him and doing everything in its power to not allow him to fight within the five-week period prior to July 25.

We now completely understand why that despite his excellent record so many organizations will not work with Drew and we have a pretty clear indication why he has been banned by the UFC.

Drew Fickett will never fight in the MFC. As evidenced by his latest actions Drew clearly does not want to fight Ryan Ford for the MFC title despite signing a contract to do so.

The MFC has never had any problems with any fighters who do not breach their contract nor have we had any problems with fighters with issues that we do control such as payment for fights, travel itineraries, etc. Fighters we have problems with are ones who are neurotic misfits with poor management who won’t take responsibility for their actions, who won’t live up to fulfilling their contracts and those who do not act as professional athletes.

I will take all steps necessary to settle this issue legally and I will also move immediately into replacing Drew Fickett with a top-level fighter to contend for the MFC welterweight title against Ryan Ford on July 25.

Mark Pavelich, Owner/President

• Rob Yundt will take on Alessio Sakara at The Ultimate Fighter 7 Finale.
• At UFC 87 Heath Herring will fill in for an injured Mark Coleman and take on Brock Lesnar, Clay Guida will face Mac Danzig, Jason MacDonald takes on Demian Maia, and Manny Gamburyan will be in action against an opponent to be announced.
• Adrenaline MMA has inked a deal with HDNet to air the promotion’s first three events on the network.
• Jeremy Lang has replaced Eric Schambari against Tim McKenzie and Danny Castillo has replaced Richard Crunkilton against Donald Cerrone on the WEC 34 fight card, which is takes place on June 1st.
• Ryan Ford will take on UFC veteran Drew Fickett at MFC 17 for the promotion’s vacant welterweight championship.
• DREAM has announced the official pairings for the second round of the promtion’s middleweight tournament. The matchups are Kazushi Sakuraba versus Melvin Manhoef, Jason “Mayhem” Miller versus Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, Gegard Mousasi versus Dong Sik Yoon, and Zelg Galesic versus Taiei Kin.
• Antonio Rogerio Nogueria will fight Vernon White at Affliction’s debut event, “Banned”, on July 19th.
• ESPN The Magazine featuring Kimbo Slice on the cover is on newstands now.
• EliteXC President Gary Shaw revealed this week that the promotion is likely going to introduce a heavyweight title in 2008.
• MMA veteran Matt Lindland won the Republican primary for the Oregon House of Representatives by a 14-point margin and will not take on Democratic nominee Suzanne VanOrman in the November 4th general election.
• EliteXC will stage a ShoXC event in San Diego, California on June 27th. Hector Lombard will make his debut with the promotion at the event, Cyrille Diabate will face Jamie Fletcher in a main card bout, and King of the Cage middleweight champion Keith Berry will look to defend his title against Reggie Orr.
• UFC 88 will take place on September 6th at the Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia.

Seven-time UFC veteran Pete “The Secret Weapon” Spratt will take on undefeated welterweight Ryan “The Real Deal” Ford in the main event of Maximum Fighting Championships 15: Rags to Riches the promotion has announced. The event will be held at the River Cree Resort in Edmonton, Canada on Friday, February 22nd.

Spratt (16-10 MMA, 3-4 UFC) racked up a 10-3 professional record before making his UFC debut in 2002. After a win over Zach Light in his octagon debut and a loss to Carlos Newton Spratt defeated Robbie Lawler and was offered a title shot at then-champion Matt Hughes. Spratt felt under-prepared and declined the fight. He then went 1-2 with losses to Georges St. Pierre and Chris Lytle before unsuccessfully returning in 2005 losing to Josh Koscheck. He then appeared on “The Ultimate Fighter 4: The Comeback” defeating Jeremy Jackson on the finale of the show. Following early-2007 losses to Marcus Davis, Tamdan McCrory, and Anthony Waldburger, Spratt settled in at HDNet Fights posting wins over Waldburger and Tristan Yunker.

Ford (4-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) has been fighting professionally for less than one year, debuting with MFC in June. Since turning professional he has wins over Aaron Gallant, Randy Valette, Adil Abbas, and Mike Sorrenson. Ford hasn’t let any of his four fights go past the second round ending three fights with TKOs and finishing the other with a first round rear naked choke submission.

For more information on the event check out the promotion’s official website, MaximumFighting.com.