Former NBA center Darko Milicic made his kickboxing debut Thursday night in Serbia. The 7-footer, who was the second overall draft pick in 2003, lost to Radovan Radojcic in the second round of their exhibition fight via doctor’s stoppage after suffering a cut on his left leg.
“The next time, it will be better,” Milicic said [translated by The Detroit News]. “I’m invincible.”
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On episode three of the Monday Morning Analyst, we review UFC on FOX 13, The Ultimate Fighter 20 Finale and WSOF 16. We also briefly discuss the big boxing weekend including Ishe Smith vs. Erislandy Lara, Amir Khan vs. Devon Alexander and Timothy Bradley vs. Diego Chaves.
Editor’s note: Portions of the video and audio lag due to poor Internet connectivity while recording. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
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Observe Gilbert Melendez grapple with Ronda Rousey and train some boxing with Rousey’s trainer Edmond Tarverdyan in this video from Fight Heart. Melendez seems quite sleek in the floor at Glendale Fighting Club in Los Angeles ahead of his huge UFC lightweight title chance against Anthony Pettis at UFC 181 on Dec. 6 in Las Vegas.
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Wayne Boyd is more passionate about wrestling than almost anyone, and his latest goal is to succeed at something that everyone else that has tried and failed: the idea of running a promotion doing professional amateur wrestling.
Boyd’s new venture, The Global Wrestling Championships, debuts with a Saturday afternoon show with three main event matches, featuring six of the country’s top wrestlers. The event brings four-time NCAA champion Kyle Dake back to Cornell University. It will be a combination of prelim matches streaming for free at 2 p.m. Eastern time on GoFightLive.tv and the championship matches as a $6.95 Internet pay-per-view if ordered in advance, at 3 p.m. ET.
Boyd’s goals are ambitious. He wants to present real wrestling, with the country’s best wrestlers, in a professional sports league team format. He wants to present the shows like MMA, with interviews, storylines and grudge matches. The idea is for the teams to be from the ten to 20 best wrestling clubs in the country, doing dual meets. The goal is to generate enough revenue that 88 of the best wrestlers in the country would be able to earn $50,000 per year with the hope it will help sustain them so they won’t have to work a full-time job while preparing for international competitions. They also want the U.S. team to surpass Iran and Russia for the top spot in the world. It would also gives those so inclined the experience of competing in a sports league and learning to promote matches before moving into MMA.
It’s something that is the reverse of two decades ago, when people like Randy Couture, Dan Henderson, Matt Lindland, Mark Coleman and Tom Erikson originally started fighting in MMA as a way to earn money to support their Olympic wrestling dreams.
For Saturday’s event, the prize money will be $7,500 to the winner and $2,500 to the loser, for three championship bouts.
In marketing, Boyd wants to change terminology. He doesn’t like the term amateur wrestling. And he wants to use boxing and MMA terms for weight classes.
When Sam Hazewinkel, a member of the 2012 Olympic team, faces Tony Ramos, who won the NCAA title last year for Iowa, they’ll be battling for the GWC flyweight championship, complete with a title belt. The actual weight of the competitors isn’t even decided, but it will be something in the neighborhood of 126 or 127 pounds.
Dake, the only man in history to win NCAA titles in four different weight classes and the best U.S. college wrestler in recent years, will battle Andrew Howe, a former NCAA champion from Wisconsin, for the welterweight title, which will be at around 163 pounds. The two went into triple overtime last year when they were in a tournament for a spot on the U.S. team in the world championships.
The heavyweight championship will be decided with Tervel Diagnev, who placed fifth at the last Olympics, facing Tyrell Fortune, a former Division II national champion who lost to Diagnev in the finals of the tournament in 2013 to make the U.S. team for the world championships. Both men will be about 285 pounds, and Boyd wants to go back to the past the make the heavyweight division an unlimited weight class, bringing back the days of the behemoth 400-pound heavyweights.
Boyd, 68, won an NCAA title in 1969 while going undefeated in dual meets during his college career at Temple University. He’s finishing his 57th year in the sport, and still trains twice a week. He notes that in 1981, he became the only man to ever pin Victor the Wrestling Bear. After the age of 45, he won seven age group national championships, the most recent being in 2009. He’s also produced movies about wrestling, most notably the 1996 movie, “One More Shot.”
The idea of a professional league for amateur wrestlers isn’t new. A number have sprung up in the last 40 years, usually lasting very little time. The AGON promotion tried it in recent years.
The most visibility any of these projects got was nearly a decade ago, when Real Pro Wrestling had a run on national television. RPW was on both PAX TV (now Ion) and Fox Sports Net, but folded after one season, with minimal ratings and an inability to get sponsors. But that league featured some of the best wrestlers in the country at the time, who a decade later are now names in MMA, including 184-pound champion Muhammad Lawal (King Mo) of the Oklahoma Slam, teammate Daniel Cormier, who won the 211-pound championship, and 264-pound champion Patrick Cummins. Also in the promotion was current Bellator bantamweight champion Joe Warren.
“It’s a real challenge,” said Boyd, about the promotion. “I’m really hoping we can do what UFC accomplished. We’re looking to give wrestling a bigger audience, more entertainment value and get more media interest. That’s what we are looking for. For years, we’ve called ourselves amateur wrestling. If you call yourself amateur, how do you expect to get any attention?”
The amateur wrestling community has constantly been trying to figure out a way for its top stars to be able to earn a sustainable living while full-time training for national and international competitions. And it’s come full circle, because Boyd is in discussion about putting on a second show in conjunction with the annual amateur wrestling spectacular held in New York’s Madison Square Garden, on Dec. 21. He talked about getting Lawal and Warren to wrestle on the show, and wants to get in touch with Tito Ortiz.
Ultimately, he’s talking about major arenas and pay-per-view, and hoping to be a circuit where guys can make some money, make a name, and then some would then transition into the UFC or another MMA promotion.
They are experimenting with rules. On the first show, each match is a series of a best-of-five series of three-minute rounds, calling them rounds and not periods. The rounds will be scored both separately and together. If there is a pin, the match is over. If not, the first person to win three rounds takes it. However, if the loser wins his rounds stronger, enough to where after four or five rounds, he has more cumulative points than the winner, they go into a three round overtime to decide the championship. If that fails, they stand up and have a sudden death, first person to score round. If neither man scores after three minutes, there will be three judges who decide the champion.
“We’re pushing scoring more points, wrestling longer and wrestling harder,” said Boyd. “Our guys, if they go to the world championships, when they wrestle the Russians and Iranians, they’ll have trained for 15-18 minute matches, so they’ll have a little edge in conditioning. We want the U.S. to dominate wrestling and dominate Russia and Iran.”
“I need to see what happens after ten minutes,” he said. “We need to see how it looks when they’re exhausted. I may find the magic number is 12 minutes, not 15, maybe nine, but I want the matches to be longer. Whose ever heard of an entertainment event that lasts six minutes?
He’s talking to NBA owners, with a goal to get exposure by putting on wrestling matches at halftime of games.
“People call me crazy, but without vision, you’ll just do the same things over and over,” he said. “We’ve never been able to pay our athletes. We’re looking at being a bridge to UFC. If I can sit down with Dana White, we can map something out.”
He looks back at the early 1900s, when Frank Gotch was one of the biggest sports heroes of the time, and battled George Hackenschmidt before 29,000 fans at Comiskey Park in Chicago, or when Joe Stecher battled Earl Caddock in Madison Square Garden in legitimate matches for the world championships.
“I’d like to do a match in Yankee Stadium, Dodger Stadium, a big match where the lure is that the winner would get $1 million,” said Boyd. “If people knew two guys were fighting for that much money, they would get interested.”
He thinks that will lead to more participation in the sport.
“The characteristics of being great in any sport are common in wrestling,” he said. “Any ten year-old boy, or ten year-old girl should experience wrestling for at least one season. It’ll make him a better baseball player or a better football player. It builds character. It’s the world’s oldest sport, the original sport of the ancient Olympics, and it’s a natural teacher of life experiences.”
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MMA Fighting has Manny Pacquiao vs. Chris Algieri live blog for round-by-round updates for one of the top boxing fights of the year.
The main event will start a little after 11:30 p.m. ET. Check out our Pacquiao vs. Algieri results page to find out what happened on the undercard. Pacquaio will defend his WBO welterweight title at the event and try to hand Algieri the first loss of his pro career.
Check out the Pacquiao vs. Algieri main event live blog below.
Round 1:
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A new form of fighting as a television spectacle was announced at a press conference in Tokyo on Monday, with some major names in Japanese combat sports and entertainment behind it.
The new promotion is called “Ganryujima,” which is named after a small Japanese island best known as the site of a duel to the death in 1612 between legendary master swordsman Miyamoto Musashi (who the former kickboxer was named after) and Sasaki Kojiro. In more recent times, the island was used for televised pro wrestling spectacular grudge matches held without a ring or cage, known as Jungle Death matches.
Sadaharu Tanikawa, who ran the K-1 kickboxing promotion from 2003 until its closing in 2012, will be heading the promotion, which is being backed by the Fuji Network. The Fuji Network is one of the major networks in Japan. They ran prime time spectacles during the heyday of the Pride Fighting Championships, until canceling due to a scandal when it came out publicly that there was organized crime backing of the group. The Yakuza taint of Pride killed the promotion, as no other television network would touch the shows, even though ratings were still strong, and even after it was sold to Zuffa. It has not aired any fighting sports events for the past seven years.
Sports like kickboxing and MMA have continued to exist in Japan. UFC events at the Saitama Super Arena have drawn well, but to the general public, interest faded in both sports.
The rules explained at the press conference in Tokyo are that it will be a MMA fighting, but without submissions. The matches will be held in a flat circle, similar to sumo, with no ring or a cage. Punching will be allowed on the ground. Wrestling is allowed, but submissions are eliminated. There will be quick stand-ups from lack of punching on the ground, as the ground work will be allowed only if their is an attempt to finish the fight.
According to those close to the promotion, the mentality behind this is to attract a casual fan audience. Their belief is a cage is not general public friendly in Japan, and that extended ground work is boring to the public.
It’s more a spectacle, attempting to use people who already have names in Japan, and do celebrity fights and freak show fights, which worked for a period for ratings purposes. However, they were overdone and interest faded in them, but it has been years since they were done. The mentality was an attempt to produce a fighting surface and rules that sumos, the most famous combat sports athletes in Japan, can compete in. Attempts to use sumos in kickboxing and MMA worked for ratings purposes during Japan’s MMA boom, but they were unable to win many fights, so interest in them fighting faded over time.
Among those involved with the promotion are Hiroshi Hase, its Chief Director, a current senator in Japan whose background included wrestling in the 1984 Olympics and being a Hall of Fame pro wrestler; Masato, Japan’s best-known kickboxer whose retirement coincided with the ending of K-1 as he was its last native superstar; and Shinichi Shinohara, a silver medalist in the 2000 Olympics in judo.
The first show will be Feb. 28, which will air on Fuji’s satellite station, which is not that significant because satellite penetration in Japan is limited. But the top executives of Fuji are looking at building the group up to where they have a major network spectacular on Dec. 31, 2015. Fighting on New Year’s Eve was a tradition on the network for many years, until Fuji got out of the fighting business over the scandal.
The past few years, the Fuji Network brought in fighting celebrities like Bob Sapp, Fedor Emelianenko, Mark Hunt, Alistair Overeem, Kazushi Sakuraba and many others for arm-wrestling and tug-of-war tournaments that aired on New Years Eve. In Japan, New Years Eve is the biggest television night of the year and the feeling is that gimmick has run its course and fights on network television are new again.
The initial reaction of the Japanese fighting sports media was strongly negative, particularly when Hase tied in the Ganryujima name with his pro wrestling death match on the island..
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with this week’s episode of “The MMA Beat,” the panel will discuss Nevada eventually drug examining Vitor Belfort, whether MMA needs the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, the state of Invicta FC, another two jam-packed weekends in MMA, and even more.
Watch “The MMA Beat” reside today at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT / 6 p.m. GMT.
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By definition, at least according to the commission, Matt Betzold exists as a downed opponent. That means no knees to the head or high kicks from whatever enemy stands across from him. Years back, the Arizona Boxing Commission attempted to pass that idle detail off as evidence to refuse Betzold his permit to fight professionally, since if you did not understand, having one leg can seemingly be a fairly huge edge in a cage fight.
The whole thing ended up being naturally and comically criminal.
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American Kickboxing Academy head coach Javier Mendez talks about Cain Velasquez’s knee injury and also other forthcoming AKA-associated fights.
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The MMA Hour is back in your lifetime on Tuesday. Below is a rundown of the week’s show:
1:00 p.m. ET — American Kickboxing Academy head coach Javier Mendez will talk about Cain Velasquez’s knee injury and other forthcoming AKA-associated fights.
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RIO DE JANIERO — Tyrone Spong discusses Gilbert Burns, his harm, when he expects to return, his future in MMA, kickboxing and boxing, and even more during the UFC 179 media day.
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After a false start, former boxing champ Pawel Wolak is set to produce his MMA debut on Dec. 5.
The 33-year old Wolak has consented to fight to the Dec. 5 Matrix Battles 9 card in Philadelphia, according to the event’s advocate Sam Caplan.
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Holly Holm women’s boxing most awarded opponents, a multi-time world champion.
But from here in on, she is a mixed martial artist through and through.
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Joe Schilling earned Nick Diaz’s respect and friendship in true 209 style.
The Glory kickboxing standout traveled to Stockton from his home in Los Angeles as a paid sparring partner, and to hear Schilling tell it, the battle the two waged in the gym was something fans would have paid good money to witness.
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Undefeated former world champion boxer Holly Holm will make her long-awaited UFC debut on Dec. 6 against Raquel Pennington, promotion officials announced late Thursday.
Holm (7-0), a 32-year-old who compiled a 33-2-3 boxing record and several world title across three different weight classes, is unbeaten since making her transition into mixed martial arts in 2011. In that time, Holm has emerged as one of the brightest prospects in the women’s 135-pound division, knocking out six of her seven opponents, often in spectacular fashion.
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Daniel Cormier can add another item to his ever-growing resume.
The UFC light heavyweight contender was named captain of the American Kickboxing Academy fight team on Monday. Cormier replaces veteran Jon Fitch, who, according to co-head coach Bob Cook, recently moved to Las Vegas.
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When the Tulsa-based Battleground group decided to try pay-per-view based on the concept of going back in time with an eight-man one-night tournament, it was an interesting concept, but former UFC owner Bob Meyrowitz had done the same thing years ago with the one-and-done YAMMA promotion, using fighters with more name value.
So the hook for selling the show, for the first time in the history of MMA, was the announcers. It was the meeting of the minds between Jim Ross, the voice of the heyday of pro wrestling for World Wrestling Entertainment, and Chael Sonnen, in his first televised appearance since drug test failures led to FOX releasing him from his contract.
The broadcast was a different approach. Whether it was correct is hard to ascertain because nobody knows who or what type of audience was watching on pay-per-view. The broadcast team was aimed more at a general audience with beginning knowledge of MMA. Sonnen did a lot of basic breakdown of moves at a level you wouldn’t see on a UFC broadcast, even though there is far more of a chance that a casual audience would watch a televised UFC event, or attend a gathering to watch a major pay-per-view.
This likely stems from Ross’ own experience watching major UFC shows in the past with his buddies who are part of the local college football community, sports fans who are older, liked MMA but didn’t really understand it or its strategies.
Ross seemed a little unsteady at first, but fell into his groove as the show went on. He was different than other MMA announcers, and completely different from his pro wrestling persona. For people who wanted to here Ross yell his various wrestling catch phrases on an MMA show, or for those watching who feared the same thing, they got something they didn’t expect.
Ross talked about non-fighting backgrounds of the participants extensively. It was a way to give a personality to the unknown fighters. We learned, for example, that Trey Houston works a regular job as a geophysicist for an oil company, and has to train before and after work. We also learned that former UFC featherweight Cody McKenzie, fighting two weight classes up in the welterweight tournament, and even then, missing weight on his first try, had actually drawn blood to get under 171 pounds, as crazy as that sounded.
McKenzie had been working the last two-and-a-half months on a salmon fishing boat in Alaska. He hadn’t trained, and, well, looked the part. And fought the part as well, being eliminated in his first match with Brock Larson.
The similarity of Larson’s name to that of Brock Lesnar, not to mention he came from Minnesota, was brought up several times. Ross nearly called Larson “Lesnar” at one point. At another time, Ross even tried once to mimic the slow, unique and almost guttural enunciation of Lesnar that pro wrestling manager Paul Heyman does on wrestling broadcasts.
Ross emphasized the storyline that these were fighters looking for a break, battling for $50,000. He even plugged the UFC December pay-per-view a couple of times when mentioning that Johny Hendricks was in the audience, although Hendricks wasn’t shown.
Sonnen was a natural, but that’s hardly a surprise because talking has always been his thing.
He was filled with one-liners, including what came across as a self-deprecating reference to his own troubles. When Ross brought up the heavily tattooed Luigi Fiorvanti, and noted Sonnen has no tattoos himself, Sonnen responded, “I was always afraid of needles, at least those with ink in them.”
At another point, when referencing fighter Niko Koliastasis, who was connected to Missouri Valley College, the small NAIA school that Bobby Lashley was a national champion for in the 90s, Ross mentioned Lashley’s name.
Sonnen responded, “Bobby Lashley, the cure for insomnia. I’m not sure we should thank him for that or hold that against him.”
At another time, before the Houston vs. Roan Carneiro semifinal, when an innocuous, “Let’s look at the tale of the tape,” line before the fight resulted in no tale of the tape being shown, Sonnen joked about how it’s dangerous to call one’s own shots.
Sonnen also had a reference for judges (“Poindexters at ringside with a clipboard”), one of the ring card girls (“It’s an easy job if you’re a centerfold or a supermodel. It takes a little more confidence when you’re a six”) and even former boxing champion Leon Spinks (“The Cadillac, Leon Spinks referred to it as the Mercedes of automobiles.”)
He broke things down to a far more basic level than one would get watching a UFC, Bellator or AXS Fight broadcast.
For all the good and the bad that can be said about Sonnen, it’s a role he should be doing regularly. He clearly had done his homework on the fighters and knows the sport, even if at times he was in the middle of talking on a different subject as fighters were locking on fight ending submissions. On the flip side, when Roan Carneiro’s continuing in the tournament after winning his first fight was in question because of dehydration, Sonnen immediately speculated it could be a ruse to throw Houston, his next opponent, off.
Ross was more into the personalities than the technical aspects of the fight. He didn’t use any of his trademark pro wrestling phrases, although there were plenty of wrestling references sprinkled in. When talking about how Houston went to Bixby High School, not far from Tulsa, he noted it was the same school as Cowboy Bill Watts, the area’s pro wrestling hero of the 60s and 70s who was Ross’ mentor when he started in the business. Joe Ray being from Sarasota, Fla., brought references to pro wrestling personalities Randy Savage and “Mean” Gene Okerlund.
Once, when talking about the fighters backstage, said, “Fighters use a locker room, entertainers use a dressing room,” in reference to his wrestling past.
Perhaps the funniest moment to those who follow wrestling closely came when the championship belt that was being presented to the tournament winner was shown. Ross, in describing it, had a slight hesitation before calling it a belt. It may have been an instinctive reaction because in his old job, the world “belt” to describe a title belt was banned by WWE owner Vince McMahon. McMahon produces the wrestling announcers and is legendary for yelling and screaming at them when they say something not to his liking. It was almost as if instinct took over for a split second, before reality struck in that he wasn’t getting yelled at.
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Another UFC expert is scheduled to compete in the Legacy Fighting Championship kickboxing card in January.
Miguel Torres, who was once considered the top bantamweight fighter in the world, is place to produce his kickboxing debut against fellow MMA fighter Angel Huerta in the introduction of Legacy FC kickboxing on January 16, Legacy FC promoter Mick Maynard told MMAFighting.com.
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It Is official. Former women’s featherweight Strikeforce and present Invicta featherweight champ Cris Justino can make her bantamweight introduction on December 5th at Invicta 10. No adversary or site for the Brazilian continues to be named. The UFC made the news official on Monday.
Justino, 29, is 12-1 with 1 no contest in professional mixed martial arts, but has never competed in the bantamweight division. She last competed in MMA July of 2013 where she won the Invicta featherweight champion by defeating Marloes Coenen via third round TKO. She lost a kickboxing fight in March of 2014 to Jorina Baars at Lion Fight 14.
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Legacy Fighting Championship is currently marketing kickboxing cards, as well as a UFC veteran is scheduled to compete in the ring.
Pat Barry, who returned to the kickboxing before this season for the very first time since 2007, has consented to take on Demoreo Dennis on Jan. 16. The card occurs at Bayou Music Center in Houston, and airs live on AXS TV.
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