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Monday, Feb 19, 2007

“kid” Robinson To Make Ufc Debut On April 7th



"Kid" Robinson to Make UFC Debut on April 7th
By FCF Staff

Ring of Fire promoter and Alvin Robinson’s manager, Sven Bean, announced on FCF Radio this week that the up and coming lightweight fighter will make his "big show" debut at UFC 69. The event, which is scheduled for April 7th, in Houston, Texas, at the Toyota Centre, will see Robinson take on another notable rising commodity in Roger Huerta (16-1-1), who has gone undefeated in first 2 UFC appearances. Most recently at UFC 67 this month, Huerta stopped John Halverson in 19 seconds with strikes, making the follow up fight to his UFC debut a successful one, where he worked his way to a unanimous decision victory over Jason Dent at UFC 63 last September.

Robinson likely entrenched his shot in the UFC this weekend by defeating Olly Bradstreet at Ring of Fire 28, which was held in Broomfield, Colorado. Robinson extended his record to 8-1 with the win, submitting Bradstreet with a first round rear naked choke at 1:47. The loss for Bradstreet was only his second in over 20 fights, as his combined pro-am record now stands at 22-2. Robinson, who has a well accomplished and extensive background in wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Royce Gracie, has now won 3 fights in a row, with his only career loss coming to Fabio Holanda, Brazilian Top Team Canada’s head jiu-jitsu instructor.

UFC 69 now has 6 fights confirmed for the card, including the welterweight title bout between Champion Georges St.Pierre and Matt Serra, Diego Sanchez taking on Josh Koschek, Alan Belcher vs. Kendall Grove, Brad Imes meeting Heath Herring, Thales Leites vs. Pete Sell, Marcus Davis fighting Pete Spratt, and the aforementioned encounter between Alvin Robinson and Roger Huerta.

Also at ROF 28 this past Saturday, Duane "Bang" Ludwig, defeated Shinya Kumazawa, choking out the Japanese fighter with a second round side choke at 4:32. The win for Ludwig makes it 2 in a row, as after dropping back to back fights to Tyson Griffin and Josh Thomson at Strikeforce 2 and 3 respectively, Ludwig defeated Tony Fryklund by TKO at Strikeforce 4 last December. Ludwig’s record now stands at 15-6.

For more information on this weekend’s ROF event, check out the latest edition of FCF Radio that features the organization’s promoter, Sven Bean.



The Northern Touch

ECC 5 Card Beginning to Take Form

Extreme Caged Combat has announced several championship bouts for the organization’s upcoming March 31st card, which will take place at the Halifax Forum, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The card will crown 3 new champions that night for the promotion, with the lightheavyweight, welterweight and lightweight belts up for grabs.

Headlining ECC 5, "A Night of Champions", will be an ECC lightheavyweight title fight between Roger Hollett and Ricardeau Francois. Hollett will bring a record of 4-0 to the card, as the Maritimes’ fighter preserved his undefeated streak earlier this month at the Maximum Fighting Championship’s "Gridiron" event. Requiring just 36 seconds, Hollett knocked out professional football player, Edmonton Eskimo fullback Mike Maurer, with a devastating head kick, left hook combination. The win was Hollett’s first via striking, as the Team Titan’s fighter won all 3 of his previous fights by submission.

Francois carries a record of 12-7, and has recently fallen on some tougher times, losing three fights in a row. The losses have come against fairly notable opposition however, including guillotine submission losses to KOTC Canada’s Lightheavyweight Champion Travis Galbraith, and top ranked Canadian LHW, Jason Day. The 6’6 tall Francois has a win over Wes Sims on his record, as well as a split decision loss to UFC veteran Patrick Cote. During a streak in 2003 and 2004, Francois won five fights in a row, with four of those wins coming way of strikes.

Next up in the ECC welterweight title fight, Rowan Cunningham will take on Cory Macdonald for the 170 pound belt. Cunningham is an experienced grappler and Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor, and holds a record of 4-1. Most recently, Cunningham defeated Jordan Jewell at Apex’s "A Night of Champions" last October, submitting his opponent with a second round triangle choke. Cunningham’s only career loss thus far was to Marcus Soares fighter, Garrett Davis, who defeated the fighter at ECC 1 last April.

Corey Macdonald also carries a record of 4-1, and will be fighting for the first time on March 31st in nearly a year. In Macdonald’s last bout in May of 2006, he defeated Francois Flibotte by first round TKO at Ultimate Generation Combat 13. Macdonald also holds a win over TKO veteran Martin Grandmont, and interestingly has only lost to Eric Beaulieu, a fighter Cunningham has defeated twice.

The third title bout of the night will be for the ECC lightweight belt as Halifax fighter Jason Mackay will fight Shaun Krsya. Similarly to his Titans teammate Hollett, Mackay also holds an undefeated record of 4-0. At ECC 4 in December, Mackay submitted Daniel Grandmaison in the first round with an armbar to earn his 4th career victory. Prior to that encounter, Mackay was involved in a thrilling three round war with Jacob Macdonald last October at Apex, where the Nova Scotia resident worked his way to unanimous decision victory.

Krysa is also undefeated in his professional career, carrying a record of 4-0, but does have one loss competing in the amateur bracket, where the fighter went 1-1. Krsya will be hoping to make his return to the ECC as successful as his debut was fighting for the organization, as he defeated Marc-Andre Joly with a first round armbar in December. Prior to that, fighting at Apex’s "Evolution" event last June, Krsya got the first round rear victory over Sean Ragnitz, submitting the fighter with a rear naked choke.

The ECC website is also reporting that the upcoming card will also feature the province of Nova Scotia’s first female fight, although no details as to who the competitors will be have been announced.

Canada Well Represented In BodogFight Season 2

The current "St.Petersburg" season of BodogFight, which is airing every Tuesday night in Canada on the Fight Network, is set to feature several fighters from the Northern Nation. In the season’s premiere show last week, Team Revolution’s Kultar "Black Mamba" Gill, was defeated by Rodrigo Damm, as the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu blackbelt submitted the K-1 Hero’s veteran with a rear naked choke. Gill’s Revolution teammate, Tyler Jackson, is set to take on Dmitry Samoilov in this week’s episode.

Also competing for British Columbia’s Team Revolution is the veteran Bill "The Butcher" Mahood, whose fight against Khalil Ibrahim is set to air on March 20th. Another Canadian, heavyweight Kristof Midoux, will have his fight against Roman Zentsov broadcast on February 27th.

Upcoming Canadian MMA Events

  • Extreme Cage Combat 5- March 31, Halifax Forum, Halifax, Nova Scotia
  • Ultimate Cage Wars- April 7th, Winnipeg Convention Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba
  • Maximum Fighting Championship "Unplugged 3"- April 20th, Crowne Plaza, Edmonton, Alberta
  • King of the Cage- April 28th, Vernon, British Columbia



Don’t Call Him Alex:
Alexis Aquino is as fierce as a pit bull and as focused as a samurai
By Derek Constable

Johnny Cash once wrote a song about a boy named Sue who grew up quick and mean, but in Deptford, New Jersey, it’s a man named Alexis that’s tearing through the ranks of Atlantic City’s Cage Fury Fighting Championships.

Alexis Aquino is undefeated as a mixed martial arts fighter, and when the door shuts behind him in the cage, it’s best to be somewhere else.

"A lot of guys go out there and they don’t make it personal. They look at it like it’s a competition, but it’s not a competition, to me it’s a fight," Aquino said. "I think my fights should be illegal because I really want to hurt the other guy. I mean I’m really trying my best to hurt him."

Aquino was named after his father’s favorite boxer, Alexis Arguello, and carries his family’s love for boxing with him in the cage. His fighting philosophy runs parallel to that of current UFC Champion Chuck Liddell — avoid takedowns, be a better boxer than everyone else and you’ll win 90 percent of the time.

Not only has this style of fighting propelled Aquino to a 3-0 record, it’s won him the respect of the fans as well.

"People want to see punches and knees," Aquino said. "You can’t make a highlight reel of submissions and market that. Take some knockouts and you can market that unbelievably, just like Chuck Liddell."

Despite carrying the tools of a boxer to work with him, Aquino fights with the heart of something else … a pit bull.

"Everyone’s got the nickname "The Pit bull." Not me, but my style emulates a pit bull fight," he said. "When two pit bulls get in the cage, they close the door and slap them in the nose. I have my brother do the same thing for me before every fight. You don’t see pit bulls go out and hug each other before a fight and you’re never going to see me high-five a guy until after the fight."

When Aquino squared-off with Tiger Schulmann instructor Nissim Levy at CFFC III, he was in Levy’s face from the moment he entered the cage until when his hand was raised after going three full rounds. Aquino said later that he knew Levy was a more accomplished boxer, but felt his own striking game was light years ahead of the competition.

"I knew where to place my head and go with the punch instead of getting hit by it," he said. "Nissim is a warrior. I never had someone eat one of my punches and smile at me. I knew I couldn’t knock him out, so I beat him boxing."

Aquino credits his trainer Tom Cuff for a lot of his success, but said there’s no way he could do it without his older brother Jesse. The two brothers grew up in South Jersey on a dead-end street with no one else to play with, and while every win in the cage is marked down for Alexis, he would tell you he’s fighting for his brother.

"He’s my ‘little’ big brother," Aquino said. "It takes a lot to mentally prepare myself for a fight, because I’m the nicest guy you’ll ever meet outside the cage. I don’t fight for my brother, I fight for me, but he prepares me to the fact that it’s like I’m fighting for him. He makes it personal."

Another fighter Aquino relates to, besides Liddell and a pit bull, is PRIDE’s Wanderlei Silva. He admires the way Silva gets into an opponent’s head before a fight, and how he never stops attacking, even though he has holes in his game that people try to exploit.

"I don’t know anyone that’s said they are looking forward to fighting Wanderlei,"
Aquino said. "Whether you think you can beat him or not, you’re scared."

The unblemished pro record of this Deptford son has certainly caused a stir in the MMA community, and with such brutal wins over quality opponents, a middleweight-title shot cannot be far away.

"It’s already been offered to me. Not that I don’t think I can win the title, but I want to be positive," Aquino said. "I analyze every little thing. I even find mistakes in my own videos. When you’re fighting for a title, you want to be perfect. You don’t want to make a mistake."

Perhaps one day the name Alexis Aquino will light up a sign on fight night in Las Vegas, as he graces the MGM Grand to defend his middleweight crown. Today however, you can still see Aquino busting heads in Atlantic City, where this dog has yet to meet his match when the cage door slams shut.

"Hopefully it will be a household name someday," he said. "Something like that … it’s not your average John Smith."


From the event’s promoter:



ACTION!: INTERNATIONAL FIGHT LEAGUE ATHLETES GATHER IN MIAMI FOR "IFL BATTLEGROUND" PROMOS, TITLE SEQUENCE SHOOT
Intensive Two-day Studio Shoot Puts Pieces In Place For March 12 Premiere Of Mixed Martial Arts Series On MyNetworkTV

MIAMI and BOCA RATON, Fla., February 19, 2007 – Ben Rothwell let out a primal scream, one to which fans of the International Fight League Silverbacks’ star have become accustomed. But this time, instead of occurring in the ring with one of the league’s other heavyweights on the business end, the venue was a Boca Raton, Fla., television studio with a heavy bag and the MyNetworkTV cameras in the firing line.


That scene wrapped two days of intensive activity in several studio and outdoor venues, as 11 of the top IFL athletes served as subjects in interviews, green-screen shoots, titles, interstitials and promos, all key elements of "IFL Battleground," the exciting new series which will debut on March 12 on MyNetworkTV affiliates across the country. The two-hour program, which will air at 8 p.m. ET/PT and 7 p.m. CT/MT, will cover the stories of each of the athletes both in and out of the ring, bringing fans all of the event and behind the scenes action of the world’s first team-based professional mixed martial arts league. Segments will take viewers up close during the competition and also into the locker rooms, training routines, and home lives of this diverse set of athletes who are a part of the world’s fastest growing professional and recreational sport.


MyNetworkTV reaches more than 95% of U.S. television households — or more than 100 million homes across the nation. Each of the 22 episodes of "IFL Battleground" will be re-broadcasted on Saturdays from 8-10 p.m. ET/PT and 7 p.m. CT/MT.


In between interviews and choreographed green-screen sessions, several of the athletes also made a side trip to "Salvation," a Miami Beach tattoo parlor, for some critique of their art, and, for the Silverbacks’ Bart Palaszewski, some new ink. They also took a spin on scooters, all with the cameras in tow. In addition to Palaszewski and Rothwell, also participating were: Jay Hieron and Chris Horodecki of the Anacondas; John Gunderson of the Lions; Vladimir Matyushenko and Antonio McKee of the Sabres; Chad Griggs of the Scorpions; Rory Markham of the Silverbacks; Brad Blackburn of the Tiger Sharks; and Ryan Schultz of the Wolfpack.


"It was a great experience being part of the making of ‘IFL Battleground,’" said Markham, who also has a role in the upcoming feature film The Death and Life of Bobby Z. "It will be exciting to see how all the pieces we did in the two days fit together when the show hits the air."


Blackburn, Griggs, Horodecki, Markham and McKee also shot promotional spots for more than a dozen MyNetworkTV affiliates nationwide and provided commentary for MyNetworkTV screenings of feature films to air in the days leading up to the debut of "IFL Battleground." The others participated in a series of interviews and promotional pieces for WBFS-TV, My33 in Miami/Fort Lauderdale.


Viewers can locate their local MyNetworkTV affiliate online at http://www.mynetworktv.com/local_stations.html. In addition to the 44 hours of "IFL Battleground," mixed martial arts fans can catch one-hour broadcasts of IFL action on Fox Sports Net on Fridays at 11 p.m., beginning on February 23, for a total of 66 hours of original-run IFL programming on over-the-air television or basic cable.

posted by Full Contact Fighter @ 8:00 pm
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