Combat Sports: An Encyclopedia

Hacran Dias vs Eddie Hoch

A little less than a year ago, Hacran Dias made his UFC debut against Yuri Alcantara. At the time, most viewed it as a squash match for Alcantara, who was a top ten featherweight and riding a 13 fight win streak including wins over Francisco Trinaldo, Michihiro Omigawa, and Ricardo Lamas. Dias, a Nova Unaio blackbelt, would go on to dominate the fight using a combination of stifling top control and effective guard passing. After his upset win, he was scheduled to face Team Alpha Male’s Chad Mendes at UFC on FX 6 but had to pull out due to injury. Now he’s ready to make his second Octagon appearance against another talented grappler in Nik Lentz at UFC on FX 8 this Saturday (May 18th).

This Week in Combat Sports (4/15-4/21)

I should really set a day of the week for these posts. I feel like I do them whenever. Anyway, April continues to heat up with some great fights happening this week.

• EFC Africa 19: April 19th - Africa’s biggest promotion returns with a whole new card. This card is headlined by two of the best 145ers in Africa, Demarte Pena and Wentzel Nel. Also on the card is Martin van Staden (who’s 5-1 in EFC Africa) who’ll fight Adam Speechly. The prelims are free and the main card (only 3 fights) is $25.
• IBJJF New York Open 2013: April 20th - Biggest Jiu Jitsu competition in the Northeast US. Good luck to everyone who plans on competing this year. Hopefully I’ll be there next year. 
• Tyson Fury vs Steve Cunningham: April 20th - Heavyweight boxing returns to MSG. Outspoken and undefeated British heavyweight Tyson Fury comes stateside for the first time to take on one of the US’ best heavyweights in Steve Cunningham. With promoters saying Fury is only two fights away from fighting Wladimir Klitschko, you can bet there is gonna be big interest in this one.
• XFC 23 Louisville Slugfest: April 19th - Regional MMA with the headliner being former UFC fighter Shamar Bailey taking on Bellator vet  Luis “Sapo” Santos. If you’re interested check AXS TV Friday night.
• Celestino Caballero vs Robinson Castellanos: April 20th - Card featuring 3 world title fights. The headliner between Caballero and Castellanos (ranked 10th) for the WBC silver featherweight belt. Also featured on the undercard is Alicia Ashley vs Chanttall Martinez (ranked #3 at BW in the world) for the WBC super bantamweight title.
• Christian Mijares vs Vikingo Terrazas: April 20th - title fight
• UFC on Fox 7: April 20th - I have nothing negative to say about this card. Every single fight interests me and holds some sort of weight. Will write about it later to fully expound on how awesome it is. For now let’s go with Olympic Wrestler, Strikeforce GP Champion, and undefeated Daniel Cormier makes his UFC debut against former UFC Heavyweight champ Frank Mir. In the main event we get a lightweight title fight between UFC champ Benson Henderson and Strikeforce Lightweight Champ Gilbert Melendez.
• Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs Austin Trout: April 20th - Trout is coming off of ruining the Canelo camp’s plans for a Cotto-Canelo fight by upsetting Cotto himself. Mexico’s next superstar looks to end most of the questions about how “unproven” he is. Trout looks to shake any talks about how far he can go. Battle of the prospects in Omar Figueroa-Abner Cotto also on the undercards.
• Glory 7: April 20th - Being in Milan, it’s only fitting that the best kickboxer in the world headlines in his home country. Giorgio Petrosyan fights Hafid El Boustati in the main event. On the under card we have Artem Levin taking former It’s Showtime -85kg champion Sahak Parparyan. Rico Verhoeven will take on Jhonata Diniz (who’s got some buzz based off his performance against Daniel Ghita during the NYE show). Murthel Groenhart returns to Glory a K-1 GP champion and looks to continue the momentum he built up in 2012 by beating Glory 2012 Middleweight Tournament runner up Robin van Roosmalen. Australian Muay Thai champ Steve McKinnon makes his Glory debut against Nenad Pagonis. And more of course, but it’s gonna be a great card for standup fans.
  

• Fight Nights - Battle of Moscow 11: April 20 Headlined by a flyweight title bout between Russia’s top flyweight Ali Bagautinov and Japan’s Seiji Ozuka. Sambo Champion Shamil Zavurov (of Dagestan!), a man who has been considered just as good a talent as Alex Sarnavskiy, will fight Thiago Meller of Brazil. Shamil is signed to Bellator, so look forward to seeing him stateside sometime this year. Also featured on the card e have Murad Machaev, a Bellator vet who’s only loss was to Marcin Held, takes on Andrius Hobaldo.

Other Fights not featured above:

• Shooto - Gig Tokyo 14: Will be headlined between two Japanese bantamweight prospects in Yuta Saski and Kota Onojima.
• Pancrase - Sakaguchi Dojo vs. Pancrase: April 21st - Headlined by top Japanese middleweight and dancer Ryo Kawamura and Kosei Kubota. Other fights to watch are Kikuyo Ishikawa (Invicta FC fighter) vs Miyoko Kusaka and Top Japanese Flyweight Mitsuhisa Sunabe vs Shingo Yakul.

Yuta ”Uruka” Sasaki vs Kazuhiro Ito

23 year old Shooto Bantamweight Yuta Sasaki will be in the main event of this weekend’s Shooto - Gig Tokyo 14 card when he faces Kota Onojima.

This Week in Combat Sports (4/1-4/7)

Busy week full of good fights.

• Bellator MMA (95) - Bellator saved one of their best for last this time around. On the prelims we get former ROC heavyweight and light heavyweight Champ and UFC vet Tom DeBlass against TSMMA’s Carlos Brooks. Fan of both guys, but I hope Brooks gets the win. TUF 14 vet Jimmie Rivera is next when he takes on Brian Kelleher (again I think Rivera wins the BW tournament this summer). The next GSP Phillipe Nover makes his Bellator return when he takes on promising lightweight prospect Darrell Horcher. Former Bellator welterweight champ will take on Renzo Gracie Fight Team member and TUF alum Dante Rivera. Now the main card. We’ll get a Judo showdown when former Judo Olympian Rick Hawn takes on former WEC welterweight champ and UFC vet Karo Parisyan. The relentless Brett Cooper will look to take on Doug Marshall for a shot at the Middleweight title in the their tournament final. In the Co-Main event Russia looks to add another to their list of Bellator tournament champions when Frodo Khasbulaev fights The Marine Mike Richman. And finally in the main event we get another Russian challenging for another Bellator title. Seems to be the theme lately. Powerful counterpuncher and former Muay Thai champion Shahbulat Shamhalaev challenges Pat Curran for the Bellator featherwight title.
  
• Coliseu Extreme Fight 6 - Main event will be a battle between top flyweight prospect Dileno Lopes of Nova Unaio and Giovani da Silva Santos Jr.
  
• One FC 8 - Not a bad card. On this one we get some local fighters, as always. Towards the top we’ll see former bantamweight title contender Leandro Issa take on Russian Yusup Saadulaev. Possibly China’s best talent, Eddie Ng makes his return off injury against recent Aoki victim Arnaud Lepont. We’ll get two bantamweight grand prix fights when Thanh Vu takes on Kevin Belingon and Masakatsu Ueda takes on Jens Pulver. Melvin Manhoef is back in the One FC cage fighting Brock Larson. Shinya Aoki will challenge for the One FC lightweight title when he fights Kotetsu Boku.
• Invicta FC 5 - Two title fights (Jessica Penne and the Karate Hottie Michelle Waterson; Barb Honchak and Vanessa Porto), Cyborg’s return, Leslie Smith vs Sarah Kaufman, former Bellator champion Zoila Gurgel, Julia Budd, Bec Hyatt vs Jasminka Cive, World Class Muay Thai fighter Miriam Nakamoto, Kaitlin Young, the “Thug” Rose Namajunas, and more.
• Glory 6: Istanbul - Some interesting undercard bouts. Muay Thai World Champion Fabiano Cyclone Aoki vs Mourad Bouzidi, Golden Glory’s Filip Verlinden vs Unai Unzai, Bazooka Joe Valtelini against Murat Direkci, Alessandro Campanga vs. Andy Ristie, Karim Ghajji vs. Nieky Holzken, etc. And obviously the main event is gonna be the rematch of the war between Gokhan Saki and Daniel Ghita.
• UFC on Fuel 9: Who knows what’s going on with the main event in this one? If it happens, it’ll be a great fight between two of the more talented strikers at light heavyweight. Lots of fun undercard fights though. Ryan Couture’s UFC debut against Ross Pearson, Brad Pickett is always a fun fight, TUF 14 featherweight winner takes on real live scarecrow Pablo Garza, Matt Mitrione vs. Phil De Fries, Akira Corassani vs Robbie Peralta, TUF 17 alums Adam Cella vs Tor Troeng, Chris Spång vs. Adlan Amagov, and more.
• Boxing from China - Roman Martinez vs Diego Magdaleno, Brian Viloria vs Juan Francisco Estrada, and the pro debut of 2x Olympic Gold Medalist Zou Shiming.
• Shooto - Border: Season 5 - A few Shooto Rookie tournament fights, Kentaro Watanabe vs Yosuke Saruta, etc.
  
• ZST 35 - It’s ZST. There will be some sort of fuckery and it’ll be funny and/or awesome.
  

Other:

• Irma Garcia vs Janeth Perez - fight between two of the top female boxers at bantamweight.
  

April is gonna be a crazy month. Big fights happening across a lot of combat sports. What fight are you looking forward to most this month?

Kyoji Horiguchi vs Ogikubo Hiromasa

A YT version of Horiguchi’s fight from Shooto 2nd Round.

Caol Uno Highlights

By:GoForkHLs

Uno is fighting again this weekend at Shooto 2nd Round 2013.

This Weekend in Combat Sports 3/15-3/17

• Bamma USA: Badbeat 8 - Headlined by UFC vet and former KOTC 135lb champion Jared Papazian when he takes on 3-1 Terrion Ware. Also on the card is TUF vet Joseph Henle as he takes on a 1-10 fighter. yeah.
• K-1 World Grand Prix Final 2012 (lol) - We finally get an end to this grand prix. FYI, Ben Edwards dropped out so Badr Hari will be joining the tournament fresh out of his jail cell. Quarterfinals = Catalin Morosanu vs Pavel Zhuravlev; Mirko Co Cop vs Jarrell Miller; Zabit Samedov vs Badr Hari; Ismail Londt vs Hesdy Gerges.
• Lion Fights 9 - AXS TV broadcasts this one live! Artem Levin vs Simon Marcus; TIFFANY VAN SOEST vs. NATALIE YIP; KEVIN ROSS vs. BERNIE MENDIETAOGNJEN TOPIC vs. PAOWARIT SASIPRAPA; JOE SCHILLING vs. EDWIN AGUILAR; JASON ANDRADA vs. ERIK RUIZ. 
• Timothy Bradley vs Ruslan Provodnikov - Bradley’s first bout since the Pac fight. Also, the people who sent him death threats deserve to have the shit beaten out of them.
  
• Shooto - 2nd Round 2013 - Headlined by two of Japan’s best rising bantamweights in Kyoji Horiguchi and Hiromasa Ogikubo. The card will also feature Caol Uno, Hanzo, Manabu Inoue, and more.
  
• KSW 22 - The card is headlined by a light heavyweight title fight between LHW prospect Jan Blachowicz and UFC veteran  Goran Reljic. Also featured on the card are a couple of familiar heavyweights. UFC vet Oli Thompson faces Poland’s Karol Bedorf (8-2). Bellator vet Kevin Asplund will be fighting Pawel Nastula. 
• UFC 158: GSP vs Diaz - Solid main card, though I miss the Condit-RoryMac. The main event is the fight a lot of people have been asking for for a while now. Hendricks-Condit is a dangerous match up between two of the best finishers at welterweight. Nate the Great Marquardt makes his UFC return against Jake Ellenberger. The losing finalists from TUF 16 and The Smashes, Mike Ricci and Colin Fletcher respectively, also square off on the main card. The prelims are littered with good cards, but John Makdessi vs Daron Cruickshank has the potential to be F/K-OTN. Jordan Mein’s and Quinn Mulhern’s debuts are also well worth mentioning.
  
• RISE 92 - Full of great match ups if you follow the lower weight classes in kickboxing.
  
• Pancrase 246 - Pancrase stuff their cards. Seriously, they have over 20 fights on this card. Though they aren’t facing one another, Shintaro Ishiwatari and Isao Kobayashi (guys with wins over Tezuka and Tokudome respectively) will be competing on the card. Bancho’s fighting too, so it’s going to be a fun one. Sadly, we’ll have to wait til they’re posted online.
  

Shintaro Ishiwatari vs. Kazuhiro Ito

By far one of the most devastating knockouts in combat sports history.

Shintaro will be competing this weekend at Pancrase 246 against Nobuhiro Yoshitake.