Author: John Morgan [kingofabuelos]

For recent WEC signee Bryan Caraway (14-4 MMA, 0-1 WEC), Jan. 10 was one of the most important nights of his life.

After more than four years of fighting on local shows and occasional
opportunities with Strikeforce and EliteXC, Caraway was ready to make his
name on the sport’s biggest stage in a WEC 46 bout with UFC veteran
Mark Hominick. Then it all went downhill.

“I felt like my brain just wasn’t even working at all for that
fight,” Caraway told MMAjunkie.com. “It was crazy.
I felt kind of like a white belt out there.”

It may seem odd, but with 23 fights and more than eight years as a pro,
Canadian middleweight Travis Galbraith feels his career is
finally ready to begin.

Despite past flirtations with the big show, fighting once for PRIDE and
once for EliteXC, Galbraith has always been a part-time fighter. In the
past year, that has all changed.

“I have a family to support, … so I had to work a full-time job as a carpenter, as well
as try to fit training in between fights,” Galbraith recently told
MMAjunkie.com. “But things are coming together. Cosmic alignment, whatever you want to call it.
Things are just falling into place now.”

Fighting professionally since 2000, WEC bantamweight Charlie Valencia
(12-5 MMA, 5-3 WEC) is a familiar face to many long-time MMA fans.

Now 35 years old, Valencia is currently riding a three-fight win streak in the WEC and may be fighting better than ever.

But Valencia’s success may have brought him a series tough choices, and the veteran scrapper recently told MMAjunkie.com Radio
that he knows what lies ahead.

After three-straight UFC wins to open his mixed martial arts career,
“The Ultimate Fighter 7” veteran Matt Riddle made a
mistake.

Actually, Riddle told MMAjunkie.com Radio that he made several mistakes leading up to his first career loss, a
TKO defeat at the hands of Brit Nick Osipczak at UFC 105 in Manchester,
England.

“I train out in (Las) Vegas,” Riddle said. “It’s a desert, and then you
fly 13 hours to England, and it rains every single day, like downpours.
Honestly, it was just a shock – the climate change, the jet lag and
cutting weight. It was just everything involved.

Kazuo Misaki will have to wait his turn. Jorge Santiago’s (21-8 MMA, 5-1 SRC) eyes are set on revenge.

The Sengoku middleweight champion is set to rematch Mamed Khalidov
(20-3-1 MMA, 1-0 SRC) at World Victory Road’s Sengoku Raiden
Championships 12 on March 7 in Tokyo.

News of the matchup was first reported by KSW, and MMAjunkie.com has since confirmed with sources close to the event
that bout agreements are expected to be finalized shortly.

A trio of matchups was today officially added to the UFC’s debut on Versus.

Jason Brilz vs. Eric Schafer, Chase Gormley vs. Brendan Schaub and
James Irvin vs. Alessio Sakara were all officially added to the
preliminary card of “UFC on Versus 1: Vera vs. Jones.”

The Gormley-Schaub and Irvin-Sakara matchups were previously reported by MMAjunkie.com.