Program Lineup Through Friday December 2
Sat Nov 26 10:00AM ET – MuayThai – Big-8 Muay Thai WKN World Grand Prix – $14.99
Sat Nov 26 9:00PM ET – MMA – Ultimate Warrior Fighting I – Huerta v War Machine – $9.99
Sat Nov 26 9:30PM ET – MMA – Rumble in the Cage 45 – $9.99
Ultimate Warrior Fighting I – Huerta v War Machine
Sat Nov 26 9:00PM ET
Things are shaping up for the new Ultimate Warrior Fighting (UWF) promotion in the Valley. With their inaugural event set for the Pharr Events Center on November 26th, the entire UWF crew has been busy shaping up the card and organizing the myriad of components that go into building a quality event. With that in mind, we spoke to UWF promoter and owner Oscar Enriquez to get a little more background on who he is, what he plans for his promotion, and what he hopes to bring to the Texas MMA Scene through his work in the Rio Grande Valley.
“I got into MMA because I just love the sport,” he told us. Traveling everywhere from Las Vegas to Philadelphia and everywhere in between to attend fights in recent years, Oscar caught the bug to go into the MMA business after a successful career in the blue collar world of general contracting, a business he’s built over the span of over twenty years.
“I’ve been a general contractor for a long time and built that business but then I was ready to do something else,” Enriquez mentioned. Dabbling into promoting through wrestling shows and primarily concerts in the past, his experience combined with his natural love for MMA facilitated this move into this new arena. His relationship with November 26th headliner Roger “El Matador” Huerta didn’t hurt either.
“I’ve known Roger since way back when he was a kid. I’ve always believed in him and was cageside for his fight against (Eddie) Alvarez in Philadelphia. It was a good fight but it wasn’t his night.”
Roger has since spent the last year since that fight training in Thailand with Phuket Top Team while planning to open his own facility with UFC fighter Mike Swick. With the ever-popular fighter looking to make his return fight to MMA with a renewed vigor in a new weight class (170), Enriquez felt now was a good a time as any to get bonded as a promoter and hold his first show and try to get Huerta in as the headliner.
“I love this sport so much,” he told us. It’s the only sport in the world where you can see two guys get in the cage and do pretty much everything in their power to come out the better man. Karate, boxing, jiu-jitsu, grappling, it’s the ultimate in combat and these guys are warriors.”
So there you go, that’s the story of how he came up with the name, “Ultimate Warrior Fighting.”
Be that as it may, this new promoter realizes that what will come to define him as an MMA Promoter is not the name of his entity, but the quality of the events and the cards he puts on.
For this event, he searched far and wide to find some guys with name recognition (Huerta, War Machine, Dave Menne, etc.) and talents that have the potential to go far in the world of MMA, such as Sean Spencer and the RGV’s own all-world BJJ black belt in Carlos Diego Ferreira.
“There well over a million and a half people from this area alone,” said Oscar about the Rio Grande Valley. “There’s no reason we can’t grow this thing if we just do it right and put on top notch fights.”
Huerta Interview
War Machine Interview
Rumble in the Cage 45
Sat Nov 26 9:30PM ET
Western Canada’s premier cage fighting event returns on November 26 as Rumble in the Cage presents RITC 45 at the Lethbridge Exhibition – South Pavillion, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada with 16 exciting bouts. Rumble in the Cage is a breeding ground for the international promotions and RITC 45 will showcase some of the rising amateur and professional mixed martial artists soon to hit the national scene.
In the main event, hometown hero and UFC veteran Jesse Bongfeldt (15-5-1) from from Canadian Martial Arts Centre/Kenora MMA Gym fights Brandon MacArthur (3-17) in a middleweight tilt. Bongfeldt last fought for RITC in a title fight in which he was victorious. He then got a call up to the UFC where he had one draw and one loss. Now back at his old stomping grounds, he looks to make MacArthur his first victim on his road back to the UFC. Bongfeldt is one of the top middleweights in Canada and is an experienced grappler and striker as many of his victories have come by way of KO or submission. For MacArthur, he is nothing if not resilient and in his 20 fights in MMA he has never backed down from a challenge. RITC was having a hard time finding an opponent for the tough Bongfeldt and MacArthur stepped up to the challenge and accepted the fight, something most wouldn’t do. For him to pull off the upset, he will need to catch Bongfeldt with a punch, kick or submission early on before the UFC vet can settle in.
In the co-main event, Brandt Dewsberry (7-1-1) battles Joe Gobiel (3-2) in a welterweight scrap. Both fighters are coming off nice submission victories in their last fights, and for one of them it will be 2 in a row. Dewsberry has more experience and should be able to use that to his advantage the longer the fight progresses. For Gobiel, he has made steady improvement in this 3 MMA bouts and if he continues to show as much advancement in this bout, it could be “fight of the night” for the fans in Lethbridge. With the main event getting the lion’s share of press and media attention, don’t let this co-main event fly under the radar. It should be a barnburner.
Don’t miss the latest installment as Rumble in the Cage, Western Canada’s most prolific MMA organization, presents RITC 45 on November 26, exclusively on GFL.tv. See the top pros in Canada fight on the toughest proving ground in the Great White North. Order it NOW!