(This is how you repay a man for doing a great deed, God? WELL TO HELL WITH YOU! Photo via Getty)
The hits just keep on coming in the bantamweight division, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t mean literal hits, of course, because that would imply that any of the fighters in said division are healthy enough to throw a punch or two every now and again.
Let’s just get this over with: Mere hours after word broke that Dominick Cruz had injured his *other* ACL and would be out of action indefinitely, Raphael Assuncao (a.k.a the guy who would be next in line for a title shot should Cruz get injured) announced via Twitter that he had suffered an injury in training and would also be out indefinitely.
And just like that, the last fuck given about the bantamweight division floated away with the passing breeze.
(This is how you repay a man for doing a great deed, God? WELL TO HELL WITH YOU! Photo via Getty)
The hits just keep on coming in the bantamweight division, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t mean literal hits, of course, because that would imply that any of the fighters in said division are healthy enough to throw a punch or two every now and again.
Let’s just get this over with: Mere hours after word broke that Dominick Cruz had injured his *other* ACL and would be out of action indefinitely, Raphael Assuncao (a.k.a the guy who would be next in line for a title shot should Cruz get injured) announced via Twitter that he had suffered an injury in training and would also be out indefinitely.
And just like that, the last fuck given about the bantamweight division floated away with the passing breeze.
If you recall, this is the second ill-timed injury that has screwed Assuncao out of a title shot. Back in February, Assuncao was briefly linked to a title shot against then champion Renan Barao at UFC 173, but declined the fight due to a rib injury suffered in his fight against Pedro Munhoz at UFC 170. Some guy named T.J. offered to step in on late notice for Assuncao, and yadda yadda yadda there’s a new champion now.
With Assuncao injured, the only question remaining in my mind is: How long must we wait to bestow pound-for-pound king status on TJ Dillashaw? I mean, the man is such a force at 135 that contenders are intentionally injuring themselves to avoid fighting him. If that doesn’t scream G.O.A.T., then I’m just filling up space at the end of this article. And I would never.
(Urijah Faber was the UFC’s biggest “little” star when the 145- and 135-pounders entered the promotion three years ago — and not much has changed since then. / Photo via Getty)
This past weekend at UFC on FOX 9, for the eighth time in eight UFC fights, Urijah Faber was on a fight poster for a UFC card as one of the main three fights of the night — an absolute rarity for any sub-155 pound fighter. The card, which took place in Faber’s backyard of Sacramento, California, marked the fifth time Faber has either headlined or co-headlined a UFC event in the nearly three years he’s been with the promotion.
Not only is Faber the only sub-155’er to be featured on eight fight posters, but he’s also only one of three to be featured in five or more main or co-main events of UFC cards, along with UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo and UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson.
However, unlike Johnson, who has fought mostly on free TV, only Faber and Aldo have appeared in more than one pay-per-view main or co-main event, with Faber having headlined two thus far and Aldo three.
According to Wikipedia, there are currently 419 fighters signed to the UFC, not including the recently-added women’s strawweights. 126 of those fighters are part of the UFC featherweight, bantamweight, and flyweight divisions. Including women’s bantamweight fighters, 144 fighters currently signed to the UFC are part of the sub-155 pound weight classes.
My math skills aren’t great, but that should mean that 34% of UFC fighters are either 145, 135, or 125 pounds. And yet, for some reason, despite over a third of the roster fighting in these weight classes, only two of those 144 fighters have headlined two or more UFC pay-per-view cards, despite the UFC having featured 42 PPV events over the last three years since the little guys merged over from the WEC in late 2010 (not including UFC 124, which only featured lightweights and above).
How can this be?
(Urijah Faber was the UFC’s biggest “little” star when the 145- and 135-pounders entered the promotion three years ago — and not much has changed since then. / Photo via Getty)
This past weekend at UFC on FOX 9, for the eighth time in eight UFC fights, Urijah Faber was on a fight poster for a UFC card as one of the main three fights of the night — an absolute rarity for any sub-155 pound fighter. The card, which took place in Faber’s backyard of Sacramento, California, marked the fifth time Faber has either headlined or co-headlined a UFC event in the nearly three years he’s been with the promotion.
Not only is Faber the only sub-155′er to be featured on eight fight posters, but he’s also only one of three to be featured in five or more main or co-main events of UFC cards, along with UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo and UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson.
However, unlike Johnson, who has fought mostly on free TV, only Faber and Aldo have appeared in more than one pay-per-view main or co-main event, with Faber having headlined two thus far and Aldo three.
According to Wikipedia, there are currently 419 fighters signed to the UFC, not including the recently-added women’s strawweights. 126 of those fighters are part of the UFC featherweight, bantamweight, and flyweight divisions. Including women’s bantamweight fighters, 144 fighters currently signed to the UFC are part of the sub-155 pound weight classes.
My math skills aren’t great, but that should mean that 34% of UFC fighters are either 145, 135, or 125 pounds. And yet, for some reason, despite over a third of the roster fighting in these weight classes, only two of those 144 fighters have headlined two or more UFC pay-per-view cards, despite the UFC having featured 42 PPV events over the last three years since the little guys merged over from the WEC in late 2010 (not including UFC 124, which only featured lightweights and above).
How can this be?
I mean, it’s not like the little guys (and gals) are less exciting than the heavier weight classes. Sure, there’s more one-punch knockouts at the higher weights, but that doesn’t necessarily mean those weight divisions produce more exciting fights. In fact, since the sub-155 pound weight classes were introduced to UFC fans in December 2010, the majority of the post-fight bonuses have been won by these fighters.
It’s also not like the UFC isn’t doing it’s part to help build up these smaller fighters. The promotion has often featured them in the main events of its UFC on FOX cards, and a number of the little guys have opened up UFC pay-per-view cards. In addition, two seasons of the Ultimate Fighter have been dedicated to bantamweights and featherweights (TUF 14 and TUF 18), not to mention the first TUF Brazil season, which included 145-pounders.
And yet, it seems like the UFC is still having a hard time turning lighter-weight fighters into stars. Really, the only fighters under 155 pounds in the UFC who are recognizable stars to the average fan are Faber, Aldo, and UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey. And the proof of that is that they’re the only ones who have headlined UFC PPV cards, even if the sales numbers haven’t always been great.
Of all the sub-155 pound fighters who have a chance at becoming a breakout star, I believe it’s UFC interim bantamweight champion Renan Barao. The guy is dangerous everywhere, currently riding a 31-fight unbeaten streak, and is one of the most exciting pound-for-pound fighters to watch. I believe his lack of English is holding him back, but if he can become more comfortable with the language, he’ll get even bigger — provided he’s still knocking cats out with spinning back kicks.
I also believe that Johnson can become a star for the UFC and eventually start to headline pay-per-views, especially if he continues to KO fighters with one punch like he did in the main event of UFC on FOX 9. I mean, it’s not like the UFC will want to keep putting Johnson on free TV forever; at some point, the promotion will want to get a bigger return on their investment and start having Johnson headline UFC PPV cards.
But that’s about all I can think of, at least as far as the sub-155 pound men are concerned (although there are a number of women I think the UFC can groom into stars). Yes, Chad Mendes, Cub Swanson, Joseph Benavidez and John Dodson — to name just a few — are tremendous talents, but are they on their way to headlining big PPV events? Probably not, even though they are all so skilled and fun to watch.
This is why, after submitting Michael McDonald in the co-main event of UFC on FOX 9, Faber is a shoe-in to fight the winner of UFC 169’s Cruz vs. Barao on a PPV later in 2014. This is despite the fact he has already lost to both men in the UFC. Surely, there has to be a deserving, fresh contender out there right?
Indeed, there are guys like Raphael Assuncao and Francisco Rivera who are inching their way up the ladder. But would these guys jump ahead of Faber for a title shot? Hell no, they wouldn’t, at least not if the UFC wants to keep putting the bantamweight title on PPV in the future. And it’s because the fans know and love Faber; the UFC knows and loves him as well, since he’s a near guaranteed draw and therefore less of a risk to put in a title fight, even if he’s not being booked for a fresh matchup.
Still, at some point, I’m sure the UFC will want their sub-155 pound divisions to operate like their heavier weight classes, where there are numerous contenders the promotion could slot into main events and still do well at the box office. And in due time, I think it’s possible this could happen, especially now with the influx of women fighters in the Octagon, which has created a newfound interest in the sport. Without question, the UFC will try and take advantage of that by pushing these women quickly and attempting to find the next Rousey out of the bunch.
As to why there just aren’t many “little stars” in the sport, I’m not really sure. In boxing, many of the most popular fighters in the world weigh less than 150, so you can’t fully chalk it up to a size-bias by combat sports enthusiasts. However, it is possible there is an inherent preference towards taller people in general by human beings, which might be one reason why the smaller weight classes aren’t headlining more PPVs. Because, to many people, there’s just something about watching shorter and lighter people fighting that they don’t like. Personally, I don’t agree with this line of thinking, but I know for a fact there are a lot of people who perceive smaller fighters as less powerful or less talented even though that’s not the case at all.
At the same time, though, I think the UFC can actually play up the image of a little 125-pound wrecking ball knocking his opponents out, just like Johnson did to Benavidez the other night, and push the fact that a sub-155 pounder is able to do what the heavyweights can do. So even though the word flyweight has made some people shrug their shoulders in the past, I believe the UFC can change this reaction, especially if they keep getting great finishes from their fighters.
In that sense, the athletes — not just the organization that employs them — also have a part to play in the promotion of their weight class as a PPV draw. But this won’t happen overnight. Just like it took time for the 155-pound weight class to headline multiple PPVs a year and be a reason for people to stay at home on a Saturday night, it will take time until the 125, 135, 145, and women’s divisions to do the same.
I want to see the smaller weight classes become more popular, because that’s a good thing for everyone in this business, including MMA writers. But I’m not oblivious to the fact that, for whatever reason, they just don’t seem to have the star power that fighters in heavier weight divisions do. And that’s why — to bring this piece back full circle — I’m fully expecting Faber to get a third UFC bantamweight title shot and fifth overall Zuffa title shot in the coming months and for it to headline a marquee UFC PPV event. Because at the end of the day, the UFC is a PPV-driven business, and Faber is one of the few little guys who is going to sell — for now, at least.
Said Hatim (center) cuts weight on a treadmill in Minsk, Belarus this week with student Andrei Arlovski (right) and coach Dino Costeas (left) | Photos via HatimStyle
MMA has come quite far in the past decade but very few fighters are featured on national television, sponsored by big companies and able to focus 100% of their energy on the sport. Many more put in the blood, sweat and tears without the bright lights or big bucks, filled with and fueled by love and an inexplicable drive to simply be a better fighter.
They hold down full-time jobs, have families and are known only to those truly in the know. They are the heart and soul of MMA.
Said Hatim is one such fighter.
—
The idea was initially proposed half-heartedly. Former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski had recently booked his next fight — a main event contest on the Battle in Minsk card in his home of Belarus on Nov. 29 — and jokingly asked his Muay Thai coach Said Hatim if he also wanted to fight on the card.
Said was a pro kickboxer and boxer for years and has coached and trained with high level fighters like boxer Mike Mollo, UFC veteran Clay Guida, top Bellator featherweight Mike Corey and TUF veteran Mark Miller but his lone, albeit successful, MMA fight had taken place five years ago. Since that time, Hatim has focused on coaching and submission grappling tournaments.
Sure, he’d make the trip to Europe with Arlovski to be in his corner as he usually does, but Hatim was now 38 years old and half a decade removed from his last fight. “The Pitbull” was suggesting that Hatim add to his coaching responsibilities on fight night with his own contest against a much younger competitor. Said didn’t hesitate.
“Andrei told me that he was fighting in a main event November 29 and asked me, ‘Oh, do you want to fight too?,’” Hatim recounts to CagePotato.
“We were joking like that. I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll fight.’”
Said Hatim (center) cuts weight on a treadmill in Minsk, Belarus this week with student Andrei Arlovski (right) and coach Dino Costeas (left) | Photos via HatimStyle
MMA has come quite far in the past decade but very few fighters are featured on national television, sponsored by big companies and able to focus 100% of their energy on the sport. Many more put in the blood, sweat and tears without the bright lights or big bucks, filled with and fueled by love and an inexplicable drive to simply be a better fighter.
They hold down full-time jobs, have families and are known only to those truly in the know. They are the heart and soul of MMA.
Said Hatim is one such fighter.
—
The idea was initially proposed half-heartedly. Former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski had recently booked his next fight — a main event contest on the Battle in Minsk card in his home of Belarus on Nov. 29 — and jokingly asked his Muay Thai coach Said Hatim if he also wanted to fight on the card.
Said was a pro kickboxer and boxer for years and has coached and trained with high level fighters like boxer Mike Mollo, UFC veteran Clay Guida, top Bellator featherweight Mike Corey and TUF veteran Mark Miller but his lone, albeit successful, MMA fight had taken place five years ago. Since that time, Hatim has focused on coaching and submission grappling tournaments.
Sure, he’d make the trip to Europe with Arlovski to be in his corner as he usually does, but Hatim was now 38 years old and half a decade removed from his last fight. “The Pitbull” was suggesting that Hatim add to his coaching responsibilities on fight night with his own contest against a much younger competitor. Said didn’t hesitate.
“Andrei told me that he was fighting in a main event November 29 and asked me, ‘Oh, do you want to fight too?,’” Hatim recounts to CagePotato.
“We were joking like that. I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll fight.’”
And, like that, Hatim was locked in. No, he didn’t have his opponent’s name yet. That would come and change several times in the coming weeks.
But the Morocco native had no concern for external factors like that.
“I thought it would be fun to do, and I have a house that we’re remodeling,” he says matter-of-factly about the experience and fight purse he’d get.
By day, Hatim is a sous chef for the oldest continuously operating Italian restaurant in Chicago, Italian Village. By night, Hatim is the Muay Thai instructor of Team Dino Costeas in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood.
Said is up and working by 6am in the kitchen, off to the gym for several hours of teaching by 5pm and then puts in a couple hours of his own training in afterwards before he heads to he and his wife’s new home late each night. Tonight, Said chugs an energy drink while he thinks about the double duty he’ll be pulling in about a month when he will first fight and then rush back to warm up and then corner Arlovski in his own main event bout in Belarus.
“It’s pretty interesting. I don’t know if I’m going to worry about him or myself more,” he wonders out loud.
“For me, I can’t say, ‘Oh I’m only going to worry about myself.’ I’m really going to help my boy over there for his big fight in the main event in his own home town.”
From left to right, Bellator heavyweight champ Vitaly Minakov, Dino Costeas, Said Hatim, unidentified likely Russian bad ass, Andrei Arlovski | Photo via HatimStyle
With that said, Hatim has been doing all he can to prepare himself for his own fight, against Artem Kazersky. Said has focused on conditioning and making sure that his weight is on point for the 61kg weight limit fight.
He’ll be undersized for certain in the fight. In a few weeks, Hatim will land in Minsk weighing 62kg. There will be no big weight cut the day of the fight.
Hatim adheres to the Bernard Hopkins stay-in-shape-all-year-round philosophy. And, despite giving up size, youth, home field advantage and all-around MMA experience, it’s that constant readiness that gives Said his confidence.
“You always want to stay in shape,” he says.
“You don’t know when the fight is going to happen. You could walk out of the gym and you might have to fight two guys that try to rob you. I’m always training like I’m going to fight tomorrow or even like I’ll have to fight tonight after I leave the gym. People sometimes ask me, why are you training so hard? This is me. This is how I grew up training. I want to be like this until I die. I don’t want to train easy. This is me. I want to go 100% in anything I do.”
As for fighting a Belarusian in Minsk, Hatim couldn’t care less. He also admits to not knowing much about his opponent, having recently received his name and a tape of fight footage.
“Actually, I don’t know much about him. I just received a video yesterday and I fell asleep watching it because I was so tired from training. He’s a good wrestler, I can tell,” he says.
As for fighting in front of a potentially hostile crowd with hometown judging always a possibility for his opponent, Hatim is similarly nonplussed.
“It don’t matter where you fight,” he says.
“It’s going to be a little bit harder because you’re fighting in someone else’s home town. They’ll have the crowd in their favor. Those things, though, don’t matter to me. I could fight anywhere. I could fight on the bus, on the train, in the bar. It doesn’t matter to me. If you’re a fighter, you’re a fighter. You put your hands up and you do what you do every day in the gym and that’s about it. There’s nothing new.”
Hatim’s apparent lack of stress about fighting again for the first time in years doesn’t appear to be the result of arrogance, though. His relaxed nature likely has more to do with having already fought hundreds of times before, going back to his youth, and indeed fighting his way out of poverty in Morocco.
After being granted a visa to come work in the United States, Hatim started from scratch in Chicago with no English and only his Muay Thai skills and a desperate willingness to work. He trained, got a job in a kitchen and fought.
He did all this until he worked his way up to being a chef and a kickboxing champ and coach. None of it was easy but neither was his training as a child at the gym he grew up in in his hometown of Rabat, Morocco’s capital.
There, Hatim and other students would hop steps and jump rope for so long that once or twice a year, someone’s Achilles tendon would snap. Everyone around them would continue the “warm up” and that fighter would be back a year later, after recovering, training again. On other days, the coach would load up the young fighters up in a van to run in the desert.
There was a catch. The van would dump the fighters out in the desert, miles and miles away from the gym, and drive away. Students had to run back to the gym under the North African sun before beginning their real workout for the day.
Hatim is quite aware that he could end up either winning or losing in Minsk. You’ll forgive him, however, if he isn’t daunted by the prospect of either.
Seeming almost superstitious the way many athletes are, Hatim gets a slight smile when asked if he has visualized how he thinks the fight will go.
“I do, in my head,” he says with a glimmer in his eye that betrays visions of, perhaps, knockout wins dancing in his head.
“But you’ve always got to respect the fighter that you’re going to fight. You always have to respect him. Nowadays, everyone trains hard and does whatever they can can to win the fight. Me too. I do anything I can to win a fight.
“It’s going to be a fight. If the punch goes to the face you need to be able to take it and move on. It is what it is. I’m ready for anything, is all I can tell you. Anytime.”
Said fights Friday, Nov. 29 on the Battle in Minsk undercard. Then, he will corner Andrei Arlovski in the main event.
Former Bellator champion Joe Warren was set to face Nick Kirk earlier this month at Bellator 98 in Connecticut before the state’s commission refused to allow him to fight. The exact reason was not given at the time but speculation from fans and members of the media as to why Warren was barred from fighting abounded.
Some wondered if Warren had tested positive for marijuana as he had during his competitive wrestling days. Even Bellator’s CEO Bjorn Rebney volunteered a theory – that Warren had been knocked out during his training camp and so was not being allowed to fight because of brain damage. Just two fights ago, of course, Warren was hurt badly in a KO loss to Pat Curran. That was his second straight KO loss.
Warren has since been cleared to fight in tonight’s Bellator event and he and Kirk will square off in this season’s bantamweight tournament. CagePotato visited with Warren as he cut weight Wednesday.
Not knowing how else to get into the matter with Warren as he stepped out of the sauna we simply had to ask, “What the heck happened?”
“A big mess happened,” Warren said.
“The Connecticut commission is stricter than most and I had a CT scan and MRI done leading up to the fight. I had three different doctors telling me different things. They didn’t read the images correctly and thought I had an abnormality on the image of my brain. One was telling me I had had a stroke, one was telling me I’d never fight again. Crazy stuff. Another said that I was fine. I was running around for weeks getting different tests done out of my own pocket, my family was scared. It was a huge ordeal.”
Former Bellator champion Joe Warren was set to face Nick Kirk earlier this month at Bellator 98 in Connecticut before the state’s commission refused to allow him to fight. The exact reason was not given at the time but speculation from fans and members of the media as to why Warren was barred from fighting abounded.
Some wondered if Warren had tested positive for marijuana as he had during his competitive wrestling days. Even Bellator’s CEO Bjorn Rebney volunteered a theory – that Warren had been knocked out during his training camp and so was not being allowed to fight because of brain damage. Just two fights ago, of course, Warren was hurt badly in a KO loss to Pat Curran. That was his second straight KO loss.
Warren has since been cleared to fight in tonight’s Bellator event and he and Kirk will square off in this season’s bantamweight tournament. CagePotato visited with Warren as he cut weight Wednesday.
Not knowing how else to get into the matter with Warren as he stepped out of the sauna we simply had to ask, “What the heck happened?”
“A big mess happened,” Warren said.
“The Connecticut commission is stricter than most and I had a CT scan and MRI done leading up to the fight. I had three different doctors telling me different things. They didn’t read the images correctly and thought I had an abnormality on the image of my brain. One was telling me I had had a stroke, one was telling me I’d never fight again. Crazy stuff. Another said that I was fine. I was running around for weeks getting different tests done out of my own pocket, my family was scared. It was a huge ordeal.”
Given the brutal nature of Warren’s losses combined with his lifetime in combat sports and relatively advanced age, one could argue that CT scans and MRI imaging exams before each fight are great ideas. Warren insists that he is fine, however, and of course so does the Oregon commission overseeing his fight with Kirk tonight.
The fighter also says that he was not knocked out at any point during his most recent training camp, as was earlier reported. “I saw those things being written and it was just nuts,” he tells us.
“This whole camp has been focused on my not taking damage, actually. We’ve been very careful and safe and it has gone great.”
With all the confusion behind him, Warren has had scant time to focus on his opponent. The former world champion Greco-Roman wrestler has a lot of respect for his younger opponent and looks forward to just competing.
“He’s a tough, well-conditioned guy,” Warren says of Kirk.
“And, he’s a wrestler so you can never overlook him. I just want to go in there, lay hands on him and put him down. Beating Nick Kirk will get me a step closer to that belt again.”
One recent news item has made Warren particularly happy – The International Olympic Committee’s decision to once more include wrestling in the games. “Wrestling was the first Olympic sport,” he says.
“There might as well not be an Olympics without wrestling. When I was a kid, I dreamt of being in the Olympics. Wrestlers need that to work towards.”
According to multiple reports, the UFC has recently signed undefeated Russian striker Alexandra “Stitch” Albu to their ever-growing bantamweight roster. Who is Alexandra Albu, you ask? That is a very, very good question.
Although we weren’t able to find her actual MMA record anywhere in the world fight indexes, Albu is allegedly a 5-0 bantamweight with 4 first round knockouts and a first round submission to her credit. Additionally, Albu is (allegedly) a black belt in karate, a Moscow Cup-earning power lifter, a judoka and one of Russia’s top Crossfit competitors. We also gave her five out of five Schwings on the Wayne’s World Scale of Hotness, which makes the UFC’s decision to sign her all the more transparent. Not that we’re complaining.
Check out our favorite photos of Albu in the gallery above, as well as a couple videos of her in action after the jump, then fill us in on anything you can find about this woman in the comments section.
According to multiple reports, the UFC has recently signed undefeated Russian striker Alexandra “Stitch” Albu to their ever-growing bantamweight roster. Who is Alexandra Albu, you ask? That is a very, very good question.
Although we weren’t able to find her actual MMA record anywhere in the world fight indexes, Albu is allegedly a 5-0 bantamweight with 4 first round knockouts and a first round submission to her credit. Additionally, Albu is (allegedly) a black belt in karate, a Moscow Cup-earning power lifter, a judoka and one of Russia’s top Crossfit competitors. We also gave her five out of five Schwings on the Wayne’s World Scale of Hotness, which makes the UFC’s decision to sign her all the more transparent. Not that we’re complaining.
Check out our favorite photos of Albu in the gallery below, as well as a couple videos of her in action after the jump, then fill us in on anything you can find about this woman in the comments section.
Albu training in Phuket, Thailand
Albu beating the shit out of Pankration Champion Lyubov Demidova
(Well if there’s one thing we know about Tonya Evinger, it’s that she can generate a lot of power even off her back.)
The cast list for TUF 18: Rousey vs. Zingano Tate Again was released earlier today, and among the female bantamweights competing for that glass plaque and a contract worth almost $10,000 a year for the next 10 years are such familiar faces as Shayna Baszler, Tonya Evinger (the power bottom pictured above), Tara Larosa and Roxanne Modafferi to name a few. There’s also Valerie Letourneau, a 4-3 Canadian slugger who should not be confused with Mary Kay Letourneau, the schoolteacher who diddled a “lil slugger” back in 1996.
Among the male participants, however, you will not find nearly as many recognizable names. Or any. The lone exception to the argument we just presented would be Cody “Bam Bam” Bollinger, a 14-3 KOTC and Bellator veteran who you might have seen get TKO’d by season 8 featherweight tournament winner Shahbulat Shamhalaev (no joke, I spelled that correctly on my first try) back at Bellator 76. Despite the lack of familiar faces, there are a lot of (albeit modest) undefeated records on the men’s side of the equation, which calls to question why the 1-3 Jessica Rakoczy would be selected given her-oh now I see why.
Check out the full cast list after the jump, then give us your predictions as to who the early favorite should be in our newly-upgraded comments section.
(Well if there’s one thing we know about Tonya Evinger, it’s that she can generate a lot of power even off her back.)
The cast list for TUF 18: Rousey vs. Zingano Tate Again was released earlier today, and among the female bantamweights competing for that glass plaque and a contract worth almost $10,000 a year for the next 10 years are such familiar faces as Shayna Baszler, Tonya Evinger (the power bottom pictured above), Tara Larosa and Roxanne Modafferi to name a few. There’s also Valerie Letourneau, a 4-3 Canadian slugger who should not be confused with Mary Kay Letourneau, the schoolteacher who diddled a “lil slugger” back in 1996.
Among the male participants, however, you will not find nearly as many recognizable names. Or any. The lone exception to the argument we just presented would be Cody “Bam Bam” Bollinger, a 14-3 KOTC and Bellator veteran who you might have seen get TKO’d by season 8 featherweight tournament winner Shahbulat Shamhalaev (no joke, I spelled that correctly on my first try) back at Bellator 76. Despite the lack of familiar faces, there are a lot of (albeit modest) undefeated records on the men’s side of the equation, which calls to question why the 1-3 Jessica Rakoczy would be selected given her-oh now I see why.
Check out the full cast list below, then give us your predictions as to who the early favorite should be in our newly-upgraded comments section.
Women’s 135-pound division:
Shayna Baszler (15-8), 33, Sioux Fall, S.D.
Revelina Berto (3-1), 24, Winter Haven, Fla.
Jessamyn Duke (2-1), 27, Richmond, Ky.
Tonya Evinger (11-6), 32, Lake St. Louis, Mo.
Laura Howarth (4-0), 26, Hove, East Essex, ENG
Tara LaRosa (21-3), 35, Albuquerque, N.M.
Valerie Letourneau (4-3), 30, La Prairie, CAN
Bethany Marshall (4-1), 25, Newport News, Va.
Sarah Moras (3-1), 25, Kelowna, CAN
Margaret “Penny” Morgan (2-0), 33, Nashua, N.H.
Gina Mazany (3-0), 25, Seattle, Wash.
Roxanne Modafferi(15-10), 30, Pittsfield, Mass.
Julianna Pena (4-2), 24, Spokane, Wash.
Raquel Pennington (3-3), 24, Colorado Springs, Colo.
Jessica Rakoczy (1-3), 36, Las Vegas, Nev.
Colleen Schneider (4-3), 31, Las Vegas, Nev.
Male 135-pound division:
Christopher Beal (7-0), 28, Somis, Calif.
Cody Bollinger (14-3), 22, Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.
Louis Fisette (6-1), 23, Winnipeg, CAN
Rafael Freitas (6-0-1), 29, Albuquerque, N.M.
David Grant (8-1), 27, Bishop Auckland, ENG
Tim Gorman (9-2), 30, West Des Moines, Iowa
Anthony Gutierrez(4-0), 22, Lee’s Summit, Mo.
Emil Hartsner (4-0), 23, Luberod, SWE
Joshua Hill (9-0), 26, Binbrook, CAN
Chris Holdsworth (4-0), 25, Woodland Hills, Calif.
Patrick Holohan (9-0-1), 25, Dublin, IRL
Sirwan Kakai (9-1), 23, Coconut Creek, Fla.
Daniel Martinez (18-4), 28, San Diego, Calif.
Matthew Munsey (4-1), 26, Hollywood, Fla.
Lee Sandmeier (9-0), 30, Knoxville, Iowa
Michael Wootten (6-0), 24, Liverpool, ENG
