Kickboxing organization GLORY announced today in a press release that they have signed heavyweight kickboxing legend Tyrone Spong to a two-year, multi-fight deal, with his debut set for the GLORY World Series event in Toyko in December with a date…
Kickboxing organization GLORY announced today in a press release that they have signed heavyweight kickboxing legend Tyrone Spong to a two-year, multi-fight deal, with his debut set for the GLORY World Series event in Toyko in December with a date to be announced soon.
The 6’2′, 228-pound 26-year-old and former It’s Showtime World Champion has scored KOs in over 60 percent of his victories, including his latest conquest, a third-round stoppage of all-time great Peter Aerts in Brussels, Belgium on June 30, 2012.
Spong made an immediate impact in the kickboxing world in 2003, his first professional year, reeling off 12 consecutive wins in a span of as many months. He notched his first major victory on Oct. 1, 2006 when he scored a thunderous first-round KO against world champion KaoklaiKaennorsing of Bangkok, Thailand in Almere, Netherlands.
A marquee moment in his career was as a 2010 K-1 World Grand Prix finalist from the old K-1 organization.
“I am very happy to join GLORY and take part in their heavyweight division. It was clear to me that GLORY World Series represents the toughest challenge in kickboxing,” said Spong in the GLORY press release.
Spong recently relocated to South Florida, where he trains alongside UFC superstars Alistair Overeem and Rashad Evans. In addition to being mentored by kickboxing legend Ernesto Hoost, Spong has also trained under professional boxing guru, Floyd Mayweather, Sr.
“The best stand-up fighters in the world are taking part in this league,” Spong continued. “And I want to prove that I am the best. I will be the king of the GLORY ring.”
Spong is renowned for his incredible athleticism and technical fluidity, attributes that allow him to move with a level of speed that is comparable to a lightweight.
“We are delighted to welcome Tyrone Spong to the GLORY heavyweight division,” said GLORY Ambassador Cor Hemmers. “He is a very exciting fighter and has a very impressive highlight reel. Fans can expect some superb performances and lots of knockouts.”
“Our roster of heavyweight superstars is beyond anything kickboxing has ever seen and, with the acquisition of Tyrone, it just became that much more outstanding,“ commented Marcus Luer, Managing Director of GLORY Sports International.
Among the heavyweight superstars whom Spong will join in Tokyo are Peter Aerts, Remy Bonjasky, SemmySchilt and Jerome Le Banner—all GLORY fighters who, together, boast a collection of over 10 heavyweight World Grand Prix titles from the old K-1 organization—and rising stars such as Errol Zimmerman, Gokhan Saki, Anderson ‘Braddock’ Silva and Filip Verlinden.
Saturday Aug. 18 will be one of the biggest days of the year for the sport of mixed martial arts in Minnesota as Sterling Entertainment Group and Driller Promotions deliver Downtown Showdown IX at the Hyatt hotel in Minneapolis, MN. The event features …
Saturday Aug. 18 will be one of the biggest days of the year for the sport of mixed martial arts in Minnesota as Sterling Entertainment Group and Driller Promotions deliver Downtown Showdown IX at the Hyatt hotel in Minneapolis, MN.
The event features an incredible card which will be headlined by two of the top 155-pounders in the state as Damion Hill (5-1) battles undefeated up-and-comer Dan “The Hitman” Moret (2-0).
For Moret, the fight against Hill will be the biggest of his MMA career, and it has come alongside some major changes in his professional life. A former member of Mankato Martial Arts, Moret began training at one of Minnesota’s premier facilities, The Academy, in early July.
“I love everything about it. It’s obviously a top-notch facility and the coaching has been great,” Moret told Bleacher Report MMA. “The training partners are top-level. I liked what I had down in Mankato, but when you train with guys that are at the UFC and Bellator level and all the top local guys, it’s tough not to get better.”
Even in the short time he has been at The Academy, Moret has seen noticeable improvements to his game. Working with UFC stars like Jacob Volkmann and Bellator up-and-comers like Mike Richman has forced him to polish his skills more than ever.
“For a long time, I could just out-muscle or out-hustle people, but here that’s not the case,” Moret said. “If you leave an arm hanging, it’s going to get taken away from you.”
Richman and Volkmann have been instrumental in getting him ready for Saturday’s fight, and other teammates have also stepped in to mimic Damion Hill’s fighting style.
“Jordan Parsons does a really good job of replicating Damion Hill’s fighting style. Andre Tieva has been coming in and sparring with me, mimicking what [Damion] does,” Moret said. “I’m very fortunate to have a bunch of left-handers in the gym. I get to see that stance a lot.”
One of the best aspects of Hill’s game is simply his speed; he uses that to keep his opponents off balance and catch them with some highly unorthodox strikes.
“He’s not afraid to throw wild strikes and spinning maneuvers, Superman punches. You just have to be tight the whole time against him,” Moret said. “I think Damion poses the most threats of anyone that I’ve faced.”
Although he respects Hill’s one-punch knockout power, Moret is not going to be concerned about it going into Saturday’s contest.
“His power isn’t going to make me shy away,” Moret said. “I’ll put my power against his any day and we’ll find out on Saturday.”
Highly confident in his own ability to finish, Moret sees the fight ending in the first round, but he believes that the longer the fight goes, the better it could be for him.
“At the risk of sounding too bold, I feel like I have an advantage just about everywhere,” Moret said. “He might be a little quicker than I am, but I hit harder than him, I’m taller than him, I’m bigger than him. I feel like I can out-strike him, I feel like my wrestling and jiu-jitsu are better than his, I feel like my transition game is better than his. I don’t honestly see where he would see that he has an advantage.”
Hill himself has also said that he believes the fight will end in the first round. But for Moret, that statement from Hill just further solidifies his confidence that the fight will go his way.
“I think he’s hoping to catch me with something. That’s really his chance, to nail me with a big shot,” Moret said. “I think him saying, ‘It’ll be over in the first round,’ is maybe his prediction and also his hope. He knows that if he doesn’t nail me or he doesn’t take me down right away, then what’s he going to do?”
With a win, Moret is looking to have at least one more fight by the end of 2012. But given the wide net that his management team at Sterling Entertainment Group has cast, that fight could be in MMA, or it could be something else entirely.
“The great thing about working with Jeremy Bjornberg and all the guys at SEG is that there are opportunities to do things like professional boxing, K-1 Kickboxing, submission hunts and grappling tournaments,” Moret said. “You can find some way to compete all the time. You don’t have to take a bunch of MMA fights in a row just to try to stay busy.”
If he does go to 3-0 after a win over Hill, his next MMA opponent will be chosen very specifically.
“Obviously, with only having three professional fights after this one, and already being ranked pretty highly in the state, I’ve got to sort of pick my fights. I can’t just fight anybody to stay active. I’m not going to be fighting guys that have 25 losses just to get in there.”
Moret vs. Hill will headline the Aug. 18 fight card at the Hyatt in Minneapolis, MN. Fans in the area are encouraged to purchase tickets online or at the door for as little as $35/ea. Doors will open at 6:45pm for the all-ages show.
For those unable to attend, a free live stream will also be available through the Sterling Entertainment Group website at SterlingMN.com.
For more MMA news, fighter interviews and opinions, follow Nick Caron: @NicholasCaron.
Despite the way he was portrayed during his run on The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights, which is to say, typical British asshole, it turns out that James McSweeney is actually a pretty cool dude in reality. But seriously, if you were to categorize McSweeney scientifically based solely on TUF 10, his name would’ve been Bispingus Douchebaggus. However, I first caught a glimpse of how well-spoken and down to earth McSweeney truly is during a recent interview he had with MiddleEasy, which I’ve posted above. In the video, he and Kit Cope break down everything from Jon Jones’ DUI to Nick Diaz’s suspension for weed, and he comes off sounding like a relatively enlightened individual in the process.
The reason I mention this is not only to try and prove that there are British MMA fighters out there who aren’t complete dicks, but to provide a little backstory that will prevent this news from catching you completely off guard. Because in the long list of MMA fighters who moonlight as vigilante, Bronson-esqueheroes, McSweeney has just added his name.
Yesterday night, McSweeney was giving his family, who was visiting from England, a friendly tour of Las Vegas. As things are destined to do in Vegas, the night would inevitably end in them witnessing at least one person trying to stab another.
Despite the way he was portrayed during his run on The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights, which is to say, typical British asshole, it turns out that James McSweeney is actually a pretty cool dude in reality. But seriously, if you were to categorize McSweeney scientifically based solely on TUF 10, his name would’ve been Bispingus Douchebaggus. However, I first caught a glimpse of how well-spoken and down to earth McSweeney truly is during a recent interview he had with MiddleEasy, which I’ve posted above. In the video, he and Kit Cope break down everything from Jon Jones’ DUI to Nick Diaz’s suspension for weed, and he comes off sounding like a relatively enlightened individual in the process.
The reason I mention this is not only to try and prove that there are British MMA fighters out there who aren’t complete dicks, but to provide a little backstory that will prevent this news from catching you completely off guard. Because in the long list of MMA fighters who moonlight as vigilante, Bronson-esqueheroes, McSweeney has just added his name.
Yesterday night, McSweeney was giving his family, who was visiting from England, a friendly tour of Las Vegas. As things are destined to do in Vegas, the night would inevitably end in them witnessing at least one person trying to stab another.
My family’s in town right now in Las Vegas, and they wanted to go down to old town Las Vegas last night, down on Fremont street, just check out the big TV screens and stuff down there. So they wanted to get some souvenirs so they went into one of the stores there, and as they walked I saw these two guys that looked like they were drunk, but they wasn’t really, they were just arguing. So the cashier went over to stop them from arguing cause the store was packed full of women and children, people there shopping.
As they started to break it up one of the guys made a dash for the cash, the box behind the counter, and grabbed a handful of cash out and then pulled a knife out on the lady in front of everybody.
I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, so I just went over and grabbed from the side by his shoulder and his lapel and took the knife from him and swept him to the floor and pinned him to the ground until security came and handcuffed him and took him off. No one got hurt, that was the main thing.
McSweeney credits the confidence that comes with knowing you can whoop most anyone’s ass for his act of bravery.
I knew I had the capabilities to stop it, so I tried to stop it. I mean if they pull a knife, you have to assume they have intentions to use it so that was my reaction, I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.
We train everyday so we can stop these sort of things and I’m always happy to help if I can.
It just goes to show that even the nicest guy can look like an asshole when he’s edited the right way. And no, I can’t believe I just wrote “nicest guy” and “James McSweeney” in the same sentence.
I didn’t? Whatever, I’m tapped out on this slow ass news day. Here’s a clip of some classic Bronson street justice from Death Wish 3. Good day to yous.
What a difference five months can make. You’re in the main event in what was quite arguably the biggest fight in the history of Strikeforce. Now your headlining once again, but it is on the undercard of a channel that a majority of the public…
What a difference five months can make. You’re in the main event in what was quite arguably the biggest fight in the history of Strikeforce. Now your headlining once again, but it is on the undercard of a channel that a majority of the public doesn’t have.
This is the position Miesha Tate is in and isn’t too thrilled about it. Tate headlines the undercard portion of Strikeforce: Rousey vs Kaufman on Saturday night as she squares off against MMA veteran Julie Kedzie. The bout can be seen on Showtime Extreme starting at 8ET/5PT.
She doesn’t get why she is on the preliminary portion of the card considering her credentials exceed some of the fighters who made the main card and feels it is a demotion.
“It’s confusing to me,” Tate told Bleacher Report. “I know I have more of a following than a few of the guys on the main card. It leaves me wondering why would they put me on the undercard versus a couple of the fights that are on there. Is it just because I’m a girl? Is it just because they don’t want to have two female fights on the main card? Otherwise it doesn’t make any sense.
“I do know that the people that matter are going to be watching and that’s matchmaker (Sean Shelby), Dana White, Lorenzo (Fertitta), my friends and family. I know their going to be paying attention. I don’t know how you would take a former world champion who has lost one fight after being on a six fight winning streak, with a huge following and put me on the undercard. It was insulting.”
Their was a lot of heat going into Tate’s loss to Ronda Rousey in March. You usually gain a measure for respect as a fighter for your opponent. In this case, more respect has been lost for Rousey in Tate’s eyes.
“She didn’t prove anything new (in the fight),” Tate stated. “I would have appreciated and would have a lot more respect for her if after the fight was done and would have said, “you know what, what’s done is done. We did a great job selling this fight.”
“If she would handled it more maturely instead of just saying, ‘whatever, I don’t feel bad about what I said,’ and continue to talk trash afterwords. I think I pretty much lost respect for her after that.”
Tate feels even with the rumblings of Cris Cyborg getting a title match with the winner of the main event that she will be the number one contender with an impressive performance over Kedzie.
“I think she (Cyborg) shouldn’t be able to just walk right in and fight for the belt,” Tate stated. “I’m not pointing any fingers at Cris, but I do know that she got suspended for illegal substance use. I don’t feel someone should be rewarded for that. I don’t think you should be able to come back from a one year layoff and get an instant title shot especially in a weight class where we all know is going to very difficult for her to make weight.”
“I think Julie Kedzie is a top ten fighter in the world,” Tate stated. “I know her record (16-10) is kind of so so. You have to realize that Julie Kedzie has fought the best females her entire career. She never backs away from a fight. it doesn’t matter if she got offered a fight two minutes or ten days before fight time. She’s always out there to fight, fought outside her weight class and a super tough girl. She’s not a chump and has a lot of experience. I think that Sean (Shelby), Dana (White) and those guys, if they’ve done any research on her know what kind of fighter she is and for me to go out there and get a dominant win means something.”
In the MMA cosmos there are few things burning hotter right now than Strikeforce 135 pound women’s champion Ronda Rousey.A perfect mixture of depth, brashness, humor and sincerity, the two-time Olympic judoka has handled her rise to fame with flawless …
In the MMA cosmos there are few things burning hotter right now than Strikeforce 135 pound women’s champion Ronda Rousey.
A perfect mixture of depth, brashness, humor and sincerity, the two-time Olympic judoka has handled her rise to fame with flawless ease. To put it bluntly—she makes it look simple. When you factor in how easily she has dispatched her opposition inside the cage, the bar of expectation seems to be resting firmly in her hands.
Is Rousey the savior of Women’s MMA? That remains to be seen. But what has become glaringly obvious is that she is the current standard-bearer and more importantly the champion.
Rousey pushed her way onto the big stage, and when it came time to show and prove that, she did so in brutal fashion. Any doubt surrounding her legitimacy left the cage along with Miesha Tate’s twisted limb. From the moment the belt was strapped around her waist, it has been a whirlwind. While new-found celebrity status can be a difficult thing to process for some, Rousey has taken it in stride.
“Everything is pretty much the same for me except I have more events and appearances to go to,” Rousey told Bleacher Report. “When I go I get the rock star treatment but when I’m home, everything is exactly as it was before. I actually have a lot more time to train because I don’t have a bunch of crazy jobs anymore.
“I also have a lot more people working for me to help with the organization of everything I have going on. Before this I had to deal with the scheduling of interviews and it actually became pretty stressful because it was taking up a lot of my time. Now I can delegate those tasks. They just dial the number, hand me the phone, and tell me to speak.”
While men’s MMA has been charting a course for global domination in combat sports, WMMA has steadily scrapped for its place at the table. A handful of talented female fighters have done their best to push the sport forward and when Gina Carano squared off with Christine “Cyborg” Santos in 2009, it appeared as if the future was going to be bright. But that wasn’t exactly the case.
Following Carano’s loss and eventual exit from the sport, the pulse once again slowed. That was until Rousey burst onto the scene and began rattling cages at WMMA’s highest level. Two lights out performances in the Strikeforce Challengers Series gave her a platform and she used it to call out Miesha Tate.
After a high-profile battle of words, she was granted a title shot this past March where she needed only one round to dispatch of the former champion. The process made Rousey no friends, but she believes she understands an aspect of the fight game other women fighters are missing.
“A lot of these girls forget this sport isn’t an Olympic or amateur sport situation,” Rousey said. “People don’t just care about your last athletic performance—they want to be entertained.
“I’ve been trying everything to not only be an entertaining fighter but an entertaining personality outside of the ring. It helps because people become more interested in the fight. They either want to see me win or see me get my butt kicked.
“I’ve been trying everything I can to get people interested. If you are depending only on your athletic performance to impress people then you are going about it wrong, because usually people only see it when the fight’s over because someone has told them.
“It’s different when people know who you are as a person and they want to see you fight just because it’s you. Then you will have more viewers initially, but if you are only looking to get in there and throw some crazy head kick to impress everybody, then you are only going to impress the people who are watching initially and everyone who heard about it afterwards. That’s why I’m trying to entertain and be a good athlete at the same time.
“A lot of the other girl fighters don’t seem to like me too much. I don’t blame them because I probably wouldn’t like me that much if I was looking at this from the outside. The rising tide lifts all boats, you know? I’m doing whatever I can and I think they are benefiting from the work I’m doing just as I’m benefiting from the work they are doing. I respect them and hopefully one day they will come to respect me back.”
On Rousey’s fast track to becoming champion, former champion Sarah Kaufman was bumped aside. As criticism trickled in, it was ultimately Rousey’s ability to turn the main-event bout with Tate into a high-profile affair which prompted the decision to be made.
On the same night where Rousey became the reigning queen of women’s MMA, Kaufman put on an incredible show as she battled to the wire with Alexis Davis. The victory over Davis earned Kaufman her long-awaited chance to regain the title and Rousey the opportunity to put the punctuation on the statement she’s been trying to make since coming to Strikeforce.
“I feel beating Sarah Kaufman will validate the point I was trying to make from the very beginning,” Rousey said. “People kept saying she was next in line for the title shot and she deserved to have the shot. I think that beating Sarah Kaufman will make me feel more validated in that original argument than I feel right now. I feel encouraged but not entirely validated.
“She’s a tough chick. She is a veteran of the sport and deserves a lot of respect. To be honest I don’t think she’s very creative in the way she fights. Every time she fights, she comes out with the same style. She could come out and show something completely different against me but she has never really shown any kind of adaptability in her fights. It doesn’t matter if she is behind or what’s going on, she always fights the same.
“On the other hand, they really don’t know what to expect from me. They are going to be walking out there guessing while I’m going to be walking out knowing pretty much what I’m dealing with. Even if she decides to do something completely different, I have the ability to adapt and change throughout the match where I don’t feel she necessarily has that.
“Both Sarah and I have a lot to prove in this fight. I don’t think there is going to be any kind of feeling-out process or point fighting, we both need to beat the other person down for very personal reasons. It’s going to be a good one. You aren’t going to want to hear about this fight from someone else after it happens. You are going to want to watch it live so you can say you watched it live when it went down. People are going to see the most exciting women’s fight they’ve ever seen in their lives.”
When Rousey enters the cage on Saturday night, it will be only the her sixth appearance as a professional. With that being said, the promise and potential she carries is on a different level than what is currently seen in WMMA.
Depending on what happens in her career, Rousey’s star power may fluctuate, but her ambition and passion to reach great heights far exceeds any expectation others can place upon her.
“No one puts more pressure on me than I put on myself,” Rousey said. “People can think what they want but no one is going to expect more out of me than I do from myself. I am very much a perfectionist. I want to retire undefeated and the pound-for-pound, undisputed best women’s fighter in the world. Those are very lofty goals but I’ve been raised to set lofty goals.
“I want to be something extraordinary. I don’t want to settle for mediocre goals. The outside pressures are nothing compared to what I put on myself. The outside hoopla and what people say doesn’t matter because it all comes from me.”
Sorry, Alistair, it looks like you’ll just have to wait your turn.
In an interview with MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani that followed the UFC 150 post-fight press conference, Dana White was asked to answer a series of questions with simple “yes” or “no” answers. And although it seemed implausible that The Baldfather could ever go more than thirty seconds without uttering a certain curse word, he kindly obliged Helwani and spilled the beans in regards to several big questions currently circulating in the MMA world. Simply put, bullshit was cut through in record time.
And among the questions present in the back of Ariel’s (and everyone’s) mind was that of heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos and who would be the next man to get viciously mauled to death bravely sacrifice himself for the good of The Colony “challenge” him for the title. To put it in the words of DW: Overeem – No, Velasquez – Yes. Although an event has yet to be named, White said in a seperate interview that the pair would likely collide on the annually stacked New Year’s Eve card, also known as the card that Overeem will totally be fighting on.
Sorry, Alistair, it looks like you’ll just have to wait your turn.
In an interview with MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani that followed the UFC 150 post-fight press conference, Dana White was asked to answer a series of questions with simple “yes” or “no” answers. And although it seemed implausible that The Baldfather could ever go more than thirty seconds without uttering a certain curse word, he kindly obliged Helwani and spilled the beans in regards to several big questions currently circulating in the MMA world. Simply put, bullshit was cut through in record time.
And among the questions present in the back of Ariel’s (and everyone’s) mind was that of heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos and who would be the next man to get viciously mauled to death bravely sacrifice himself for the good of The Colony ”challenge” him for the title. To put it in the words of DW: Overeem – No, Velasquez – Yes. Although an event has yet to be named, White said in a separate interview that the pair would likely collide on the annually stacked New Year’s Eve card, also known as the card that Overeem will totally be fighting on.
It’s hard to see why Ariel wins more MMA journalism awards than Uwe Boll does Razzies, as he managed to extract more information out of White in ten seconds than our intern Frederick has done in two years (we told him that if he resolved our situation with Dana, we’d hire him, and we haven’t seen him since). Here’s a brief rundown:
– BJ Penn vs. Rory MacDonald is still happening, likely as a co-main event on UFC on FOX 5.
– Dana “is cool” with Jason Miller, even though Mayhem refused to call him during their awkward Twitter exchange. Turns out, Dana was only joking when he told Miller to retire, furthering my belief that sarcastic font really needs to become a thing in 2013.
And although booking Velasquez over Overeem was the right thing to do given the circumstances, it also looks like the UFC is walking into the same potential trap that they placed themselves in with UFC 150. What trap are we referring to? Well, aside from DirecTV shitting the bed Saturday night, the live gate for UFC 150 was apparently “the worst gate for a pay-per-view since 2007″ according to White, who told the following in the UFC 150 media presser just moments before.
White attributed part of the low attendance to the recent string of Colorado-based tragedies that has swept over the state, and he undoubtedly has a point here. But on the other hand, the paltry 650k gate can also be attributed to that of the main event. Not many of us thought Edgar had earned an immediate rematch based on his performance alone at UFC 150, to which White’s response was that Edgar received one simply because it was owed to him. And while the latter is true, it doesn’t exactly generate a lot of excitement, or at least enough to fill an arena in any case.
Yet here we are again, witnessing another rematch. Only this time, the first fight didn’t end in a controversial decision, but in a first round knockout. Sure, Velasquez was coming off a long layoff and got caught, and sure, he will definitely do better the second time around (as did Edgar), but when even Dos Santos is admitting that he doesn’t want this fight, it’s kind of hard to get excited for it from a fan’s perspective, something the gate numbers might reflect down the line.
Then again, the end of the year cards are normally stacked enough to draw even the most reluctant MMA fan out of hiding, so the UFC will more than likely prosper to close things out unless a *knock on wood* injury curse rears its ugly head again. It should be known that I also scored Henderson/Edgar II in favor of Edgar (48-47), so what the hell do I know?
How about you, Potato Nation? Are you excited to see these two throw down once again? One thing’s for sure, the winner wont be decided by the judges, and that should be reason enough to get excited.
Kickboxing organization GLORY announced today in a press release that they have signed heavyweight kickboxing legend Tyrone Spong to a two-year, multi-fight deal, with his debut set for the GLORY World Series event in Toyko in December with a date to be announced soon.
Saturday Aug. 18 will be one of the biggest days of the year for the sport of mixed martial arts in Minnesota as Sterling Entertainment Group and Driller Promotions deliver Downtown Showdown IX at the Hyatt hotel in Minneapolis, MN.
