Filed under: UFCDonald Cerrone’s 2011 will continue to stay busy. “Cowboy” will step in for an injured John Makdessi to fight Paul Taylor at UFC on Versus 5 in August in Milwaukee.
The UFC announced Monday night that Makdessi had pulled out of the fi…
The UFC announced Monday night that Makdessi had pulled out of the fight with Taylor, of England, due to an injury. And Cerrone, already 2-0 this year and fresh off a unanimous decision win over Vagner Rocha at UFC 131 just over two weeks ago, will step in.
The fight could prove to be a standup battle – both fighters are renowned kickboxers. But Cerrone has 80 percent of his career victories by submission.
Cerrone (15-3, 1 NC, 2-0 UFC), one of the WEC’s standout and most popular fighters before the merger with the UFC, went 6-3 with one no contest as a lightweight in that promotion. His three losses all came with the WEC lightweight title on the line – once in a controversial split decision loss to Jamie Varner, and twice to Ben Henderson.
Cerrone, a Greg Jackson-trained fighter, won five Fight of the Night bonuses in the WEC and started his UFC career with a submission win over Paul Kelly that also won a Fight of the Night award at UFC 126 in February. That win gave Cerrone four straight.
Taylor (11-6-1, 1 NC, 4-5 UFC) is coming off a head kick knockout of Gabe Ruediger at UFC 126, which snapped a two-fight skid that saw him drop decisions to Sam Stout and John Hathaway.
Taylor has been with the UFC since UFC 70 in April 2007, a win over Edilberto de Oliveira. After that TKO victory, Taylor won Fight of the Night bonuses in three of his next four fights – though all three of those came in losses to renowned bonus hounds Chris Lytle and Marcus Davis, and one to fellow Englishman Paul Kelly.
UFC on Versus 5 will be the promotion’s debut in Wisconsin after MMA sanctioning was passed there recently. The show will take place at the Bradley Center, home to the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks.
The card will feature a main event between Lytle and former welterweight title challenger Dan Hardy, who has lost three straight. The show also will feature a lightweight bout between Jim Miller and Henderson – with Miller looking for his eighth straight victory and a likely title shot if he gets past the former WEC lightweight champ.
The UFC announced Bonnar’s withdrawal from the fight late Friday, but did not disclose the nature of the injury.
Saturday, Bonnar told MMA Fighting the injury is a Grade II tear of his medial collateral ligament, or MCL. Bonnar said the injury will not require surgery, but will have him in a brace for six weeks. He said the injury is similar to ones that recently sidelined Rashad Evans and Kenny Florian.
Stepping in for the TUF 1 vet will be promotional newcomer Ronny Marki Sales da Silva, better known as Ronny Markes, to face Vemola at UFC on Versus 5 in Milwaukee.
Bonnar (13-7, 7-6 UFC) was looking to extend a two-fight winning streak that began with a TKO in his rematch with Krzysztof Soszynski at UFC 116 last July. In December, at the TUF 12 Finale, Bonnar dominated Igor Pokrajac to win a unanimous decision.
Those two wins had put a three-fight skid in Bonnar’s rearview mirror. After returning from a long layoff from a severe knee injury, Bonnar lost to current light heavyweight champion Jon Jones at UFC 94 in Jones’ second UFC fight, then lost to UFC Hall of Famer Mark Coleman at UFC 100. In his first fight against Soszynski, at UFC 110 in Sydney, Bonnar lost by TKO when doctors stopped the fight thanks to a cut from an accidental headbutt. That loss prompted his rematch with Soszysnki.
Vemola (8-1, 1-1 UFC), a Czech native fighting out of London, now gets Markes, from Brazil, who has nine of his 11 wins by stoppage. Markes will be fighting for the first time in the United States. His last win came in April, a unanimous decision over former WEC middleweight champion Paulo Filho in Brazil.
The Bonnar-Vemola fight had been booked for the main card and was to be televised live on Versus. It is not known if the Vemola-Markes fight will remain on the four-fight main card or if a bout previously scheduled for the prelims will be elevated to TV status. Top contenders to move up from the undercard would appear to be a middleweight fight between CB Dolloway and Jared Hamman and a bantamweight bout between former title challenger Joseph Benavidez and former champion Eddie Wineland.
UFC on Versus 5 takes place Aug. 14 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. It will be the UFC’s debut in Wisconsin. The card features a main event welterweight fight between former title challenger Dan Hardy and Chris Lytle, plus a lightweight bout between Jim Miller and former WEC champion Ben Henderson.
Filed under: UFC, NewsEddie Wineland will take one more crack at Team Alpha Male when he faces Joseph Benavidez at the UFC’s show in Milwaukee, UFC on Versus 5, in August.
Wineland, the first bantamweight champion in WEC history, is coming off his fi…
Wineland, the first bantamweight champion in WEC history, is coming off his first loss in nearly two years, a unanimous decision setback against Alpha Male kingpin Urijah Faber at UFC 128 in March. Now he’ll take on Faber’s training partner. The UFC announced the verbal agreement at its website late Tuesday night.
Benavidez (14-2, 1-0 UFC) has won two straight since a split decision loss to bantamweight champ Dominick Cruz at WEC 50 last August. He submitted Wagnney Fabiano at WEC 52 in November, and in March, also at UFC 128, he beat Ian Loveland by unanimous decision on the preliminary card.
Wineland’s loss to Faber, in the co-main event at UFC 128, snapped a four-bout winning streak for the Northwest Indiana-based 135-pounder, who is also a full-time firefighter. Wineland (18-7-1, 0-1 UFC) had put together back-to-back Knockout of the Night bonuses in his last two WEC bouts before fighting Faber in their UFC debuts.
With the win over Wineland, Faber earned a shot at Cruz’s title at UFC 132 in July. After the fight, UFC president Dana White told MMA Fighting that had Wineland upset Faber, he likely would have been given a shot at Cruz, the only fighter in the division with a longer streak than Wineland going into the Faber fight.
While Wineland will be looking for some payback for the Faber loss, Benavidez, with a win, could find himself in an interesting situation. A victory over Wineland would be three straight for Benavidez, putting him right back into title contention. If Faber, who dropped from featherweight to bantamweight last fall, beats Cruz to win the title, talk would soon begin on whether the two close friends and teammates would fight each other.
The UFC late Tuesday also announced featherweights Leonard Garcia and Alex “Bruce Leroy” Caceres, from Season 12 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” will meet on the Milwaukee card. And Jared Hamman will move up from welterweight to fight CB Dolloway at middleweight, the UFC said earlier this week.
UFC on Versus 5 will take place Aug. 14 at the Bradley Center in downtown Milwaukee. The card has filled up quickly, including a welterweight potential slugfest between Chris Lytle and former title challenger Dan Hardy; a lightweight bout between former WEC champ Ben Henderson and Jim Miller; and Stephan Bonnar, who spent time training in Milwaukee under Duke Roufus several years ago, against Karlos Vemola.
Sources close to Reinhardt’s camp confirmed the news to MMA Fighting early Friday, and the UFC also announced the fight booking on its website. Reinhardt also said on his Facebook page that he is “so glad to be fighting such a tough UFC vet.”
The bout will take place at the UFC’s Aug. 14 event in Milwaukee at the Bradley Center. That card, UFC on Versus 5, will be the promotion’s debut in Wisconsin.
Reinhardt (20-2, 0-2 UFC), a veteran of mostly Midwest promotions, signed with the WEC last fall to face Tiequan Zhang, a highly touted signee from China. But when Reinhardt didn’t get the OK on an eye exam, he was forced to pull out of the fight. That bout moved to the UFC after the merger of the two promotions, and Zhang quickly ended Reinhardt’s afternoon at UFC 127 in Sydney with a first-round guillotine.
That fight was Reinhardt’s first in more than three years. After a loss to Joe Lauzon in his UFC debut at UFC 78 in November 2007, he picked up two regional wins – and then was out of action until he returned in February.
At 41, assuming Hall of Famer Randy Couture stays retired, Reinhardt is the oldest active fighter on the UFC roster. Sources close to Reinhardt told MMA Fighting recently that rather than cutting Reinhardt loose again, the promotion wanted him to make the drop to bantamweight to stay on the roster.
Figueroa (7-1, 0-1 UFC) racked up seven stoppages in Texas before signing with the UFC in March for a short-notice fight against Michael McDonald at UFC Fight Night 24 in Seattle. He lost by unanimous decision, but picked up a Fight of the Night bonus check.
Now the kickboxing practitioner will go from a fight against the UFC’s youngest fighter, McDonald, to a fight against its new elder statesman, Reinhardt.
UFC on Versus 5 will be one of the promotion’s four scheduled cards on the Versus cable channel in 2011. Versus was the broadcast home of the WEC, and in 2010 also hosted a pair of UFC events.
Already announced for the card is a welterweight bout between former title challenger Dan Hardy and Chris Lytle; a lightweight fight between former WEC champion Ben Henderson and Jim Miller; a light heavyweight bout between Stephan Bonnar, who used to train in Milwaukee under Duke Roufus, and Karlos Vemola; and a welterweight contest between Season 8 winner of “The Ultimate Fighter” Amir Sadollah and Duane Ludwig.
“Danny Boy” Downes is a young, hungry up-and-coming fighting out of the Roufusport camp in Wisconsin. The 25-year-old fighter was born in Chicago and moved to Wisconsin after college to train and pursue a career as a mixed martial arti…
“Danny Boy” Downes is a young, hungry up-and-coming fighting out of the Roufusport camp in Wisconsin.
The 25-year-old fighter was born in Chicago and moved to Wisconsin after college to train and pursue a career as a mixed martial artist. Downes fought twice in the WEC before that company was absorbed in the UFC last winter.
He headlines the North American Fighting Championship’s Mayhem event in Milwaukee on Friday May 6 while waiting to get a shot at fighting in the big show.
Q: Where did you get the Danny Boy nickname?
A: At the gym, I was always the skinny Irish kid. That’s where that came from. I’m not a natural athlete by any means, so I’ve gotten to this point with hard work and toughness, and I’m scrappy kinda like Mickey Ward almost. So that’s how the Danny Boy thing came about. I’m a hard-nosed scrappy type.
Q: You fight at lightweight, and I noticed you are 6-feet tall. Is that a natural weight for you or do you cut to get down to 155?
A: I have to cut. I just have a thinner frame. So I think lightweight is the best weight for me to train at. As I get older, I’m only 25 now, I may move to welterweight. I think right now lightweight is the best for me especially because I usually have a height advantage. I don’t think you will ever see me going to featherweight or below. I know that guys like George Roop do it but I already have to cut to make 155 so that is not for me.
Q: I see you train at Duke Roufus’ gym. Who else besides Pat Barry trains there?
A: It’s me, Pat Barry, Anthony Pettis, Eric Cope. Alan Belcher comes in from time to time, and we also just got Ben Askren. We got a bunch of up-and-coming guys that people haven’t heard of. It’s really grown. There was a time for a while a few years ago when it was just me a couple other guys fighting and goin’ so it was kinda hard. It’s different now, and it’s fun to have guys like Anthony and Eric on that high level which makes everyone better.
Q: I was reading that Pat was pretty down after his last fight because he couldn’t put Beltran away. Has he gotten past that?
A: It’s what they say with baseball hitters how they have to have a short memory. It’s the same way with fighters. Everyone wants to finish fights but let it bother you. He can’t worry about Joey Beltran when he has Cheick Kongo coming up in June. He’s already forgotten about it. You gotta have that short memory. You can’t let setbacks drag you down. You just gotta go on to the next one.
Q: Your record is 7-1. Was that loss early in your career or was that recently?
A: It was at WEC 49 against Chris Horodecki. I got a call on that Tuesday from my manager and he asked me where what my weight was at. And I was thinking I probably have a fight coming up on short notice. I figured it was local Wisconsin fight or something and he asked me if I was to fight Chris Horodecki in Edmonton on the WEC card. The only problem was I was kinda out of shape. I’d been drinking and a few things like that and had let myself go a bit. I was like 178 on Tuesday and made 156 on Saturday. I fought Chris Horodecki in front of however many thousand people on Versus. I didn’t perform that well but it got my foot in the door and then I got that win against Zhang in my next fight last December at WEC 53. Now I got the UFC contract and we’ll see what happens next.
Q: So you are headlining the NAFC Mayhem card correct?
A: Yes.
Q: When I was looking it up it said to be announced. Do you know who you are fighting yet?
A: Yea. I fighting a guy named Tory Bogguess. I don’t really know that much about him. You can’t get too bogged down with the little details. I don’t have any recent film on the guy but you can’t worry about that you just got to go out there and perform regardless that is my job. Even in my last fight against Zhang at WEC 53 I watched a lot of tape, but fight went the exact opposite of my gameplan. That’s why in MMA you’ve got to train everything. You try to pigeon hole yourself into any one thing.
Q: Are you more comfortable standing or do you train everything equally?
A: When I started, I was a strike first and then we’ll see what happens on the ground. But, now I’ve changed. GSP is a perfect example of what the modern MMA fighter needs to be. He is great at everything. By being good it opens up a lot of other things. By having good wrestling or jiu jitsu, it opens up my striking and makes it better. The days of the one dimensional MMA fighter is over. Everybody is getting good at everything.
Q: Do you ever travel to a different gym or try out any other schools? I know that guys do that a lot these days.
A: It’s been really nice with the success of our gym. Guys come in and we get new people a lot. I haven’t had to leave. These days they want to train at our gym so it’s like they come to me. The gym has really exploded and we have some new instructors so it’s been really good. You can’t get stale or do the same thing. One you get bored and two you don’t get better. You gotta keep it fresh and keep getting better.
Donald Cerrone‘s 2011 will continue to stay busy. “Cowboy” will step in for an injured John Makdessi to fight Paul Taylor at UFC on Versus 5 in August in Milwaukee. 
Eddie Wineland
Veteran fighter 