The UFC has announced via Twitter this morning that a lightweight battle between Sam “Hands of Stone” Stout and Thiago Tavares has been added to the card for UFC 142 in Brazil. The announcement has also been confirmed by MMAweekly.com. The ev…
The UFC has announced via Twitter this morning that a lightweight battle between Sam “Hands of Stone” Stout and Thiago Tavares has been added to the card for UFC 142 in Brazil. The announcement has also been confirmed by MMAweekly.com.
The event is set to take place on January 14th and will mark the second time the UFC has held an event in Brazil in less than a year. A featherweight title match between Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes will headline the event.
Tavares will be fighting for the second consecutive time in his home country after beating Spencer Fisher via TKO at UFC 134. Stout will be making his return to the octagon after knocking out Yves Edwards in June at UFC 131 in Vancouver.
Stout was originally scheduled to face Denis Siver at UFC 137 in Las Vegas on October 29th but was forced to withdraw from the bout due to the sudden death of his coach Shawn Tompkins in August.
Stout is 17-6-1 in his career and 4-1 in his last five fights in the UFC. He has been inching his way towards the lightweight top ten and his no-holds-barred striking style and granite chin has made him a fan favorite and fight bonus magnet.
Tavares is 16-4 and 3-1-1 in his last five fights and he will be looking to keep pace with Stout and others rising in the ranks of the lightweight division.
Dwight Wakabayashi is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA and correspondent for MMACanada.net.
Filed under: UFC, NewsThiago Tavares and Edson Barboza will compete in their home country of Brazil when they face Sam Stout and Terry Etim, respectively, at UFC 142 on Jan. 14 at the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro.
The UFC revealed the lightweight matchups on Tuesday via Twitter.
In 2011, Tavares (16-4-1) was brutally knocked out by Shane Roller in March and bounced back with a TKO over Spencer Fisher at UFC 134 in August. Canadian striker Stout (17-6-1) is on a two-fight win streak and was supposed to face Dennis Siver last month at UFC 137 but bowed out due to injury.
Much talked about for his devastating leg kicks, Barboza (9-0) has won all three of his UFC fights with his last two named Fight of the Nights. In August, he beat Ross Pearson in a split decision. Etim out of England is coming off a spectacular win this past Saturday at UFC 138 where he submitted Eddie Faaloloto with a guillotine choke in 17 seconds. UFC 142 will be Etim’s tenth UFC fight and his ninth outside of the U.S.
Cagewriter’s Steve Cofield hosted Team Tompkins founding members Mark Hominick and Sam Stout on his ESPN radio show this week to talk about tomorrow night’s Shawn Tompkins memorial fundraiser.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/ncaasteve)
Cagewriter’s Steve Cofield hosted Team Tompkins founding members Mark Hominick and Sam Stout on his ESPN radio show this week to talk about tomorrow night’s Shawn Tompkins memorial fundraiser.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/ncaasteve)
(Video courtesy of YouTube/ncaasteve)
The event, which will take place between 6 to 8 pm at the TapouT Training Center and will feature appearances by several MMA luminaries including Bas Rutten and several of the UFC fighters Shawn trained from TTC and Xtreme Couture, will be capped off by an auction with proceeds going to “The Coach’s” widow, Emilie. Friends and family members of the popular late trainer started a memorial fund in his name to help offset funeral costs and to help ensure that Mrs. Tompkins, who is also Stout’s sister-in-law is financially stable.
If you’d like to contribute to the fund, email [email protected]. Alternatively, you can send your condolences via the Shawn Tompkins memorial guest book. If you’re an MMA memorabilia collector and are around Las Vegas tomorrow night, you might want to pop in to the gym at 4040 West Hacienda Avenue and have a look at some of the items up for grabs at the auction.
Top Canadian Lightweight Chris “The Polish Hammer” Horodecki has never backed down from a tough fight and he is not about to start now. Despite the sudden passing of Team Tompkins founder and coach Shawn Tompkins only a couple months ago, Horodeck…
Top Canadian Lightweight Chris “The Polish Hammer” Horodecki has never backed down from a tough fight and he is not about to start now. Despite the sudden passing of Team Tompkins founder and coach Shawn Tompkins only a couple months ago, Horodecki is trainng, fighting and leading the way to recovery for himself and his training center.
Horodecki and fellow teammate Sam Stout understandably withdrew from their scheduled fights following Tompkins’ death, and fans are wondering how they are doing during this very difficult time. I was able to catch up with Chris last week after he finished his morning weight training at the Adrenaline Training Center.
Please see the attached video for the full interview with top Canadian lightweight Chris Horodecki.
The first thing I noticed when I walked through the Adenaline doors was the positive energy and attitude in the air, always a staple at ATC and a clear message that “The Coach” was indeed in the house. The tunes were on, students were rolling jiu-jitsu on the mats, Horodecki and others were lifting in the weight section of the gym, and manager and head trainer Alex Gasson was in the ring holding the pads for UFC featherweight Jason “Shotgun” Young, who is getting ready for UFC 138 next month.
Owner and UFC featherweight Mark Hominick was busy running around the gym getting things done before his trip to our nations’ capital to help lobby parliament for more regulated MMA legislation across the country.
Team Tompkins has always been tapped into every aspect of the sport in our country, and Horodecki, Stout, and Hominick show no signs of letting up in that regard. It is clear and undisputed that the legacy of Shawn Tompkins continues to live through the actions of these fighters and the training at the gym.
A press release came out last week that Global Warriors Fighting Championships has announced a fighting card in honour of the late Shawn Tompkins. Global Warriors Halloween Havoc will be held on October 29th, 2011 from the Agriplex Complex in London, Ontario. Details for the event can be found here.
Dwight Wakabayashi is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA and (also a Correspondent for MMACanada.net)
Filed under: UFCThe week of a fight, the last place UFC lightweight Yves Edwards wants to be is in his own head. It’s a scary place sometimes, and also a tough place to escape from.
“I obsess over the stupidest things you can imagine,” Edwards said. “…
The week of a fight, the last place UFC lightweight Yves Edwards wants to be is in his own head. It’s a scary place sometimes, and also a tough place to escape from.
“I obsess over the stupidest things you can imagine,” Edwards said. “I will obsess over the color of towels in my bathroom, or what kind of soap they have [in the hotel]. I had this one soap this one time and that wasn’t a great performance, so I can’t use this soap again. It’s stupid, and it’s just a distraction.”
With nearly 60 pro fights in a career that’s spanned almost 14 years, at least Edwards has had plenty of practice in dealing with his own fight week neurosis. Now he knows how to manage it. For starters, he can bring his own soap. He can also rely on his friends, like Strikeforce welterweight Tyron Woodley, to keep him mentally occupied.
Otherwise, Edwards said, it can get out of hand in a hurry. For instance, say a certain friend is coming to see the fight. Then Edwards starts to think about how he’s never won a fight with that guy in the audience. Maybe he’s bad luck. Maybe he’s cursed.
“But then, I don’t want to tell my friends not to come see my fights, so I have to stay away from that stuff,” said Edwards, who faces Rafaello Oliveira at UFC on Versus 6 this Saturday night.
“I can catch myself doing it a lot. Stopping it is the hard part. Common sense and rationalization — I’m a pretty rational person when I’m not in this mode — that kicks in a little bit and I realize that the color of my underwear has nothing to do with how hard I’ve prepared for this fight or how focused I am. But it’s just the irrational part of my brain, that part kicks in first. I have to talk myself down from it sometimes.”
At least Edwards has experience in his favor. Wednesday marks the ten-year anniversary of his UFC debut — a losing effort against Matt Serra at UFC 33 — and Saturday’s fight comes just one day after his 35th birthday. To Edwards, doing the math on his career numbers and realizing just how long he’s been at it comes as “kind of a surprise,” he said.
“I still feel like I’m 26. …The guy that was making his debut in the UFC, he didn’t know half the things I know now.”
But as Edwards prepares to take on Oliveira — a Brazilian fighter who he actually trained alongside of and “traded a few secrets” with in the past — he does so coming off a knockout loss to Sam Stout that UFC president Dana White called “one of the nastiest I’ve ever seen.”
It might not be a must-win fight for Edwards, but 35-year-old fighters can’t afford to take too many steps backwards, and he knows it.
“The thing is, nobody gets cut off a win,” Edwards said. “Not unless you’ve done something and screwed up. That’s my only concern, is going out there and winning, keeping my job, and keep moving up the ladder.”
The fact that he went from a pay-per-view card at UFC 131 to the prelim portion of a UFC on Versus card doesn’t worry him, he insisted, just like it doesn’t matter that he knows Oliveira to be “a pretty nice guy.”
“When it comes to the fight game that means absolutely nothing to me,” he said. “… This fight could be behind a Wal-Mart. All I have to worry about is, that’s the guy I’m fighting. That’s all that matters.”
That, and that he remembers not to obsess about the brand of soap in his hotel. After a week of battling himself, the fight should be a relief.
British featherweight, Jason “Shotgun” Young, has gone from London to London in his quest to become the best fighter he can be in his blooming career. Young is in London, Ontario at the Adrenaline Training Center preparing his game for his battle with …
British featherweight, Jason “Shotgun” Young, has gone from London to London in his quest to become the best fighter he can be in his blooming career. Young is in London, Ontario at the Adrenaline Training Center preparing his game for his battle with Japanese fighter Michihiro Omigawa that takes place on November 5 at UFC 138 back on his native soil.
I caught up with Young after he finished his morning training with Adrenaline head trainer Alex Gasson and he was gracious enough to chat with Bleacher Report about a few topics including his debut fight at UFC 131 in Vancouver, B.C., his path to the UFC and his upcoming fight at UFC 138 in England.
Young has travelled from London, England to train with fellow Adrenaline fighters Sam Stout, Mark Hominick and Chris Horodecki and says that the way they fight, the knowledge and style they bring is what attracted him to train at Adrenaline.
Young is a new father and is clearly focused on giving his career the best chance he possibly can as he left his family back home to “step his game up to the next level.”
With the close decision loss in his debut against Justin Poirier, Young is well aware of what he needs to do in his next match to come out on the better side, and he is dedicated to rounding out his game to be able to win in the UFC.
Shotgun certainly has the pop and power to compete with the best on his feet and I’m sure in the next few weeks he will improve all aspects of his game.
He also has the intangibles that the UFC is always on the lookout for and that is the courage, heart and confidence displayed in his words.
“I’ll fight anyone. Anyone they put in front of me.”
I look forward to watching Young vs Omigawa.
Full video interview is available here, as well as some footage of Shotgun training.
Dwight Wakabayashi is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA and also a correspondent for MMACanada.net.
The UFC has announced via Twitter this morning that a lightweight battle between Sam “Hands of Stone” Stout and Thiago Tavares has been added to the card for UFC 142 in Brazil. The announcement has also been confirmed by MMAweekly.com.
Thiago Tavares
The week of a fight, the last place