Cage Rage 30 Blog - 2007 January

Christian Smith To Fight At “Art Of War” In Dallas, USA

Four time Cage Warriors veteran Christian Smith (3-2-0) will be part of a Shooters MMA team, which will be fighting on the undercard of the "Art of War" event (Which features Pedro Rizzo VS Justin Eilers in the main event) at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas.

Smith will face the unbeaten Las Vegas based fighter Eric Schambari (4-0-0) in the 20000-seater arena in Dallas that is home to the Mavericks and Stars and many concerts. Smith is coming off a TKO win at CW Enter the Rough House against Michael Turner in December last year. Whilst Schambari has some noticeable scalps in the form of Ricardeau Francois and UFC vet Sherman Pendergarst

The other European fighters to take part in this show are Kenneth Rosfort, Sonny Nielsen, Klas Åkesson.

The full fight card can be found at http://www.artofwarlive.com/events.html

Posted by Vinnie

January 24, 2007 | Art Of War | Comment About this Article |

GCM Announce WWCN 70 and 77kg Tourney’s in Japan

The Japanese company GCM are holding two 16 man tournaments this year at Lightweight and Welterweight. They will start on March 17th in Japan and will continue during the year. It looks like each tourney will feature 8 Japanese fighters with the other 8 coming from members of the WWCN (World Wide Cage Network) which Cage Warriors is a part of.

Cage Warriors/Warrior Promotions hope to speak to GCM again during the week to finalise who will be entering the tournaments. It will also feature fighters from Nordic Fight Sports Promotions in Finalnd, Pagena Fights in the USA, Warriors Realm and more.

Already CW veterans Tomonari Kanomata and Jarkko Latomaki are scheduled to participate after their performances in the CW Showdown Tournament in November.

A list of current entrants can be found at http://www.g-c-m.net/wwcn/index.html

Check out the links below for more news

From http://gbring.com/sokuho/news/2007_01/0117_gcm.htm and http://sportsnavi.yahoo.co.jp/fight/…avi-fight.html

Use http://babelfish.altavista.com/ to translate

Posted by Vinnie

January 24, 2007 | GCM | Comment About this Article |

Ultimate Fight Night 8 Fight Card - Cast your predictions

Rashad Evans Vs. Sean Salmon

Jake O'Brien Vs. Heath Herring

Hermes Franca Vs. Spencer Fisher

Chad Reiner Vs. Josh Burkman

Ed Herman Vs. Chris Price

Clay Guida Vs. Din Thomas

Ross Pointon Vs. Rich Clementi

Post your predictions and comments here.

Posted by Vinnie

January 24, 2007 | UFC, UFN | Comment About this Article |

Cage Rage’s Zelg Galesic Signs for a 5 fight deal with Pride

Zelg Galesic, who successfully defeated Mark Weir via TKO in 40 Seconds of the first round at Cage Rage 19 to become the new Cage Rage British Welterweight Champion, has signed a multi-fight contract with Pride Fighting Championships. His signing to Pride casts doubt on the possibility of him making his first title defence.

Cage Rage promoter, Dave O'Donnell, confirmed that Galesic has one fight remaining on his contract and they are looking to sign him to a new two-fight deal after the existing contract expires. But with the Pride offer it may not be possible to run concurrent contracts (aka: James Thompson).

Charles Joseph has been the guiding force in Zelg Galesic's career and is responsible for setting up the new contract, he is aware of the remaining fight for Cage Rage and is looking to honor the contract; however, he accepts that some negotiation may be required by all parties as he expects that Pride will look to us Galesic as soon as possible.

At present no opponents or dates have been put forward to Galesic for his Pride debut as the ink on the contract is still drying.

Discuss here.

Posted by Vinnie

January 24, 2007 | Cage Rage, Pride | Comment About this Article |

UFC’s Nick Diaz Signs for Pride

Nick Diaz has signed a two-fight contract with Pride and will make his Pride debut on the promotion's February 24th event in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Diaz will be cutting to lightweight for his fight at Pride 33 on February 24th, and he expects to face a top-level opponent. Pride previously announced the participation of two lightweights on the Pride 33 card: Takanori Gomi and Hayato "Mach" Sakurai, who are the #1 and #2 Lightweights in the MMAWeekly Rankings.

Though it's not known who Diaz will be fighting, Gomi and Sakurai are two of the many possibilities. If Diaz does fight Gomi, it will not be for Gomi's Pride Lightweight Title, as Pride previously announced that Gomi's fight at Pride 33 will be a non-title fight.

Earlier this week, it was announced that Diaz signed with the Showtime-backed Elite Xtreme Combat, for which he is expected to make his debut in May. Diaz' contracts with Pride and EXC do not conflict with each other, as EXC has no problem with non-exclusive contracts, and Pride entered its negotiations with Diaz knowing that he was already under contract with EXC.

Regardless of who Diaz fights at Pride 33, he will be fighting at Pride's lightweight limit of 160 pounds. The lightweight limit for MMA in the United States is usually 155 pounds, but promotions like Pride also have the option of holding fights at "catch weights" such as 160 pounds.

Diaz normally fights at 170 pounds and is currently the #9-ranked 170-pound fighter in the MMAWeekly Rankings.

Diaz is a UFC veteran who won the last two fights on his UFC contract at UFC 62 and UFC 65, respectively. Diaz had been scheduled to face Thomas "Wildman" Denny on the Gracie Fighting Championships event on January 20th, but the event was postponed.

Discuss here.

Posted by Vinnie

January 24, 2007 | UFC, Pride | Comment About this Article |

UFC 70 to be held in England. Manchester MEN Arena April 20th.

Ok this is aparantly true, spoken to many respected MMA personal.

Tickets will be on sale sometime soon.

Ill let you know on any more information.

To discuss more about UFC 70 in Manchester click here.

Posted by Vinnie

January 24, 2007 | UFC | Comment About this Article |

Lindland signs on the line.

UFC veteran and Olympic Silver Medallist Matt Lindland has officially confirmed that he has signed to fight Fedor Emelianenko in the headline bout of Bodog Fight at St Petersberg on 23 January 2007.