Warriors in the (North) East (WMMA2)

[PilotMan]

I was sitting in my new office in Manhattan when it dawned on me. “ I still can’t believe that I am doing this!” I mean, who in there right mind gets a shot like this? I pushed back from my desk where I had been staring at my computer. Video after video had played on the screen. I went to grab a cup of coffee, before my afternoon meeting with my new boss. It was my boss, after all, who was responsible for all of this. This office, this business, and ultimately these videos and soon these fights, were all because of him. It was just my job to get all work done so that we could get started.

I walked down the street, and proceeded up to the assistant in the office building. I was immediately stopped by the man behind the desk.

“Uh, he’s not in right now. He had to cancel his meeting with you, but he did leave this message.”

“Tex,

I had other, more pressing financial decisions to make so you’re on your own. I’ll get caught up with you later by phone. I know that you’re the right person for this, that’s why I hired you. I trust that you can make some good decisions and get us all set up to run our first show before the end of the year. I want to hear about these guys that you are bringing in, soon, our venture depends on it. Don’t fuck it up.

Donald T.”

Well that’s nice, I thought to myself, as I turned around after thanking the guy behind the desk. I don’t even have the job for two weeks, and already, I can’t get a meeting with him. No matter, I didn’t have much to say anyway. Back to my office, back to the phone and the you tube videos.

I am Tex Awesome, great name huh? My six year old said that my real name was too boring. He liked this much better. I am the new president of upstart MMA promotion Cage Warrior Fighting Championships. It’s funny that we have office here in the city, when MMA is banned here. Point being, that it isn’t banned across the river. So we can get all of these people over there, for the fights, and we can get some money in the bank.

Speaking of money, our sole investor, and owner has made a significant investment in this, and while I am not making that much, it is my desire, to see that the both of us make much, much more in the coming years. Right now is prime for a new promotion. There are lots of up and coming fighters as well as some older guys who are on the way down that are still looking for a place to fight. The northeast is largely untapped, and we are so small how could anyone care anyway?

I have been doing some work for various promotions but nothing serious, and nothing that made me think that this was going to be the pinnacle of my career. I got a call from some guy about a month ago. I thought it was some random interview about the state of the MMA business. I was half asleep anyway. Two days later this lawyer shows up on my doorstep with a contract. I had no idea what to think. Except that at a time when so many are out of work, I am being offered this job, and this opportunity, and I still had no idea who I was going to be working for.

So here I am. I am back on the phone and back to youtube. We gotta get some fighters in here.

[PilotMan]

I am using the Modern Warriors 5 mod for this dynasty. I have created this fictional organization (not at all based off the organization of the same name based in the UK), named the Don as the owner, and based it in New Jersey. We are using what has become the standard in rules and scoring for the USA. Three or five, five minute rounds with judges scoring. We have weight classes from featherweight through heavyweight, except heavyweight goes all the way to 290. That will allow us some bigger guys too.

Only a couple of house rules to start.

1. We will sign fighters to standard contracts (where we can) for a minimum of 3 fights or a maximum of 7 fights. I know that you can sign guys to exclusive deals at any size, but it just doesn’t seem right to lock a guy to a minsal company. So we will try and avoid this where we can.

2. The length of the contract cannot be longer than 4 times the number of fights offered.

3. We can only sign fighters who are working for less than 2 promotions. This will rule out all the Pride/Strikeforce guys, or other guys who are spreading it thin for the smaller promotions.

Other than that we will see where it goes from there. This is my first run at WMMA2. I played the hell out of WMMA, and well at running a ground up promotion. I haven’t seen what tweaks and differences there are between the two, but my general strategy will be the same, at least initially.

We started the game with 5 million in the bank, which should be more than enough to get the ball rolling. I will be trying to turn a profit as fast as possible, as I really don’t want any of that initial seed money to have to be paid back out of my pocket. We have absolutely no prestige or popularity, so the first shows should move us up fairly quickly. I will also try and fill you in on the goings on around the world in MMA.

Sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

[kobe360x]

following love these dynasties

[PilotMan]

I just put in damn near 200 phone calls. These bastards better get back to me quickly. I am happy with the initial crop of guys. Hopefully some of them are willing to take a trip up here, and sign the paperwork so that we can get this ball rolling.

Early December

The calls have started to come in and like other promotions we are scrambling to sign the quality fighters. The first guy to commit to being a Cage Warrior is Jimi Manuwa. Manuwa (4-0) is a light heavyweight who has just started his career over in the UK. He said that he would be happy to get his USA start with us at Cage Warriors. It wasn’t much of a negotiation. We conceded to a lot of his demands, and all we asked was for a longer contract.

Well, that’s one, only about 120 or so to go.

[PilotMan]

The UFC have signed Shinya Aoki. It’s about damn time.

Things have been busy around the office. The phone has been ringing off the hook and I can’t find any time to eat, shit or sleep. The last two weeks have been exciting as well as hellacious. I am starting to get a feel for the roster. We have brought about 100 guys now, and we are waiting on callbacks from about 70 others. Once these guys get started it’s going to be fun trying to sort out what kind of show to run, that won’t break the bank but still makes things interesting.

[PilotMan]

There is no way that we are going to have a fight ready for the end of the year. Yes, we have a very deep roster, and a lot of guys on it, but all of my time has been answering the phone and talking to lawyers. I talked with Donald today, and he was not happy with that news, but I did tell him about some of the guys that we have signed. Guys like Din Thomas (24-8) a featherweight with a lot of experience . Antonio McKee (21-3-2) and Jeff Curran (30-12-1), both lightweights who could contend for the title right away.

We are still in discussions with some others, and until that is resolved we won’t schedule our first show. Our new target date is for mid January.

Antonio McKee will be fighting Ryan Machan (8-2) for the Maximum Fighting Championships Lightweight Title.

Josh Thomson (16-2) will be fighting Gilbert Melendez (16-2) for the Strikeforce Lightweight Title. This is a rematch fight Thomson won the first fight. Also on the same card Alistar Overeem (31-11) will defend his Heavyweight Title against Roger Gracie (2-0) who is making his Strikeforce debut. Additionally Babalu Sorbal (35-9) fights King Mo (5-0) in his Strikeforce debut.

A number of title holders from other organizations are currently represented in our new organization. Not big names mind you but these guys have kicked someone’s ass to get to that point, so they come in more respected than some others that are here for sure.

From Bellator, current Featherweight Champ Joe Soto, and Welterweight Champ Lyman Good. From Maximum Fighting Championships, the Lightweight Champ, Antonio McKee. From X-1 we have Lightweight Champ, Richie Whitson and Light Heavyweight Champ, Marcelo Tigre.

All in all we handed out 112k in contract signing bonuses.

[Izulde]

Sorry to nitpick here, but can you edit the title so that it's Warriors as it properly should be?

Thanks.

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by Izulde

Sorry to nitpick here, but can you edit the title so that it's Warriors as it properly should be?

Thanks.

Sorry about that, fixed it now.

[PilotMan]

The highest paid person in the company though is the man who is calling the fights. His face is well known and his charisma is exemplary. It is none other than Bas Rutten. Bas is currently seen on HD Net on the weekly MMA show that they run there, as well as, mentoring Kimbo Slice, who by the way, turned us down. Bas was also an announcer for the defunct IFL and former president of the same. I felt that if one person could sell us it was him. He is set to earn a minimum of 90k this year alone. By far our highest paid man. We are looking at adding another person as well, but that isn’t set in stone yet.

We spent all week in meetings deciding the very best way to open up our fighting campaign. Ultimately it was decided that a format similar to Bellator’s last year would be a good way to see lot’s of fighters as well as to crown our first champions in each weight class. The biggest problem is that running shows gets to be very expensive, but it’s the only way that we have to gain popularity. The top 8 ranked fighters in each weight class are in the initial tournament, and the prelim fights will be used to set up future challengers.

[PilotMan]

We have an unprecedented two fight cards set to debut in January. One will feature our featherweight division and the other show, two weeks after will feature our welterweights. February will also have two shows as well, March probably too. Hopefully after that we will be able to settle down a little, take stock of the finances and have a little popularity to build on.

Cage Warriors 1: Thomas v. Bilcalho

#1 Din Thomas (24-8) v. #8 Henrique Bilcalho (10-2)
#4 Matt Fiordirosa (11-1) v. #5 Roberto Vargas (7-1)
#2 Joe Soto (8-0) v. #7 Micah Miller (13-3)
#3 Cub Swanson (13-2) v. #6 Jason Reinhardt (20-1)

These are the 8 fighters vying for the Featherweight title.

----Prelims----

Brandon Foxworth (16-4) v. Wilson Reis (8-1)
Issei Tamura (4-0) v. Russ Mirua (5-1)
Jae Hee Chun (1-0) v. Jussier da Silva (2-0)
Danillo Villefort (9-2) v. Dave Menne (43-16-2)

The last fight is a welterweight fight to round it out.

Din Thomas is the favorite to win the whole thing for now. Joe Soto cannot be counted out. Keep an eye on Wilson Reis on the undercard, he is a monster. The Hee Chun/ da Silva fight looks to be the most exciting, both men are total unknowns, but should put on a good show.

[PilotMan]

Simultaneously we announce our fight card for the third week of January.

Cage Warriors 2: Ford v. Scarola

#1 Ryan Ford (10-2) v. #8 Joe Scarola (4-0-1)
#4 Andy Kappas (2-0) v. #5 Lyman Good (10-0)
#2 Chris Wilson (14-6) v. #7 Drew Fickett (36-12)
#3 Jason Norwood (7-1) v. #6 Kyle Pimentel (7-0)

These are the 8 fighters vying for the welterweight title.

----Prelims----

Sidney Silva (8-2) v. Yosmanny Cabezas (8-2)
Alexander Trevino (4-1) v. Anselmo Martinez (5-1)
Ben Askren (2-0) v. Ben Holscher (4-0) 
Bryan Travers (11-1) v. Dan Hornbuckle (19-2)

I am curious to see the first fight of the night, two gaudy records but not in the tournament. Anselmo Martinez is the old man, he is 12 years older than Trevino. Looking at the title brackets it seems funny that most of the guys are relatively young and fairly inexperienced. Except for Wilson and Fickett. Hell, Fickett has 48 fights, that’s more than the other 6 guys combined!

[PilotMan]

Happy New Year!

Do I really have a clue as to what I am doing? I guess I am having some doubts as we get closer to our first show. I have been talking with some advertisers and trying to drive some of the promotion in Jersey and here. Donald isn’t making me feel that much better either. He keeps asking “who all these guys are?” And I guess he has a right to know. I mean, we have a shitload of fighters under contract.

Poachers

One of the biggest problems of running a small promotion is that just when you have a good fighter, another company comes along to sign them away from you. We have already seen some of our guys get some strong looks from other companies, and some others have already signed some non-exclusive deals. It’s only a matter of time before some of them start signing exclusive deals. I guess that’s why the shotgun approach works at this level.

Both the Light Heavyweight and Middleweight King of Pancrase Title’s are on the line. Its just the start. Four guys fighting there that I have never heard of. I’ll read the report tomorrow.

[PilotMan]

Eh, Pancrase wasn’t that exciting. I can’t see any of those guys coming to New York to fight here. The phone has been ringing off the hook, our card still looks to be set for Saturday night, now I just hope that all the guys show up and make weight.

Donald had me on a flight to British Columbia to see Maximum Fighting Championships show. The main event featured Antonio McKee defending his title against Ryan Machan (8-3) who had won his last 7 fights in MFC. The fight wasn’t all that great honestly, McKee did defend his title in a decision after 5 rounds. I flew back home and made a note of Benson Henderson (10-1). He took home fight of the night honors with a submission win over Ricardo Tirlone (8-3). I heard that he is already fighting with WEC too, so we were not able to approach him. Something to keep in mind.

Over the next couple of days all of these promotions are running shows before ours: X-1, Kings of the Cage, Strikeforce, World Victory Road, and Shooto. I don’t have time to go to any of these shows. The Strikeforce and WVR cards should be the best of the bunch.

Kaz Fujita (15-8) will be taking on Josh Barnett (24-5) in WVR at the end of the month.

[PilotMan]

Richie Whitson defended his X-1 Lightweight Title last night with a first round TKO over Ray Cooper (14-10) . Whitson is in the tournament for the CWFC Lightweight Title, his win kept him undefeated. Our other title holder didn’t fare that well. Marcelo Tigre (12-4) lost his LH Title by being submitted by Vernon White (27-32-2).

The night before our big debut, fights were going on all over the world. The biggest of which was the Strikeforce card. It would be wonderful if someday we could be that big.

Josh Thomson (17-2) def. Gilbert Melendez (16-3) by submission at 4:21 in round 1 to retain the Lightweight Title. Fantastic
King Mo (6-0) def. Babalu Sorbal (35-10) by unanimous decision. Good
Roger Gracie (3-0) def. Alistair Overeem by submission at 2:44 of round 4 to win the Heavyweight Title. Great
Robbie Lawler (17-5) def Frank Shamrock (23-10) by KO at 0:24 or round 1. Great

Some women fought too, but I really don’t care at all about them. Unless they are stripping I just don’t care. I gotta say that the Overeem fight had to be one hell of an upset. Frank Shamrock should probably hang it up after that beating.

Over in Japan, Jorge Santiago (21-9) lost his WVR Middleweight Title, when he was submitted in the middle of the third round by Kazuo Misaki (23-9-2).

[PilotMan]

Not expecting a big crowd despite the money that we are spending on this show. Still, we have plenty of room. I have a ringside seat for the action.

The opening fight of the night will be a memorable one to forget. Dave Menne showed absolutely nothing at all. Villefort took him down in all three rounds, and Menne couldn’t escape. Villefort doesn’t get any props either because he couldn’t mount any offense. Oh well, Villefort gets the win, but the fight was poor.

The next fight is between two flyweights who are bulking up for the featherweight division. Jae Hee Chun against Jussier da Silva. These guys are small, but it was a better fight. Early striking gave way to a clinch where da Silva took Chun down and dominated him against he cage. Da Silva sunk in a rear naked choke without taking any damage and Chun tapped out 1 second before the end of the first round. It was a great fight.

Issei Tamura (shooto) and Russ Miura (BJJ) are next, and should have been skipped over. Good thing this was on the prelim card. Tamura seemed to press the action more, but neither could get past the other’s defense. Oh well. The judges solidly gave the fight to Tamura, but it was a poor fight.

Brandon Foxworth (submission) and Wilson Reis (BJJ) are next. Foxworth towers over Reis, but Reis looks like a pitbull. Foxworth started hard early with a couple of punches then shot, but Reis defended well. Reis then attacked with an unrelenting series of strikes that stunned Foxworth, who stumbled against the cage. Reis was relentless and the fight was stopped at 4:05. Great fight.

Cub Swanson (BJJ) and Jason Reinhardt (wrestling) kick off the main show. These two put on a pretty good show. Some good grappling with Swanson scoring takedowns in the first two rounds and controlling the action. Reinhardt almost finished the fight in the third with a brilliant sweep and some good GNP but Swanson held on. All judges scored it close for Swanson. It was a decent start.

Joe Soto (Wrestling) and Micah Miller (Wrestling) are next. Soto the Bellator champ is heavily favored coming in but he gives up 5 inches to Miller. Soto left no doubt here. He aggressively chased Miller, got a quick takedown, passed to side control and pounded Miller silly. Great fight.

Matt Fiordirosa (wrestling) and Roberto Vargas (BJJ) are next. Both men traded early no real damage was done though. By the third round Vargas look gassed, and Fiordirosa used that to his advantage by knocking Vargas down twice. Vargas almost scored a guillotine but the fight ended. Fiordirosa scored a controversial split decision win to advance. Great fight.

Din Thomas (BJJ/Boxing) and Henrique Bilcalho (BJJ/Muay Thai) finish the card as the main event. Despite being a huge favorite Thomas had some trouble in the first round. The second round saw Thomas dominate after a takedown then submit Bilcalho with an armbar with 3 second left. Good fight.

There were a whopping 107 people in the crowd, and the gate didn’t even pay for one fighter. The show was excellent, it’s hard to fall from the bottom.

Fight Of the Night has to go to Matt Fiordirosa and Roberto Vargas for their back and forth affair.

Knockout of the Night goes to Wilson Ries for his beat down of Brandon Foxworth.

Submission of the Night goes to Jussier da Silva for his rear naked choke win in the prelim.

[PilotMan]

So I show up to the office the next day already thinking about our next show here in a couple weeks. And thinking about what shows we are going to have after that. There has to be two more events set for February, and hopefully they come together. Listening to the voicemail there’s a call from Dave Menne. I call him back and Menne apologizes for his bad fight. He knows that he is expected to put on a better show than that. All right, I think. You know, first fight and all, bad start, apology accepted. Then he continues to go on about his training regimen, and I start thinking “you know I need to go, I have other things to do” whatever. He drones on and on, and honestly now isn’t winning any points. Then I hear, “I am so very sorry.” Wait, did I miss something?

“Did you say suspension?”

“I am really sorry?”

“You know what? You’re a professional. This is unacceptable. You would be gone, but we have a deal. We will talk again next year and decide if you should fight again for us.”

What an idiot! Way to make an impression! Something tells me that his career might just be over. Can’t say that many will miss him.

I put out a press release for out third event, again to be held in New Jersey, for the first week of February. This card features some fighters from the lightweight and middleweight tournament brackets and the undercard features other fighters from those weights as well.

Cage Warriors 3: Curran v.  Longacre

#1 Jeff Curran (30-12-1) v. #8 Thomas Longacre (4-0)
#3 Rich Clementi (33-15-1) v. #6 David Baron (16-3)
#4 Jared Hess (9-1-1) v. #5 Nick Klein (3-0)
#2 Jordan Radev (17-3) v. #7 Terry Martin (18-8)

The first four are the lightweights and the next are middleweights. 

----Prelims----

Anthony Njokuani (10-2) v. Jeff Lawson (12-2) LW
Bill Boland (4-0) v. Bobby Stack (6-1) LW
Nate Moore  (7-1) v. Bryan Baker (9-1) MW
Chris Price (14-2) v. Dan Cramer (3-0) MW

[PilotMan]

Alright, we finalized a contract on a second man to work with Bas Rutten on our shows. I thought that it was better to bring in a more recognizable name than a nobody. Besides, the guys I really wanted didn’t want me. Whatever, that’s the price you pay in this business. Bill Goldberg will at least give us another reason to be in the news, and another guy that the fans can recognize. So he isn’t the greatest mic in the world and he doesn’t bring the cred that Bas does, but I still think he is going to be valuable. Hell, he’s better known that a lot of the guys in the cage. He can only help us go up right now.

I caught the latest DREAM card on tv this morning. The main event had Kazushi "The Gracie Hunter" Sakuraba actually submitting Royce Gracie to win the Middleweight title. Royce spent some time in the ring after the fight as this was his last competitive MMA fight. JZ forced a stoppage in his fight with Eddie Alvarez.

All eyes were on the latest UFC card, that was on tonight. I spent it with some friends and we dissected the matchups and the results. A huge crowd or over 14,000 was on hand for the main event between GSP and Jon Fitch. GSP won by submitting Fitch in the first round. The co-main saw Rampage decimate The Natural by forcing a stoppage only 0:40 into the first round. How much longer will Couture be around, after that? The best fight of the night had to be between Diego Sanchez and KenFlo. Sanchez scored a TKO over Florian in the first round. In other fights, Shogun Rua lost, and Josh Koscheck beat Mike Swick.

[PilotMan]

Mike Brown retained his WEC Featherweight Title with a win over Raphael Assuncao. Jaime Varner won over Chris Horodecki to retain his WEC Lightweight Title. Jens Pulver took yet another loss at the end of his career.

There were other cards last night, from the UK and Europe. Bellator also ran their latest card from Florida, nothing worth mentioning there except some scouting. I am satisfied with the size of our promotion right now, and really don’t need any more new guys at this point.

We have a new champion represented here in Cage Warriors. Rawdon Lee, in only his 2nd professional MMA fight has won the CFC Light Heavyweight Title down under. His win was in a terrible fight that went the distance that he won unanimously.

Things have begun to settle down a bit. My schedule is set to focus more on the day to day, and to plan the upcoming events. I know that we should have a better showing for this event than the last, but by how much more is the question. Financially, we are losing money, and don’t expect to make money for sometime. At least it’s nice to know that there is money in the bank, besides I don’t know if the Donald will let us put any more money into this thing if it isn’t going to go anywhere.

[PilotMan]

Feeling more confident on my way to the arena. I just kept telling myself “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me!” No, I really did. We had a good show, I know this one is going to be good. There are really no expectations at this level. I want to see who comes out on top. I want to see some good fights. I want to see a champion rise up. That’s what I want to see.

I take my seat for the prelims. Its empty for these guys.

Cage Warrior 2

The first fight has Brian Travers (Wrestling) taking on Dan Hornbuckle (Muay Thai/BJJ). Fast start and a fast finish here. Travers closed and forced Hornbuckle against the cage with his grappling backround, but it was Hornbuckle who slapped on a guillotine choke when Travers left his head in the wrong place. Hornbuckle with the fast submission win. Great start.

Battle of the Ben’s, it’s Askren (Wrestling/BJJ) and Holscher (Wrestling) going next. Couple of guys holding each other and laying on each other here. Neither one looked like they even through a punch. No beauty points here. Askren gets the decision because of his takedowns and better control on the ground, but it was a poor fight.

Alexander Trevino (Boxing/Wrestling) and Anselmo Martinez (Striker) are next. You would think some good punches would be thrown here, but you would be wrong. Trevino spent most of the fight trying to take down Martinez and failing. He didn’t score one takedown in the whole fight. Meanwhile Martinez knocked Trevino down near the end of round 3, but couldn’t get the stoppage. The judges liked Trevino for the win, but I disagree. He was more aggressive, but Martinez the better fighter. An average fight.

Sidney Silva (BJJ) and Yosmanny Cabezas (Judo) are the last of the prelims. The crowd looks to be all here for this one. Cabezas kept trying to get Silva on the ground, because his standup was totally ineffective, but Silva was able to snuff out every single attempt. Neither fighter really did any damage, and Cabezas was aggressive, but he was out pointed in the standup. Silva pulled out the win but by a narrow split decision where all the judges scored it 29-28. An average fight.

On to the tournament fights, with the first being Jason Norwood (MMA) and Kyle Pimentel (BJJ). Norwood spent 15 minutes bullying Pimental around the cage, and didn’t take any damage in the fight at all. Norwood just kept leaning on Pimental and the ref had to break them up over and over. Norwood wins, but it wasn’t pretty, just average.

Two guys with lots of experience in Chris Wilson (Kickboxing) and Drew Fickett (Wrestling) are next. The winner fights Norwood. Fickett charges out first, but misses everything. Meanwhile Wilson lands a hard jab, then a series of stunning blows to force the ref to stop it only :46 in. Great fight.

Andy Kappas (Submission Fighting) and Lyman Good (Kick Boxing) are next. Kappas failed to mount any sort of offense here at all. Good, landed a couple good strikes, but leaned a lot in round 2. Round 3 saw Good land 3 solid knees from a MT clinch and open Kappas up. Kappas hung in there and survived the fight, but it really wasn’t close as Good pulled out the win from just an average fight.

Ryan Ford (MMA) and Joe Scarola (BJJ) round out the night’s action. We need a good fight here. Scarola is a local boy and has the fans on his side, despite being a big underdog. Ryan Ford was clinical. Takedown, side control, mount, armbar, and that was that. Fantastic showing by Ford.

We had a crowd of 267 for this nights action. Over twice what we had for our opener.

Fight of the Night goes to Sidney Silva and Yosmanny Cabezas for their solid fight.
Knockout of the Night goes to Chris Wilson.
Submission of the Night goes to Ryan Ford.

[PilotMan]

The next day we immediately announce Cage Warriors 4. A card comprised of heavies and light heavies.

# 1 Ralek Gracie (2-0) v. #8 Jake O’ Brien (11-3)
#3 Jimi Manuwa (4-0) v. #6 Mike Ciesnolevicz (17-4)
#1 Brendan Schaub (4-0) v. #8 Dong Yi Yang (8-0)
#4 Justin Wren (8-1) v. #5 Brad Imes (13-5)

The first two are Light Heavies while the last two are Heavyweights.

----Prelims---

Valentino Petrescu (7-0) v. Besiki Gerenava (5-0) LH
Andre Gusmao (5-1) v. Bobby Rehman (7-0) LH
Gary Goodridge (23-19-1) v. Brandon Cash (5-1) H
Daniel Purder (6-0) v. Demico Rogers (4-0) H

Goodridge has already announced that this is his last fight.

I like the opener between Purder and Rogers.

[PilotMan]

Last night I went to an MMA show. Not just any show but the UFC. Now, I have no relationship with the UFC nor have I ever done any work with them. If you want to be the best you have to beat the best, and right now the UFC are the best. I didn’t have to travel anywhere to see them. That’s because they ran their show right here in Jersey for all to see, and it was televised for all to see. Five Thousand fans were there too. Let’s see. UFC Fight Night draws 5,000, CWFC draws 200. Hmm. We will get there one day, I know we will.

Winners last night were Paulo Thiago, Ben Rothwell, Kendall Grove, Todd Duffee, Keith Jardine, Gray Maynard, Demian Maia, Matt Serra over Dan Hardy, and Paul Daley over Marcus Davis in the main event. It was a really, really good show. All in all there were 4 submissions and 3 TKO’s.

The WVR Lightweight Title changed hands last night too, with Maximo Blanco getting a surprise win. The Light Heavyweight Title also changed hands.

Josh Barnett submitted Kaz Fujita in their fight a few days ago.

[PilotMan]

FEB 2010

A successful month for us, at least I thought so. Our monthly financial meeting was yesterday and we went over the fighters that we have signed. I gave a report on possible fighters that may be able to come in. There was some question as to the number of guys we have on contract, but I am not too worried. We will be running a lot of shows this year, and in order to do that we need lots of guys. Especially, when we have almost nobody on exclusive. And there are no highly paid fighters and there are no guys who make money if they don’t fight.

The P&L report showed that we lost 72k this last month, which again isn’t bad in my opinion. Prize money, wages and contractual bonuses were the highest expenditures while we started to get a little bit of sponsorship money as well.

Our regional popularity has gone up to 11% from 0. We don’t have a lot of big name guys, hopefully we find a couple of diamonds in the rough that will grow and stay with us. We need to grow quickly and get on the TV so that we can get a PPV deal and start the march to domination.

As of right now there are 22 MMA promotions, we started the month dead last. After January’s shows we are up to #19, having passed Valkyrie, Fury FC, and Jewels. So we beat the three companies that haven’t put a show on yet and two of them are womens promotions. Pure Combat, Shark Fight and X-1 are the next within our sights.

[PilotMan]

Stikeforce ran a card on CBS last night. The main event saw Christiane “Cyborg” Santos lose here Women’s title to Zoila Frausto in what was a huge upset. Cung Le made his return by winning in a TKO over Jacare Souza. Evangalista Santos was also on the card and picked up a win, and “Old” Kevin Randleman lost in a preliminary fight.

Also, I got word last night via email that said that another of our fighters has won a belt in a rival promotion. This time it’s Gary Wright, a welterweight, from British Columbia, picking up the Kings of the Cage Welterweight Title. He is undefeated in that promotion and the bulk of his fights have been with them. Apparently it was a very boring 5 round fight.

Josh Barnett turned in his notice at WVR and will be heading to rival Dream. Dream was willing to pay him over 5 times more.

Dream is running an amazing 16- fight night opposite our little unappreciated show in the Jersey area. The first half of the card is part of their TV promotion and the latter is their PPV special. Sokoudjou will be fighting for the Light Heavyweight Title. The overall main event features Kid Yamamoto fighting Hiroyuki Takaya. I can’t say that I am all that impressed with the show overall, but I don’t really need to worry about it. We are no match for that.

Our weigh-in and press conference was a success. All the fighters for tomorrow made weight so I won’t be kicking anyone’s ass yet, unless Dave Menne tries to get in.

[PilotMan]

We should have a bigger crowd, as we are gently gathering steam. I have been hard at work trying to make some sponsor deals and to get our name out there. I head out the door, and down to the arena for the fights. Eight fights on the card, and I have to be there early to make sure it all goes according to plan. Besides the boss might show up and we need a good showing.

I see a couple of faces that I think I saw last time. The crowd seems to be a little hotter, but we will find out once the main show starts.

Our first fight is about to begin.

Cage Warriors 3

Chris Price (MMA) comes down for his fight with Dan Cramer (BJJ) in our opener. Chris Price the is the more experienced of the two, and he looked in the cage. Cramer appeared to be outmatched as Price was able to deal with his standup and was the aggressor on the mat. Price couldn’t finish the fight, but he did get the win. A poor start.

Nate Moore (Wrestling) is older, and smaller going against Bryan Baker (Judo/Wrestling). Moore didn’t mind his obvious disadvantage, he took Baker down and worked quickly to side mount, and eventually full before pounding Baker out just before the end of the round. Good fight.

Bill Boland (Wrestling) and Bobby Stack (MT/Wrestling) are the third prelim fight. These two put on an entertaining show. Boland scored a takedown but let Stack escape in round 1, then he missed a takedown and Stack pounded away, but Boland managed to get back up. Round two was very similar, with Stack pounding away, but unable to finish. Round three saw both guys very tired, and Stack finally scoring a takedown and some G&P but couldn’t finish. Stack won in a good fight.

Our last prelim fight is between Anthony Njokuani (MT) and Jeff Lawson (Judo). These two take the fight to the distance with Njokuani using superior stand up to keep Lawson at bay. Lawson paid for every shoot, and never could get a takedown, even resorting to jumping guard. Njokuani won in a comfortable fashion. It was a decent fight.

The first of the elimination fights is about to begin. Jordan Radev ( Wrestling) and Terry Martin (Striker) lead us off. Radev is bigger with a big reach advantage. Radev enforced his will in round one by getting an early takedown then pounding Martin crazy. Martin defended well and survived. Round 2 ended quickly. Radev came forward and missed a punch, but walked right into a huge roundhouse kick that knocked him out. Martin won in a great showing.

Jared Hess (Freestyle) and Nick Klein (BJJ) are next in our tournament. Hess took Klein to the ground but Klein’s defense made for a dull fight. The ref had to stand them back up, and it looked like another dull finish. Hess broke through and Klein was gassed in the third. Hess landed some huge elbows and poured it on to finish the fight. Good fight.

Rich Clementi (MMA) takes on David Baron (BJJ). Clementi is far experienced and younger. Don’t see that too much. Ugh, these two should have put together a much better show. Instead what we got was Clementi laying on Baron. That’s about it. Clementi pulled out a win in a poor fight.

Jeff Curran (BJJ) headlines the main event against Thomas Longacre (MT/Kick Boxing). Curran, a one seed, is heavily favorite. Curran easily controlled the first couple rounds with takedowns and little in the way of offense. Longacre was much more effective with his strikes knocking Curran down, but Curran recovered and held on for the finish. Curran won a decision and the fight was decent.

The final attendance was only 277. But the show was well received, I am happy with the end result, although some of the fights weren’t as good as they could have been.

Fight of the Night honors go to Bill Boland and Bobby Stack.
Knockout of the Night goes to Terry Martin for his brutal KO.
There was no submission of the night.

[PilotMan]

I am a little bit nervous as out next show in two weeks is all heavyweight and light heavyweights. And they have a reputation of not being very fan friendly. Tomorrow, I go to work on booking our next show for the first week in March. Hopefully, there will be some fighters around that can make a good show.

Kid Yamamoto won in the Main Event in Japan. Mark Hunt captured the Dream Heavyweight Title with a win over Gilbert Yvel, in a bad fight. Jason Miller won over Funkai. Ricardo Arona beat Sokoudjou to capture the Dream Light Heavyweight Title. Dream’s card was huge, but it seemed a little long. You just can’t stack that many fights together that the people want to see, you have to have some stinkers in there too.

The first hiccup in my planning so far. I originally had Brandon Cash scheduled to fight Gary Goodridge in the next event. Oops, Cash is in the tournament and is fighting in March. The first guy that I called was Eddie Sanchez. Sanchez is 8-3 and a striker from California. He has been struggling as of late and right now only works for us. Even though it’s such short notice, he said he could be ready to fight Gary Goodridge. So that fight has been made and Cash is moved back into March.

[PilotMan]

Alright, I just finished the booking for Cage Warriors 5. It only features one tournament fight, but it also features a couple of the bigger names that we have signed recently as well. The preliminary fights showcase some up and coming guys that no one has heard of yet, so it has the makings of another good show.

Fabio Silva (13-5, Muay Thai) v. Jeremy Horn (81-19-5, Freestyle JJ) MW
#2 Josh Curran (3-0, Brawler) v. #7 Brandon Cash (5-1, Striking/Wrestling) HW
Bao Quach (15-9-1, BJJ) v. Shoji Maruyama (6-5-1, Muay Thai) FW
Bryan Humes (6-0, Striking/Wrestling) v. George Bush (5-1, Wrestling) HW

----Prelims----

Brian McLaughlin (5-0, BJJ) v. Carlos Quinton (6-0, Muay Thai) LW
Jean-Francois Bedard (1-0, Kick Boxing) v. Jin-Kyu Lee (1-0, Striker) WW    
Danny Valimaki (3-0, Wrestling) v. Karn Grigoryan (6-0, Freestyle) LHW
Charles Diaz (3-0, BJJ) v. David Douglas (4-1, Kick Boxing/BJJ) LW

Silva and Quach are title hopefuls if they can put a couple of wins together. Humes seems to be a rising star. I am hopeful that the undercard can shake some wheat from the chaff.

[PilotMan]

UFC Legend Pat Miletich continues to fight and won against War Machine by submission in the third round at a Shark Fights event.

Marcelo Tigre, who we signed early on, has decided to retire. He was in the original plan for the tournament but was removed after his announcement. He doesn’t plan on fighting before he retires. It won’t affect me at all. I have plenty of talent, and some on the rise as well.

Strikeforce ran another good show last night. The main event saw Jake Shields retain his Middlweight Title over Scott Smith. Jay Hieron won the Welterweight Title by knocking our Nick Diaz. Fabricio Werdum beat Brett Rodgers by TKO.

The UFC’s last card was in front of over 14,000 out west in California. BJ Penn retained his title with a win over Tyson Griffin who has been fighting at Lightweight. Wanderlei beat Michael Bisping by TKO, Frank Mir took out Heath Herring, Little Nog beat Thiago Silva. Other winners were Hermes Franca, Phillipe Nover, and CB Dollaway.

[PilotMan]

For our 4th show expectations are a little higher. I would like to see some more fans but as long as our popularity keeps going up I really don’t care. I figure we need to grow and we can’t grow if we don’t have fights. We are going to lose money anyway, might as well do it now. I hope I see some good fights tonight.

Daniel Purder (Wrestling) and Demico Rogers (BJJ) come out for the opening fight of the night. A great fight to open the card up. Rogers won the first round, but was knocked down in the second by a big kick. Then in the third, Purder scored a good takedown, dropped some hard elbows and punches and got the stoppage.

Gary Goodridge (Kuk Soo Wan) comes out for his final fight. Eddie Sanchez (Striker) is his opponent. Two guys that stood up for almost the whole fight. Goodridge started to tire at the end of the 2nd round. The third belonged to Sanchez as he sent Goodridge to the ground, then dove in and was going for the stoppage when the round ended. All 3 judges scored the win for Sanchez. Average fight.

Andre Gusamo (BJJ) and Bobby Rehman (Muay Thai) are next in the cage. Gusmao put on a good show and made a good impression. He closed quickly, slammed Rehman hard, mounted him quickly then dominated with strikes until the ref pulled him off. Fantastic

Vanentino Petrescu (Vale Tudo) and Besiki Gerenava ( Sambo) are the last of our prelims. Hard to top the last fight, these two were much slower. Petrescu pretty much had the first round, the second round was very, very close, and with Petrescu totally gassed in the third, Gerenava took control. The judges saw it as a split decision win for Gerenava. Somewhat controversial and a decent fight.

Justin Wren (Wrestling) and Brad Imes (Wrestling) make up the first of the elimination title fights. Imes had 5 inches on Wren, and this was all striking. Both men moved in and out, and it wasn’t until the second round where Wren tagged Imes with a good combination then pressed the backpedaling Imes until the ref stopped the fight. Good finish, average fight.

Brendan Schaub (Boxing/BJJ) and Dong Yi-Yang (Wrestling) are next on the main card. Yang had a 9-inch reach advantage in this one. Schaub nullified that by taking him to the ground, then using superior ground skills mounted Yang, who had no answer for his ground control. The ref stopped it less than 2 minutes in. Great fight.

Jimi Manuwa (BJJ) and Mike Ciesnolevicz (Hybrid Fighting) come out for their fight. Manuwa was the favorite coming but didn’t put on a good show. He won rounds one and two, then ran out of gas. Ciesnolevicz tried to capitalize in the third but couldn’t finish it. It was poor fight, and Manuwa won on all three cards.

The Main Event sees Ralek Gracie (BJJ) take on Jake O’Brien (Wrestling). Some standing started this fight, but in the end it was Gracie with the takedown, controlling the action, and moving to side control, where he did was able to land some effective punches. O’Brien eventually couldn’t defend himself and Gracie got the TKO. Good finish.

We had a crowd of 292 for our show, that’s a better turnout. The show was very well received (fantastic) and I do believe that we are beginning to get some notice.

Fight of the Night goes to Daniel Purder and Demico Rogers.
Knockout of the Night goes to Andre Gusmao.
There is no Submission of the Night.

[PilotMan]

Crazy thing, we get word that Renzo Gracie was beaten by Fabio Nascimento at an independent show. Sure Renzo is 42 now and probably is too easy to beat, but Nascimento is unemployed, why not bring him in. He had to be a big underdog, why not reward him?

[PilotMan]

March Rundown

We currently have 177 fighters under contract in our 6 weight divisions. That’s an average of just about 30 per division, and that’s a good number to have. I feel comfortable moving that up to 45 or 50 per division as we progress, just so that we never run out of options for our fighters.

On the books we lost another 75k, but our gate receipts have gone up, and our expenses were up in prize money as well as general wages. I wouldn’t expect March to be much different, but as long as we keep our fighting contracts in check we should be able to manage this type of performance. It was worth it the expense as our popularity at the regional level doubled from 11% to 22%.

Our tournaments are still marching toward the finals. We should be able to start running some semi-finals fights soon.

We have moved up to a tie for 14th in the promotional rankings. We are tied with CFC the Australian promotion, and we have passed KSW, the European promotion, PureCombat, Shark Fights, and X-1. The next promotions in our sights are Cage Force and Pancrase.

Here are the current promotional rankings:

1.  UFC
2.  Dream
3.  Strikeforce
4.  WEC
5.  World Victory Road
6.  Maximum Fighting Championships
7.  Shooto
8.  Bellator
9.  DEEP
10.  King of the Cage

[PilotMan]

Tim Sylvia has been fighting for MFC, and his downward career arc continues as he loses to Jon Madsen, a very green, MMA fighter from California. MFC are out to spend some money as they sign Kimbo to a big deal. Kimbo gets 40,000 per fight, which I guess is a pretty good haul, considering that is what we spend for an entire month of 16 fights and 32 fighters. Damn, that puts it into perspective.

Crafton Wallace. Not a name that you have ever heard of, or one that rolls off the tongue. But Wallace is a 31-year old, who has just won the King of the Cage Middleweight Title. He had a short stint in the UFC, that didn’t go so well, and his popularity isn’t very good, but he is a fighter that could be a player at Cage Warriors, so we sent out for his agent, to see if he would be interested in fighting here in New Jersey.

UFC 107 is shaping up to be one hell of a show. Here are the fights that are set so far.

Lesnar (4-1) v. Carwin (11-0) for the Heavyweight Title
Silva (24-4) v. Belfort (19-8) for the Middleweight Title
Rich Franklin (25-5) v. Ryan Bader (10-0)
Forrest Griffin (16-5) v. Jared Hamman (10-1)
Big Nog (32-5-1) v. Cain Velasquez (7-0)

[PilotMan]

One day before our next show, and there was a lot of MMA action. The biggest was Dream’s card that ran this morning. The Main Event saw Dream basically hand the Lightweight Title to Joachim Hansen as his opponent was a figher with an 0-4 record. I guess they do, do things differently over there.

A couple of the guys on our roster were fighting around the world. At Dream, Raphael Davis (8-1), who is in our Light Heavyweight Tournament, scored a win. Micah Miller (13-5) was also there, but he lost to Abel Cullum by subbmission in early in the first round. At Bellator, Henry Martinez (3-1) won in his Bellator debut.


Shark Fight is running a show in Texas the same night as our show in New Jersey. Their fights won’t be as good as ours though. Our snappy schedule has allowed to surpass them in popularity already.

There were no problems at the weigh in and our main event between Fabio Silva (13-5) and Jeremy Horn (81-19-5). This is the 5th show that we have put on and it’s starting to feel a little familiar. I just hope we can keep putting these good shows on.

[PilotMan]

Cage Warriors 5

The first prelim fight is between Charles Diaz (3-0,JJ) and David Douglas (4-1, Kick Boxing/BJJ). Diaz wanted to take this to the ground but couldn’t get past Douglas’ defense. Diaz shot in one too many times, as Douglas tagged him with a hard hook and knocked him out. Good fight.

Next is Danny Valimaki (3-0, Wrestling) and Karn Grigoryan (6-0, Freestyle) in the Light Heavyweight division. The fighters traded some tentative punches before Valimaki closed and pulled Karn in close, then took him down. He was able to transition into side control fairly easy, and then caught Karn rolling, took his back then was able to lock in an armbar for the win. Great fight.

Jean Francois-Bedard (1-0, Kick Boxing) and Jin Kyu-Lee (1-0, Striker) at 170lbs. No messing around here, two strikers go at it for three solid rounds. Bedard brought a bigger reputation into the fight, but was knocked down early, found himself in big trouble and survived a beating by Lee. Rounds two and three were very similar with both men going back and forth. But no other big trouble. Lee, thanks to his big first round, won on all three cards. Decent fight.

Brain McLaughlin (5-0, BJJ) is a local boy who brought his fans here, fights Carlos Quinton (6-0, Muay Thai) in the Lightweight division. McLaughlin clearly wanted this to go to the ground and he wasted no time in getting it there. Quinton had no answer for him as he was quickly mounted. He tried to escape but gave up his back and was choked out. Great fight.

The main show starts in the heavyweight division with Bryan Humes (6-0, MMA, 285lbs) going against George Bush (5-1, Wrestling, 255 lbs). It was a feeling out process as both men were careful. Bush eventually knocked Humes down with a big punch, but Humes recovered. Bush kept pressing though and caught Humes again, pounding him against the cage and forcing the stoppage. Great fight.

Next is Bao Quach (15-9-1, BJJ) going against Shoji Maruyama (6-5-1, Muay Thai) in the Featherweight division. Shoji turned it into a wrestling match early on. It was exciting that saw both men try submissions and both men seeing their positions reversed. In the end it was the superior BJJ of Quach that allowed him to sink a rear naked choke for the win. Fantastic fight.

Josh Curran (3-0, Brawler, 285lbs) and Brandon Cash (5-1, MMA, 265lbs) are next in this Heavyweight eliminator. Maybe Curran shouldn’t have been in this. He missed a kick and Cash just pushed it aside, and dumped Curran on the ground. Then Cash proceeded to pound Curran crazy. The fight was all of 39 seconds. Great fight.

Fabio Silva (13-5, Muay Thai) and Jeremy Horn (81-19-5, Freestyle JJ) in the Middleweight division in the Main Event. Silva landed a big punch right away and Horn was hurt. The ref jumped in fast saving Horn from taking more damage. Silva wins at 0:25 of round one. Great Fight.


Fight of the Night goes to Bao Quach and Shoji Maruyama.
Knockout of the Night goes to David Douglas
Submission of the Night goes to Bao Quach

This was probably the best card yet. Two very fast stoppages, good subs, and exciting fights. Horn didn’t gain any points and maybe he is just too far gone to be worth anything. Bryan Humes was on the up and coming list but taking a loss here doesn’t help. Instead it’s George Bush on the rise. I was able to make a lot of striker v. grappler fights here and the winners were pretty evenly split. Brandon Cash moves on to the Semi-finals of the heavyweight title tournament.

There were 356 fans in attendance and the show was rated as excellent.

[PilotMan]

Cage Warriors is pleased to announce Cage Warriors 7: Carter v. Edwards

Shonie Carter (49-20-7, Striking/Wrestling) v. Yves Edwards (36-15-1, JJ)
Richie Whitson (7-0, Boxing) v. Joe Duarte (5-1, Muay Thai)
Victor Valimaki (17-5, Karate) v. Ryan Jimmo (12-1, Karate)
#3 Darril Schoonover (10-0, BJJ/Kickboxing) v. #6 Blagoi Ivanov (3-0, Sambo)

----Prelims----

Koa Ramos (4-0, Hybrid) v. Spencer Harris (1-0, Wrestling)
Rodrigo Munduruca (6-0, Muay Thai/BJJ) v. Neil Wain (5-1, Brawler)
Andrew Buckland (9-6, MMA) v.  Justin Davis (9-7, MMA)
Hidenori Nishino (2-3-2, Shooto) v. Joe Morales (4-0, Wrestling)

This card has a nice balance of exciting fights in the main card, and a battle of unknowns in the prelims. The fighter to watch in the prelims is Neil Wain. On the main card the Heavyweight eliminator is going to be a very good contest. Schoonover hasn’t been beaten yet, but Ivanov is a fighter on the rise who is very well known in Japan and Europe. Carter/Edwards is an obvious name grab. I don’t see either of them in the title picture anytime soon. Richie Whitson isn’t in the lightweight tournament because he was hired late, but he is the X-1 Lightweight Champ. His opponent is Joe Duarte who is also a very accomplished stand up fighter and should make for a tough fight and good battle.

[PilotMan]

I just got off the phone with the agents for the fighters that I talked about earlier. I signed Fabio Nacimento, who defeated Renzo Gracie at an independent show. And I was also able to sign Crafton Wallace, an exciting fighter, and current holder of the King of the Cage Middleweight Title. Wallace has no popularity, but he could be a legit contender in our Middleweight division.

King Mo beat Gegard Mousasi by TKO to win the Light Heavyweight Title for Strikeforce.

[PilotMan]

Our 6th show features a pair of non-tournament lightweights in the main event. Alberto Crane is a grappling specialist who has been fighting at the regional and national level with UFC. He has been around the MMA scene for a while. His opponent Eric Reynolds is 10 years younger, but sport the identical 13-3 record. Reynolds is a striker with pretty good takedown defense.

There are no tournament fights this time, the first time that I haven’t been able to make the matchups work. I will say that I was working on booking for the end of April, when Bellator decided to run a Joe Soto v. Wilson Reis card. Good fight for them, but puts a ding in my scheduling plans.

[PilotMan]

Our first fight is set to begin. Somehow I messed up my booking and only booked 7 fights, instead of 8. I wonder if there was an injury that I missed?

The first prelim fight of the night is from the light heavyweight division and features Mark Lajhner (5-0, Judo) taking on Priscus Fogagnolo (3-0, Submission Wrestling). Both are making their debuts for Cage Warriors. Pretty sorry fight between these guys. Lajhner takes a close decision by doing just a little more. Lots of grappling and little action. Poor fight.

Next up is in the Heavyweight division, and is between Hae Joon Yang (1-0, Wrestling, 285lbs) and Orvil Palmer (4-0, Wrestling, 266lbs). Both fighters are making their Cage Warriors debut. These two big guys didn’t do much early on, it wasn’t until Palmer made a mistake and had the big Yang on top pounding and trying sub attempt after sub attempt. Yang takes the fight that was graded as average.

The last prelim fight is in featherweight division, and between Jeong Hyeon Hwang (2-1, Kick Boxing) and Sadhu Bott (3-0, BJJ). Both fighters make their CWFC debut. This fight was over when Bott scored the takedown in the 2nd round. Hwang had no answer for the ground game of Bott. Good fight.

Our main card opens in the Light Heavyweight division between Jeremiah Billington (10-2, Wrestling) and Jeremy Williams (5-0, Boxing). The debut for both men. Lots of action here. Billington was tagged hard coming in for a takedown, giving Williams solid control. Billington then caught a leg kick, and took Williams down. From there it was over. Williams was outclassed and between the hard shots, and multiple sub attempts the fight was finally stopped. Fantastic fight.

The next fight is in the middleweight division between Jacob O’Connell (3-0, BJJ) and Kala Hose (7-2, Striker). The first fight in CWFC for both men. Hose knew what was coming, and tried his best, but was still taken down. From there his obvious weakness was exploited. Hose almost lasted out the round, but had to tap with just under 30 seconds left. Great fight.

The co-main event is in the welterweight division, and is between Jesse Sanders (20-5, Boxing/Wrestling) and JJ Ambrose (10-2, BJJ). The first fight for both men in CWFC. Sanders and Ambrose came together early on and Sanders was in control on the cage. Ambrose found a guillotine choke and took Sanders down. Sanders did escape though, but fell right into a triangle and tapped out. Great fight.

The main event in the lightweight division is between Alberto Crane (13-3, BJJ) and Eric Reynolds (13-3, Muay Thai/Kick Boxing). This is the debut for both men. What a fight! Crane looked to end it in round one, taking Reynolds down and taking his back. Reynolds survived the round and came back with a vengeance in round 2. Knocking Crane down and threatening to pound him through the cage floor. But Crane survived. Crane was gassed in round 3 but got lucky enough to catch a kick and put Reynolds down. He was able to pass to side control, and worked for a choke as he took Reynolds back again. With just seconds remaining in the fight, Reynolds had to tap out giving Crane the win. Great fight.

We had 354 in attendance a dip of 2 from 2 weeks ago. Perhaps New Jersey is tiring of our torrid pace. The show was rated as excellent.

Fight of the Night goes to Crane and Reynolds in the main event.
Knockout of the night goes to Jeremiah Billington.
Submission of the Night goes to JJ Ambrose for his quick work with the triangle.

[PilotMan]

We continue our torrid pace of shows with Cage Warriors 8 again, from New Jersey. This show will run in one month at the end of April. Headlining this show is Gary Wright, an undefeated welterweight from British Columbia. Wright is a grappler with good ground and pound and is also the King of the Cage Welterweight champion. He is fighting Rudy Bears, who is 10-3 and hails from Missouri. Bears, who also fights for Strikeforce, comes from a Jiu-Jitsu backround and his ground and pound is as good as his submissions.

The co-main event is a middleweight eliminator between Gerald Harris (13-3) and Jason Lambert (23-10).

This card also features an extra preliminary fight to make up for the missed one at the last show.

Gary Wright (9-0) v. Rudy Bears (10-3) WW
Gerald Harris (13-3) v. Jason Lambert (23-10) MW
Jason Black (23-4-1) v. Kwang Hee Lee (6-1) LW
Mark Oshiro (11-2) v. Ran Weathers (13-5) LW

----Prelims----

Ryan Stonitsch (8-1) v.  Scott Norton (6-1) WW
Kevin Croke (3-0) v. Martin Stapleton (5-1) LW
Wesley Johnson (4-0) v. Jung Hyun Cho (2-0) LW
Kim My (1-0) v.  Michael Pastou (4-0) WW
Joe Heiland (6-0) v. Magomed Shikshabekov (5-0) WW

The main event should be good, but I worry about the co headliner. Jason Black needs to show that he is as good as his record. Lot’s of good fights on the prelim. I just want to see who is able to step up. In the May show we should be seeing fighters getting their second fights with the company and hopefully the continued progression of our tournament brackets.

[PilotMan]

UFC ran their big show that was number 107. Here are the results:

Brock Lesnar (5-1) beat Shane Carwin (11-1) by TKO in round 2. He retains his title.
Anderson Silva (25-4) beat Vitor Belfort (19-9) by TKO in round 1. He retains his title.
Jared Hamman (11-1) beat Forest Griffin (16-6) by KO in round 3.
Ryan Bader (11-0) beat Rich Franklin (25-6) by TKO in round 1.
Cain Velasquez (8-0) beat Big Nog (32-6-1) by KO in round 2.

That right there is a damn fine card. Just looking at the losers list is a who’s who of the UFC.

At the tender age of 44, Tank Abbot has joined Maximum Fighting Championships in Canada.

[PilotMan]

APRIL 2010

Heading out to the main office for our monthly rundown meeting.

First up was the P&L. We showed a loss of 50k. That is an improvement of 33% over the previous month. The biggest reason for the change was merchandise being the #1 income producer, surpassing our gate receipts. Prize money was down, as was our signing bonuses. Marketing is slowly increasing, but sponsorship really hasn’t. All in all things are trending where we want them.

Another reason this was the best month ever was the biggest increase in popularity. We have moved to a mid level regional at 34%. That is up 12% from last month, and put us at #13 overall and #6 in the US. In the US we trail UFC, Strikeforce, WEC, Bellator, and King of the Cage. We are going to move past King of the Cage quickly, but it will take a while to catch Bellator. We are going to crack the top 10 internationally within the next couple of months. What we need is a TV show.

We are up to 181 fighters, and I am happy with that for now. We may pick one here and there, but until we lose some we aren’t going to be in a big buying mood.

Here is a list of our top 10 pound for pound.

1.  Jeff Curran (31-12-1)
2.  Ralek Gracie (3-0)
3.  Jimi Manuwa (5-0)
4.  Brenden Schaub (5-0)
5.  Joe Soto (9-0) 
6.  Ryan Ford (12-2)
7.  Antonio McKee (22-3-2)
8.  Din Thomas (25-8)
9.  Raphael Davis (8-1)
10.  Chris Wilson (15-6)

One other thought is that our fighters need to get some more exposure. As we are jumping up in popularity the number of guys on our roster that can carry a show is shrinking rapidly. The guys that we do have aren’t the showstopping kind, more like the downward slide kind.

Also I am taking some heat about the speed of this tournament. We are almost 6 months in and still haven’t had a title fight yet. Fans like Champions, and right now we have given them 0. Hopefully we can move this along quickly.

[PilotMan]

Ha! Apparently Tank Abbot has had second thoughts about his career. Before his first fight he says his next will be his last.

Big signing for Cage Warriors. We signed Brock Larson (27-3) away from the UFC. Apparently we were willing to pay him to be a big fish in a small pond rather than a little fish in a big pond. Keep in mind our contract isn’t exclusive, but they wouldn’t compete with our offer. So there is always the chance that he could be signed away from us before the next two years are up. He is a stud by our standards, and easily one of the most popular guys on the roster. We gave him a heavily incentive laden contract. Hopefully by the time it gets expensive, we will be pulling some more money.

[PilotMan]

A busy day, I finished booking our CWFC 9 card and then went to the arena early to make sure that things were set up for our show tonight. The main event is between Shonie Carter and Yves Edwards. These two have been around the block a time or two and should know how to put on a show. There are 4 prelim fights and 4 fights on the main card.

Our first fight of the night is in the lightweight division and is between Hidenori Nishino (2-3-2, Shooto) and Joe Morales (4-0, Wrestling). A controversial decision for Nishino, even though he was in trouble in round one, and just narrowly fought off a couple of submission attempts and clearly lost round three. Morales did well but just didn’t have enough offense in round one to get the win. Decent fight.

Next up is Andrew Buckland (9-6, MMA) and Justin Davis (9-7, MMA) in the welterweight division. Both fighters are making their debuts. This was a good show for both men. Both stood and banged for the whole first round, and Buckland just missed a few huge punches. Round two, started as more of the same, but it was Davis who hit the big shot, and knocked Buckland down. A short scramble saw Buckland tap out from an armbar. Good fight

The third prelim fight is in the heavyweight division. Rodrigo Munduruca (6-0, Muay Thai/BJJ, 285lbs) v. Neil Wain (5-1, Brawler, 285). Both fighters are making their debuts. Munduruca made short work of Wain. Wain attempted a kick, but Munduruca was too fast and caught it, then took him down. Wain was submitted shortly thereafter. Good start for Munduruca who was expected to do anything.

The last prelim fight is in the middleweight division and features Koa Ramos (4-0, Hybrid) and Spence Herns (1-0, Wrestling). Both fighter are debuting. It was a poor fight. Neither man seemed to take the fight to the other. Herns was a bit more dominant and won the unanimous decision.

The opening of the main card is the heavyweight eliminator fight between Darril Schoonover (10-0, Kick Boxing/BJJ, 265) and Blagoi Ivanov (3-0, Sambo, 265). The winner moves on to face Brandon Cash. Both men wanted this on the ground, but it was Schoonover who was better. Ivanov tried sub after sub, but Schoonover defended all of them. In the meanwhile neither fighter took any damage. It was 29-28 on all three cards. A decent fight.

At light heavyweight Victor Valimaki (17-5, Karate) and Ryan Jimmo (12-1, Karate) make their CWFC debuts. Valimaki kept trying to take this to the ground, but Jimmo was too good. Eventually Jimmo tagged him while he was shooting in and knocked him out. Jimmo wins in a decent fight.

Our co-main event is in the lightweight division. Richie Whitson (7-0, Boxing) is going against Joe Duarte (5-1, Muay Thai). Both men make their debuts. This was supposed to be an exciting fight. A lot of circling early on. Duarte realized he couldn’t stand with Whitson so for the next round and a half pushed and leaned on Whitson and controlled the whole fight. Just when it looked over, both men were tired, Duarte was comfortably ahead, Whitson landed a big 1-2 and Duate went flying. A few more punches and the ref stopped the fight. Whitson remains undefeated. Great fight.

Shonie Carter (49-20-7, MMA) against Yves Edwards (36-15-1, Thugjitsu) in the welterweight division, in our main event. Edwards started fast shooting for the takedown early on but couldn’t get it. Carter then gets Edwards against the cage when he controls him there. Carter gets tagged twice and after the second goes down. Edwards jumps in locks a kimura on and Carter taps. Great fight.

A big crowd of 694 for our excellent show. We have to feel good about that.

Fight of the Night goes to Yves Edwards and Shonie Carter
Knockout of the Night goes to Ryan Jimmo
Submission of the night goes to Rodrigo Munduruca

[PilotMan]

This run of a show every two weeks continues into May. We announce the card, for our show in the first week of May, and in addition to the 8 fights we normally run, we are adding two additional fights one on the main show and a preliminary fight. This brings us up to 10 total fights. A total that I am sure we will stay at for some time. From a financial point of view it is going to drive our costs up. However, I don’t believe that it will hurt us all that much. Our revenues are on the rise, and I want to make sure that we are able to develop all the fighters on our roster. If we can’t do that our fighters wont rise with our promotion.

Cage Warriors 9: Thomas v. Fiordirosa

#1 Din Thomas (25-8) v. #4 Matt Fiordirosa (12-1) FW
Jordan Radev (17-4) v. Fabio Silva (14-5) MW
Hideo Tokoro (22-17-1) v. Issei Tamura (5-0) FW
Kevin Casey (3-1) v. Phil Davis (4-0) LHW
Andy Kappas (2-1) v. Ben Askren (3-0) WW

----Prelims----

George Bush (6-1) v. Mark Burch (9-2) HW 
Neil Cooke (5-0) v. Mike Hayes (5-0) HW
Matt Grice (9-2) v. Ricardo Tirlone (8-2) LW
Scott McAfee (7-1) v. Sergio Gomez (8-2) LW
Tony Ballout (2-0) v. Dan Cramer (3-1) MW

Our main event is a featherweight eliminator with the winner advancing to the finals. Thomas is heavily favored. The co-main sees Fabio Silva try and work his way up the ladder against Radev. Kevin Casey and Ben Askren are both highly touted fighters looking to make it big here in the CWFC. Neither one has an easy fight. George Bush tries to make it two in a row on the undercard. The rest make their debuts.

[Terps]

Dig following these MMA dynasties.

Question, I know this is developed by Ryland, who does the wrestling sims. I have to assume this isn't as tedious as TEW since you don't have to set angles and such. Is that a good assumption? It's the only thing holding me out from purchasing, since those games were such a click fest.

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by Terps

Dig following these MMA dynasties.

Question, I know this is developed by Ryland, who does the wrestling sims. I have to assume this isn't as tedious as TEW since you don't have to set angles and such. Is that a good assumption? It's the only thing holding me out from purchasing, since those games were such a click fest.

Thanks for reading along! You are right, it isn't a clickfest on that level. In fact, it is much better than the original too. The game world moves right on without much interference from you. Although, I think that it's important that you get a feel for your roster, just like you do in TEW. There are always guys moving up and down the roster. And this version is a big step up from WMMA 1 both in clicking and the matchmaking section. I really like it so far. Keep reading!

[PilotMan]

Randy Couture and Tito Ortiz headline UFC 108.

At a Strikeforce show, Robbie Lawler (18-5) beat Mayhem Miller (23-8).

WEC has cancelled a show due to not being able to fufill enough fights for the show. That can’t be a good sign.

Dream has also announced that they have cancelled their DREAM 17 show due to scheduling issues.

The next US promotion in our sights is that of Bellator. We share a lot of talent with them, and last night they ran a card that featured a rematch between Joe Soto, and Wilson Reis. Both fighters are in our featherweight division, and Soto is in the elimination tourney. So this fight does impact us. The show was only 5 fights, and Soto defended his title in a grueling 5 round decision. The fighter that caught my attention was Jesse Juarez. Juarez is 12-5 and totally unknown in the US, but he put on a good show and won his fight. He is a well rounded welterweight. A division we happen to be a little fat in. Still, we will explore bringing him in.


After a few months of being a free agent, Dan Henderson has resigned with UFC.

Both UFC and WEC ran cards last night. UFC fight night winners were Gabe Gonzaga over Cheick Kongo in the Main Event. Other winners on the night were Demian Maia, Yoshihiro Akiyama, Dennis Kang, and Shinya Aoki over Gomi in the debut for both.

Jens Pulver lost another fight, this one to Wagnney Fabiano. Our only fighter in the WEC show was Cub Swanson. Swanson won his fight by submission over Leonard Garcia.

[PilotMan]

Cage Warriors 8: Wright v. Bears

The first fight of the night is in the welterweight division. Joe Heiland (6-0, Striker) goes against Magomed Shikshabekov (5-0, Sambo). Both fighters are making their debut’s tonight. A good fight to start the night. Magomed was too much for Heiland who kept finding himself on his back, and eventually in an armbar.

Next up, in welterweight division, is Kim My (1-0, Wrestling) and Michael Pastou (4-0, Freestyle). If you like a lot of grappling and pushing and shoving this was your fight. My was the aggressor, but Pastou was too good. In the end it was Pastou narrowly pulling out the victory. Average fight.

Our third of four prelim fights is in the lightweight division. Wesley Johnson (4-0, Freestyle) and Jung Hyun Cho (2-0, Kick Boxing) are getting set to face off. Johnson didn’t want to stand with Cho, and was able to take him down easily. Cho’s defense on his back was not good, and it resulted in a submission win for Johnson. Great fight.

Our last fight of the night is in the lightweight division. Kevin Croke (3-0, Freestyle) squares off aginst Martin Stapleton (5-1, Boxing/Wrestling). Croke really pressed the action, and neither did much damage until the third round. It was then that a tired Croke was nailed with a high kick and knocked out by Stapleton. Average fight.

We open the main show off in the welterweight division. The fight is between Ryan Stonitsch (8-1, Muay Thai) and Scott Norton (6-1, Submission Wrestling). Stonitsch made a good showing for himself, controlling the fight in from the clinch, and keeping Norton from gaining any advantage while he was in guard. Norton lacked the skill to get the takedown and couldn’t take advantage when Stonitsch was gassed halfway through the second round. Average fight.

From the lightweight division Mark Oshiro (11-2, Freestyle) and Ran Weathers (13-5, Boxing/Wrestling) are ready to get it on. Weathers was clearly superior here. Oshiro didn’t belong in there. Weathers took him down right away, and pounded him with elbows, the mounted him and landed even more until it was stopped. Great fight.

Jason Black (23-4-1, Wrestling) and Kwang Hee Lee (6-1, Kick Boxing) are up next from the lightweight division. Black was to look for the takedown, but Lee was pinpoint accurate with his strikes and a hard one found its way through and Black was put down. Lee jumped in and without hesitation finished Black off. Great fight.

The fight from our middleweight eliminator is next. Gerald Harris (13-3, Wrestling) and Jason Lambert (23-10, Wrestling) are set to go. Very close round one where Harris was on his back, but still very aggressive. Then Harris with a big slam of Lambert, who managed to escape only to be put back down. Lambers sweeps Harris, but it’s Harris that hit’s the triangle choke and Lambert has to tap. Gerald Harris moves on. Good fight.

Our main event is next between Gary Wright (9-0, Wrestling) and Rudy Bears (10-3, American JJ) in the welterweight division. And this resulted in the worst main event so far. Wright and Bears went at it on the ground, it w as strength against strength and it was as even as they come. Neither fighter could get any extended offense going, and while there was a lot of reversals, grappling it wasn’t all that crowd pleasing. All three judges score it 29-28, one for Bears and two for Wright. Decent fight.

We had 728 fans on hand for the show, a new record, and the show was rated excellent.

Fight of the Night goes to Gerald Harris and Jason Lambert
Knockout of the Night goes to Martin Stapleton for his big kick on Kevin Croke.
Submission of the Night goes to Gerald Harris for his triangle choke.

[PilotMan]

CWFC are pleased to announce our 10th show this year. We are on pace for 24 shows this year alone. This show will again, be in New Jersey, and will feature a main event where the age separation between the fighter is 22 years.

Cage Warriors 10: McKee v. Held

#2 Antonio McKee (22-3-2) v. #7 Marcin Held (5-0) LW
#4 Paul Sass (9-0) v. #5 Karen Darabeddyan (9-1) LW
Lolohea Mahe (4-1) v. Seth Petruzelli (11-4) LHW
#4 James Lee (13-3) v. #5 Marcus Sursa (6-4) LHW
JJ Ambrose (11-2) v. Danillo Villefort  (10-2) WW

----Prelims----

Tom Watson (9-3) v. Reggie Orr (9-7-1) MW
Yahir Reyes (15-6) v. Jason Reinhardt (20-2) FW
Roman Shipp (2-0) v. Yoshihiro Nakao (9-2) HW
Stephen Ledbetter (7-4) v. Zac George (17-3) LW
Rich Anderson (2-0) v. Jin-Kyu Lee (2-0) WW

Three of the fights on the main card are tournament eliminators. McKee comes in as one of the best in his weight class even at the age of 40. His opponent Marcin Held is just 18, and already considered one of the best prospects around. Seth Petruzelli returns to the cage in his first fight since beating Kimbo Slice. He fights a big Hawaiian in Mahe. Look for a slugfest there. The fighter to watch on the undercard is Tom Watson. Watson is the UK UC Middleweight Champ, and is making his US debut. He is a big name in the UK, but a no name here.

[PilotMan]

Gilbert Yvel and Renzo Gracie have signed with the UFC.

MAY 2010 Rundown

Another month where things are going in the right direction. From a P&L standpoint this was our best month yet. We posted a loss of only 38k, which is over 20% less than last month, and almost half of two months ago. Our best area was improved gate receipts which almost tripled over last month. Merch was good, but only half of our gate. On the expenses side, our increased number of fights shows up, but is still not as high as two months ago. The last couple of months have also shown an increase in admin as well as marketing.

Our popularity is higher than ever. We are up to 46% from 34% last month. That is good enough to move us up to #9 in the world. We have leapt over DEEP and Kings of the Cage, and now have Bellator and surprisingly World Victory Road up next. Our standing in the US is #5. Only UFC, WEC, Strikeforce, and Bellator are more popular.

On a more general note, WVR has fallen in Japan, once a near national company they keep shrinking and haven’t run any good cards lately. They have fallen behind Shooto in popularity. Maximum Fighting Championships in Canada are doing very well, and are looking to overtake Strikeforce. WEC and UFC are the top two with DREAM being the top company in Japan.

[PilotMan]

Kimbo Slice wins in his MFC debut with a knockout over Soa Palelei (9-3). On the same card our fight Bryan Baker (9-3) was submitted in the first round. MFC then announces that they have signed Brian Gassaway. Gassaway is one of the old guard of MMA fighters, and has been fighting since 1996.

DREAM is working on a good card that features a fight between Eddie Alvarez and Joachim Hansen for the lightweight title. Josh Barnett is also on the card, as is a rematch of Joe Warren and Kid Yamamoto. Yamamoto was upset by the American wrestler just about a year ago. That was his last loss and only loss in the last 8 years.

UFC 108 ran last night.

The main event was a little disappointing, and saw Tito Ortiz take a decision over Randy Couture. Other winners on the night were Alexsander Emelianenko, Cro-Cop. Surprise of the night was WVR import Alexandre Ribero getting a submission on Rampage in his UFC debut. Fight of the night saw Diego Sanchez beat Joe Stevenson.