- Saturday, June 30, 2012 7:30pm ET featuring Rise of a Warrior 7 at the Havert L. Fenn Center in Fort Pierce, Florida. In the main event, Raymond Camp (5-0-1) fights Frederico Moncaio (6-0) with the winner advancing to the finals of the welterweight tournament. Both prospects are undefeated in their amateur career and the winner of this bout will no doubt be riding a wave of momentum into the tourney finals. The well-versed Camp comes into the fight after fighting to a draw in his last bout. Before that he was 5-0 with wins coming a variety of ways. Camp is strong on the ground and also has heavy hands so he will look to make a statement in this bout and leave nothing to the judges. Moncaio is a submission specialist with all 6 wins coming via tapout. Moncaio has South Florida talking, and it will be interesting to see what Camp has in store for Moncaio, because so far, nobody Moncaio has faced has been able to stop his grappling attack. Also on the card, Wesley Barnes (8-1) battles Carlos Lopez (2-0) for the second spot in the 170 lb finals tournament. Barnes will have the experience advantage when they step into the cage and Barnes is also a grappling expert as 5 of his victories have come via submission. Lopez finds himself in a great scenario as he has made it to the final four in the tourney and shown that he has the cardio to grind down opponents and wear them out on the mat. This will be a contrast in styles as Barnes likes to get things down to the ground and work on a submission, while Lopez likes to use his hands and wear his opponents down.
- Saturday, June 30, 2012 8:00pm ET featuring Ultimate Warrior Fighting “Tournament of Warriors Finale” at the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi, Texas.. In the lightweight finals, always-exciting Rey Trujillo (Bushi Ban) is set to take on “Legendary” Flavio Alvaro of Gold Team. Increasingly becoming known as a go-for-broke knockout artist, Rey Trujillo has been fighting out of the Southeast Houston / Pasadena area for the entirety of his career and has made a name for himself by virtue of his penchant for being involved in exciting fights. Previous to the tournament his highlight reel including some vicious knockouts – including a win over Munil Adriano at Legacy on HDNet and another against Jose Santibanez at the Strikeforce: Houston undercard just a year earlier. He would continue that trend of producing fan-friendly fights in the UWF tournament with his exciting opening round scrap against Chris Pecero and his absolutely brutal knockout of Gilbert Jimenez at the semi-finals in Laredo. He’ll be taking on his biggest challenge yet when he faces the brawny Brazilian on June 30th. Meanwhile at welterweight, two other fighters with Houston links will also step in to decide the grand prix winner in the form of young prospect Lucas Pimenta and longtime Houston fan favorite John Malborugh. Perhaps the most notable “blue chip” prospect in the entire tournament, Gold Team’s Lucas Pimenta has had just about zero problems at all earning his birth in the finals. Taking on UFC veteran Shamar Bailey in the opening round, he would put the entire tournament on notice by stifling any attack his well-traveled opponent threw his way before finishing things with a blistering knee to force the stoppage. He would continue on with that same momentum in the semi-final round with his second round submission stoppage of another highly-experiened opponent in Mitchell Whitessel. On the other side of the bracket, Houston’s John “The Maniac” Malbrough has taken an unusual road to the finals. Heck, some might even consider it a free pass, though through no fault of his own. John initially advanced with a first-round submission win over fellow Houstonian Larry Hopkins in the opening round. He would then face Coloradoan wrestler Justin Guthrie in the second round and actually lose the unanimous decision. Lucky for him, Guthrie was not able to make the welterweight limit prior to the bout – enabling Malbrough to move forward by default. He won’t find things so easy with his final bout against the hulking Brazilian prospect Pimenta but “The Maniac” can never be entirely counted out either. After all, the biggest payday of your career is wonderful motivation to fight your heart out and produce a miracle.
- Saturday, June 30, 2012 8:00pm ET featuring Cage Fury Fighting Championships “CFFC XV” at the Resorts Hotel and Casino. In the main event, undefeated Tim “The South Jersey Strangler” Williams (6-0) fights Lewis “The Beast” Rumsey (8-7) in a highly anticipated middleweight showdown. Williams is coming off a jaw dropping victory against UFC veteran Andre Gusmao in his last bout as he was able to outlast the strong Brazilian and finish him via TKO in the final round in epic fashion. So far, Williams has passed every test in the cage with each exam getting tougher as this time around he will be taking on the grizzled vet, Rumsey who is a Bellator veteran and has twice the experience as Williams. Williams is known for keeping constant pressure on his opponents either with punches and kicks on the feet or relentless takedowns and submission attempts on the mat. Nobody has every outworked Williams in the cage and it’s a streak he plans on continuing against Rumsey on June 30. With all 6 of his bout ending in either KO or submission, Williams is one of the centerpieces of CFFC and East Coast MMA in general. Rumsey comes into the bout looking to win some of the glory for him, and if he can give Williams his first loss he will do just that. Rumsey is a rugged fighter from Williamsport, Pennsylvania and on a 2-fight win streak looking to make it 3 in a row. Rumsey has only gone to a decision once in his career and his high risk-high reward style has made him a fan favorite in his home state of Pennsylvania and he looks to do the same in New Jersey where he will throw everything but the kitchen sink at Williams when the two step into the cage. In the co-main event Daniel Holmes (2-0) battles Anton Berzin (1-1). Both of Holmes wins have come via submissions (guillotine choke) and he has proved to have a tough will as the pressure of fighting on such a big stage so early in his career has not fazed Holmes one bit. But in the challenger Berzin, he finds almost a mirror image of himself on the ground and might want to work his hands more inside the cage for this bout. Berzin comes into the fight splitting his pro bouts while going (5-0) as an amateur. Berzin is a grappling wizard and will look to get the bout to the mat early on without taking too much damage from Holmes in the process. Berzin is a NAGA Champion and there are very few fighters in the world that can beat him on the ground. Odd are this bout is going to end up on the ground at some point and it will likely play out like a high-level chess match as both fighters have proven they can finish fights in a split second with a bone-crunching or excruciating submission hold.
- Saturday, June 30, 2012 9:00pm ET featuring MMA Total Mayhem presents “Raptors Rage in the Cage” at Lindquist Field in Ogden, Utah. In the main event, “Mad” Mike Arrant (7-6) battles Brandon “The Murderer” Melendez (16-18) in a welterweight showdown. Arrant is a Utah legend and has fought all over the state and made a name for himself with his crowd pleasing style. Arrant likes to throw punches in bunches and will trade strikes with anyone. He prefers to stand in the middle of the ring and let his fists do the talking. Look for Arrant to be swinging for the fences in this bout. For the UFC vet Melendez, he will fight anyone, anywhere as evidenced by him coming from the Midwest to fight Arrant in what amounts to his own backyard. Melendez is heavy hitter himself and prefers to keep things standing just like his opponent. This bout promises to start the Fourth of July holiday out early as this fight will have lots of fireworks in it. In the other featured co-main event, Gabe Francis (5-3) takes on Josh Buck (6-13) who is replacing Clay Collard. Francis is a lightweight out of Utah who is a grappling expert with all 5 of his wins coming via tapout. He will look for the takedown early to try and get the fight to the mat where he is well-versed and deadly. Buck will have the experience advantage with over twice the amount of fights and his high risk-high reward style has made him a fan favorite with Total Mayhem fans. Look for Buck to try and end the fight early on punches. These lightweights will go into the cage with only one thing on their mind – finishing the fight before it goes to the judges.
