In this edition of the Canadian Corner we have news on all things Canadian MMA including TKO's new year end awards show, UFC referee's showing up in Canada, Secntioning of Vernon, B.C, for MMA, and the province by province break down of MMA events and happenings that will take place till the end of the year 2005. We also have news on Jonathan Goulet's next UFC appearance, and all things Canadian MMA, Without furthur ado lets move on to the tenth edition of the Canadian Corner.
In this edition of the Canadian Corner we have news on all things Canadian MMA including TKO’s new year end awards show, UFC referee’s showing up in Canada, Secntioning of Vernon, B.C, for MMA, and the province by province break down of MMA events and happenings that will take place till the end of the year 2005. We also have news on Jonathan Goulet’s next UFC appearance, and all things Canadian MMA, Without furthur ado lets move on to the tenth edition of the Canadian Corner. Montreal
TKO
TKO will be taking their next show to Victoriaville Quebec where they will see the return of Hometown sensation Jonathan Goulet in the main event against UFC veteran Shonie Carter. Goulet is coming off the biggest fight of his career, a win in the UFC over Jay Heiron in what has been described as one of the bloodiest fights ever and will make his return to Victoriaville where he currently lives and trains. Goulet’s manager and TKO president told MMARR “It is worthy of a main event it is in Jonathans hometown. Shonie Carter is a crafty veteran and the styles are going to match up to make a great fight.” Speaking of the UFC, another interesting tidbit is one of the best referee’s in the UFC will also be making his way to the province of Quebec. TKO president Stephane Patry tells us he is bringing in Steve Mazagatti, who is widely considered to be one of the better refs in the UFC to the TKO organization for the first time. There have been complaints about the refereeing in the Quebec Athletic Commission being inconsistent, and this can only be seen as a big step in a positive direction for not only the TKO organization but MMA in Canada as a whole to see some of the top referee’s in the business make the trek north of the border to Canada. TKO 23 will take place on November 5th in Victoriaville, Quebec, at the Collisee Bois Francs the card is as follows and is subject to change. Jonathan Goulet vs. Shonie Carter
Fabio Holanda vs. TBA
Sam Stout vs. Donald Ouimet
Chris Horodecki vs. David Goulet
Kzystof Soszinski vs Martin Desilets
Stephane Vigneault vs. Greg Compton
Thierry Quenneville vs. Max Marin The next TKO event after that will be in Quebec City on December 17th and will see the return of 3 time UFC veteran Patrick Cote to fight in front of his hometown crowd for the first time since he knocked out Bill Mahood to earn the chance to compete in the UFC and will face off against UFC veteran Marvin Eastman. The event is expected to have 3 championship bouts with Mark Hominick and Iccho Larenas also defending their super lightweight and Heavyweight titles respectively. In addition to the event TKO president Stephane Patry tells us they will also have their first Yearly TKO awards at the December event. The awards ceremony could take place four fights into the card during the intermission and possible award categories are as follows: TKO’s Best striker
TKO’s Best grappler
TKO Fighter of the year
TKO Rookie of the year
Most impressive TKO fighter on the international scene
Most improved TKO fighter
TKO’s Best Trainer TKO is rumored to have 12 categories in all, for fighters to be eligible for the awards, the fighter must have fought on a TKO card during the year to qualify. The voting is done by media and fans as well as fighters and trainers. Voting is rumored to begin on November 7th, and during the December 17th event. The votes will be tabulated while the event takes place and voting closes at 9pm in order to allow for the tabulation of the votes in time for the awards ceremony before the main events. TKO is planning to hold such an awards event every year in December. The Card for the December 17th show looks to be as follows. Marvin Eastman vs. Patrick Cote
Mark Homnick vs. TBA
Iccho Larenas vs. TBA Apex
Their APex 2 "Undisputed" PPV on November 10th on Viewers Choice and December 17th on ExpressVU. Apex Matchmaker Alex Capporicci tells MMARR "We’re looking to have 5-6 shows in 2006 and are expanding our shows to include more kickboxing." Alberta
Maximum Fighting Championships
MFC 9 “No excuses” will take place sometime in 2006 and should again take place at the Shaw Conference Centre, Jason MacDonald, Victor Valimaki, Blake Fredrickson, Jordan McKay, Kevin Dolan, are all rumored to be on the card but another big name that will make the trip to the city of champions will be Ken Shamrock. He will be bringing two of his fighters from the Lion’s Den, Anthony Johnson and Clyde Bowman to compete on the card. The website for the MFC is www.maximumfighting.com In other big news the president of the MFC Mark Pavelich will be bringing Kickboxing to Edmonton in the form of KX. The first event aptly titled KX-1, is happening in the first half of 2006. The event will utilize full K-1 rules and is sanctioned by the Edmonton boxing commission. Their official website can be found at www.kickboxingx.com Pavelich is hoping to have Team Tompkins fighters headlining the event. In addition to his promotional duties he is also managing Jason MacDonald and is in the enviable position of having a fighter on his hands that just defeated Joe Doerksen. He told MMARR "It was a great fight between Jason and Joe, I think most people saw what Jason MacDonald is finally capable of doing. Joe is a exceptional fighter and is a true warrior. Jason’s has been improving his boxing, his Wrestling and BJJ not to mention his Conditioning since he started to train with Pro Camp.I have never seen someone so committed to succeeding. Do not be surprised to see him on the next TUF [The Ultimate Fighter] Show and do not be surprised to see him wearing the UFC Middleweight Belt one day... Remember, you heard it here first." King of the Cage Saskatchewan?
Unfortunately at this time the answer is no. One of the promoters of the show, Keith Crawford told MMA Ring Report via email, “The fight card planned for Saskatoon, Saskatchewan has been cancelled due to the City banning the sport. The mayor and City council decided, after 13 years of allowing unprofessional, unsanctioned events to happen, to ban King of the Cage for lack of a Boxing and Wrestling Commission. Sad day for our sport, many great home town athletes will not be able to compete in front of their home town crowd.” On a positive note Calgary will see their second King of the Cage event on December 3rd at the Stampede Corral in what is shaping up to be a very strong card. It looks as if King of the Cage is committed to the Canadian market and it can only mean good things to seem more and more Mixed Martial Arts competition in and around the country. The upcoming Calgary card has a tentative lineup that is as follows, card subject to change at any time. King of the Cage “Conquest”
Main Event
Ronald "The Machine Gun" Jhun (23-15-2 Hawaii) vs. Mario Stapel (10-6 Germany) Feature Bouts:
Canadian KOTC Welterweight Title
Jason St. Louis (Saskatoon) vs. Jessie Bongfeldt (Lethbridge)
Krzysztof Soszynski (Winnipeg) vs. Jimmy Westfall (El Paso, Texas)
Canadian Bantamweight KOTC Title
Ryan "The Lion" Diaz (British Columbia) vs. Max "Little Sumo" Marin (Calgary)
Blake "The Snake" Fredrickson (Port Moody, BC) vs. Jake Short (Detroit, Michigan)
Mike Cisnolevicz (USA) vs. Chris "Mountain of Mayhem" Peak (Victoria, BC)
Justin “Houdini” Tavernini vs. Leo “The Rising Son” Uriquez Tentative:
Richard "The Monkey" Nancoo (Toronto, Ontario) vs. Del Hawkins (Arizona) Other possible competitors on the card include:
“Ragin” Kajan Johnson, Travis “The Gladiator” Galbraith, Chris “The Polish Hammer” Hordecki, Tim Tamaki, Kevin Manderson, Greg Rogalski, Jason Tatlow, and Nick Perry, Manitoba
UCW 3
Soszyinski crafted a strong main event and in the biggest upset in their short history Jason MacDonald took out local standout Joe Doerksen in an entertaining affair on Oct 22nd. Their next UCW event in Winnipeg will be on Saturday May 13th and will be UCW 4 “Mothers Day Massacre.” The DVD’s for the UCW 2 and 3 event are also on the way and they are hoping to have both available for purchase at the next event in Winnipeg which could see a triple main event of Joe Doerksen, Krzystof Soszinski and Chris Fontaine headline the card in their biggest event yet. They are also hoping to have title fights on the card as well. British Columbia
WFF 10 “Direct Hit”
The next World Freestyle Fighting event will be their 10th show and is entitled “Direct Hit.” The show will again take place at the Croatian Cultural Centre and be on November 26th. One of the bouts will see the winner make their way to fight in Japan in a Japanese Shooto event. That fight will be Ben Greer vs. Robert Shabaga at 143.3 pounds. The promoter Jason Towns tells us “We are really excited to get a chance to help these fighters get opportunities like this.” Wff Shooto and UFC veteran Bill Mahood will also be making his way to Vancouver to take on American Shane Lightle in a light heavyweight matchup. Mahood is coming off a quick win in his last Shooto appearance and has told MMARR he is hoping to gear himself up for another run at the UFC. The tentative lineup for WFF 10 “Direct Strike” is as follows. Card subject to change. Bob Shabaga vs. Ben Greer
Bill Mahood vs. Shane Lightle
Ken Tran vs. Tim Jensen
Sal Ram vs. Kris Milligan
Len Smith vs. Dave Scholten
Russ Buek vs. Adam Thomas
Jose Ramirez vs. Greg Rejo
Hardip Singh vs. Kevin Barkhouse
Aquawaii Requelme vs. Gary Wright Combat Athletics Grappling event.
Combat Athletics will be holding their 4th event on November 5th, in White Rock British Columbia, all submission grapplers are welcome to compete in the competition. For more info visit www.combatathletics.com Evolution
Evolution has a new instructor. After losing Joe Doerksen who is concentrating on his MMA career they have introduced Dan “The Wolfman” Theodore to Vernon B.C. Theodore is a Pancrase and veteran and has faced off against the likes of Yuki Kondo and Jeremy Horn. He has trained all over the world spending time with such top talent as Team Miletich, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, Team Punishment and Tank Abbott. He’s written for Ultimate Athlete and Fightsport in the past, and currently writes for Fighters Only in the U.K. Live-Ins are also available for $500 CDN a month at the Evolution Mixed Martial Arts Academy where Mr. Theodore is the head trainer. For more info contact
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for more info. Sanctioning in Vernon
The time has finally come for the sanctioning of MMA in Vernon B.C. One of the men leading the charge in the campaign for sanctioning in Vernon is Jason Darrah and he spoke with MMARR about the prospect of seeing MMA in Vernon. It has been a a couple years since the show “Shut up and Fight” was shut down and Darrah has since been hard at work to rectify the situation and his hard work has finally paid off. “On Monday the 24th, they elected all the members of the commission, they elected 4 of the members.” They want 5 members on the commission itself, they didn’t want to put one of the current city council members on the commission because obviously with the election they don’t know who will be sitting on council. So in three weeks as soon as council is complete one of those members will sit on there….Basically in three weeks it is complete but right now it is already moving forward. As far as rules, nothing is set in stone but he told MMARR “I would like to try to go with some of the older TKO rules, basically what Prince George just used. Basically with elbows up and down on the ground…[and knees on the ground as well.] He will have two separate sets of rules one for amateur fights and one for pro fights. He will have cards that mix amateur and pro fights. Darrah is hoping to have MMA shows in Vernon as soon as early January or February of 2006. The show will not be “Shut up and Fight” it will be the Western Freestyle Championships and Darrah will be the promoter of the show. He is hoping to have the shows in the Vernon recreational Center as well as the local nightclub/Bar which holds approximately 500 people. Vernon joins Nanaimo, Prince George, and Vancouver as the only cities to have sanctioned MMA events in British Columbia. . Odds and Ends
Sean Sherk vs. Georges St. Pierre November 19th
Georges St. Pierre will be making his return to the UFC with a battle against the very tough Sean Sherk. Why St. Pierre is taking such a tough fight with a possible title shot on the line is explained by his manager Stephane Patry. “Sherk is a very tough guy, a very good wrestler, very good athlete and it is going to be a tough fight, but because of Hughes vs. Parisyan we were put in a position where we would have gone 6 months without a fight. Georges is very confident that he will beat Hughes [if they rematch], and if he does win that rematch, he is going to have to fight Sean Sherk anyways so he might as well do it now.” Jonathan Goulet vs. Ansar Chalangov at UFC 56 November 19th
Another Canadian making his way to the UFC 56 on November 19th is Jonathan Goulet, that is provided he can get by veteran Shonie Carter on November 5th in TKO. Goulet for his part told MMARR, "I’m ready to fight for sure and I’m in a real good shape now for sure the fans are going to have a lot of action this night.”Goulet defeated Jay Heiron in their preliminary matchup at Ultimate Fight Night 2 by doctor stoppage due to a cut and he will be making his second UFC appearance. His opponent will be the undefeated Ansar Chalangov, who is coming off a win over Dennis Hallman in the MFC in New Jersey. Goulet told us he is taking his fights “Step by step” and is only looking at his next fight with Shonie Carter right now. The Sushiboy in Double XL Magazine
New Canadian health and fitness magazine “Double XL” will again feature two indepth interviews on MMA by MMA Ring Report’s own “Sushiboy” Arnold Lim. The issue, featuring 2 in depth interviews, 1 with UFC light Heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell and 1 with "The Ultimate Fighter" 2 coach Matt Hughes is on the newsstands soon and can be found at Chapters bookstores so get your copy today. For more info on the magazine check out their website at www.doublexlmagazine.com MMA Ring Report Fighter of the night.
MMA Ring Report has since handed out the 11th,12th and 13th editions of the “MMARR Fighter of the Night” Mr. Sam Stout and Jason MacDonald currently hold the record for the most MMARR Fighter of the night Awards with two, as well as most consecutive with 2 and both will be looking to build on his record in future events. If your event is looking to getting involved in awarding the MMA Ring Report fighter of the night award contact us
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Your event must have a post fight press conferance to qualify. The rundown of past winners of the MMARR fighter of the night award are as follows. 1 - Justin Bruckman - WFF 7 - July 23rd, 2004
2 - Patrick Cote - TKO 16 - May 22nd, 2004
3 - Sam Stout - TKO 17 - Sept 25th, 2004
4 - Matt Horwitch – XFC 3 Oct 16th, 2004
5 - Sam Stout – TKO 18 - Nov 26th, 2004
6 - Georges St. Pierre - Jan 29th 2005
7 - Antonio Carvalho - WFF 8 - March 26th 2005
8 - Jonathan Goulet - TKO 20 - April 2nd 2005
9 - Chris Horodecki - UCW 2 - June 11th 2005
10 - Samuel Guillet - TKO 21 - July 15th 2005
11 - Jason MacDonald - MFC 8 - Sept 9th 2005
12 - Ben Greer - WFF 9 - Sept 17th 2005
13 - Jason MacDonald - UCW 3 - Oct 22nd 2005 Upcoming Canadian events November 5th - Rage in the Ring "Redemption" - Exhibtion Pavilion, Lethbridge, Alberta
November 5th Combat Athletics White Rock BC
Nov 5th TKO 23 Victoria-ville, Quebec
November 5th -Rage in the Ring 3 -Lethbridge Alberta Exabition Pavillion
Nov 5th - North American Challenge, North Vancouver
November 13th, 2005. The 2005 Joslin’s Canadian Open Hamilton, Ontario,
November 23rd UGC Montreal Quebec
Nov 25th NFC North Vancouver
November 26th WFF 10 “Direct Hit” Croatian Cultural centre Van BC
Dec- 3rd, 2005 – Kelowna, BC, Absolute Submission Challenge
December 3rd - King of the Cage - Calgary
Freedom Fight 2 - ??? So that wraps up another Canadian Corner and you are up to date on the Canadian front. If you have any Canadian news that you would like to let us know about, have an event that will be taking place on Canadian Soil and want to let us know about it, email the Sushiboy
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Many more exciting things are scheduled to happen in the coming months, in and around the sport of MMA around the world. There is no doubt that Canada will surely be in the mix, until then this was “The Sushiboy” with the Canadian Corner. -MMARR-
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