Canada Forum >> The MM-eh News Thread

Roger Hollett has faced an unfortunate setback in his quest to become the top light heavyweight fighter in Canada.

The 32-year-old Halifax fighter has aggravated the injury to his knee that he sustained in a 2007 fight against Lew Polley and will be undergoing arthroscopic surgery on June 2.

Hollett told MM-eh that his injury started giving him problems after his last bout, a knockout win over Martin Desilets at Ringside 10 in April.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE...

UFC Director of Operations Tom Wright appeared Wednesday night on Ringside Report Radio on Montreal’s CKGM-AM, and commented, “We’ll do Vancouver on June 11 and then most likely we’ll be back in Montreal on December 10.”

Up until his statement it had appeared that 2011 would be the first time in three years without a Montreal UFC, after holding UFC 83 in April 2008, UFC 97 in April 2009, and UFC 113 in May of 2010.

Wright then added, “We know how important this market is to us and putting on great fights,” Wright said. “It’s a great venue (Bell Centre), it’s a great fan-base, it’s a great environment. The energy in that building is as good as any building in North America. We’ll always have a soft spot for Montreal.”

No match-ups have been mentioned, but it’s a sure bet that UFC welterweight champ, and Montreal native Georges St. Pierre will be considered.

Join MM-eh! on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter (MMehAndy)

Bird started training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in 1998 and won the FILA Grappling World Championships in 2008, 2009, and 2010.  She is also the first Canadian female to reach the rank of Black Belt, which she received from Roy Harris in 2009.

The main event for his upcoming second show in Trenton, Nova Scotia on May 27 had just collapsed on him.  Jaret Macintosh (2-1) got sick and wasn’t able to train, and opponent Vanja Vojvodic (2-1) dropped out due to a death in his family.

Goodall was facing a problem that every promoter goes through from time to time, but unlike most of them he has an easy fix.

Montreal’s Ivan “Pride of El Salvador” must have impressed the UFC brass with his devastating win over Charlie Valencia at last month’s mammoth UFC 129 in Toronto, as they have chosen him to meet Nick Pace at UFC 133 in Philadelphia on August 6.

“Bantamweights Ivan Menjivar and Nick Pace have agreed to fight each other August 6, at UFC 133 in Philadelphia,” said UFC President Dana White. “Menjivar is coming off a devastating elbow KO win and Pace utilized a rarely seen type of submission to secure the victory in his last outing.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

The Score Fighting Series has revealed to MM-eh that Martin “The Stress” Désilets (11-3) will be replacing the injured Roger Hollett for their June 10 show in Mississauga, and will be taking on PRIDE and UFC vet Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou (11-8).

Désilets had won four straight until Hollett derailed him at Ringside 10 last month, and a win against Sokoudjou would raise his status amongst other Canadian light heavyweights.

This event will feature several notable Canadian fighters, including Joe Doerksen, Antonio Carvalho, Adrian Wooley, Jorge Britto, and will be headlined by Lethbridge’s Jordan Mein vs. Marius Zaromskis.

Okay, so he’s not really mad.  More like frustrated.

The Duncan, British Columbia native Alessio seems to have been a professional mixed martial artist forever.

At 31-years old he’s had 45 professional fights, has fought a who’s who of well known welterweights, and even had a shot at the UFC title against Pat Miletich in 2000 when he was only 19.

For years he’s been considered by many to be the second best Canadian welterweight behind the UFC champ Georges St. Pierre.

But recently Alessio has noticed that his name isn’t being mentioned as much as it used to be.  These days names like Claude Patrick, Rory Macdonald, and TJ Grant have been making their way up the rankings while his has dropped.

He doesn’t like that one bit.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

It’s been a long and winding road for Bruno Capdeville to get to where he is in life right now.

The 30-year-old started training in martial arts when he was a kid growing up in Lisbon, Portugal, and somehow ended up in Vancouver (with a 3 year stopover in London, England) with a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu around his waist.

But this Saturday night Capdeville’s journey will take a 15-minute pause when he steps into a cage inside Nanaimo’s Frank Crane Arena to square off against Graham Spencer at Battlefield Fight League 8 “Island Beatdown.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

In the main event of East Coast Fight Productions 2, Lenny Wheeler came out looking physically stronger than his opponent Ricky Goodall, going for a takedown and pushing his body to the ropes.  After a few moments Wheeler backed away with Goodall following him with a left hook that missed.  They went to the clinch with Wheeler sitting down with Goodall inside his guard.  Goodall stepped up inside his guard and backed away, allowing Wheeler to stand as well.  Wheeler got a single leg takedown but Goodall got right back up.  Wheeler tried for a trip but Goodall caught it, the pair falling with Goodall on top.  Goodall then stood and started dropping punches, got full mount and kept hitting until referee Brad Jardine stepped in to save Wheeler.

Goodall was also the promoter of tonight’s event, and he stepped in to save the main event after friend Jaret Macintosh became ill, and he was seen working the event floor as little as 30 minutes prior to his fight.  He told MM-eh that if he ever promotes and fights in the same night again he’ll have to delegate much of the work.  “Honestly my legs felt like jello two hours ago.  I’ve been on my feet for three days.  Hopefully I’ll never do it again, but we’ll see.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

There are two substantial changes to the upcoming Challenge MMA card  scheduled for June 17 at the Pierre-Charbonneau Centre in Montreal.

Seth Petruzelli had to withdraw from his main event bout against Steve Bossé due to a case of the shingles, and will be replaced by Emanuel “The Hardcore Kid” Newton.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

MM-eh -  Thanks Mike, good luck tonight!

MM-eh has learned from several reliable sources that Nabil “The Thrill” Khatib (11-6) and Nathan “Gunner” Gunn (8-2) will fight for the Wreck MMA Welterweight Title at the Ottawa Civic Centre on September 24.

Khatib told MM-eh that he knows that Gunn will be a tough opponent.

“If anything I think he’s got great conditioning but I don’t think he’s seen what I’ve seen.” He said.

Khatib added, “This is my 3rd title fight. This time it’s coming home with me.”

Gunn agrees that this will be a tough fight.

“He has lots of experience, but I intend to nullify that by pressing him harder than anyone has before.” He said. “You can expect this to be a very action packed fight — no matter what happens the fans are gonna see one heck of a war.”

He disagreed with Khatib on one point however.

“He has fought for three titles the only difference is I intend to bring the belt home on the first shot.”

The pair have verbally agreed to meet, however contracts have not yet been signed.

Have you ever done any writing?

Are you a photographer?

If so MM-eh is looking for you.

MM-eh is the fastest growing Canadian MMA News website, with a strong dedication to journalistic integrity and professionalism.

We are looking people all across Canada and would prefer people with some experience, but most importantly we’re looking for people with a love for the sport of MMA.  If that’s you, or if you know somebody to whom that applies and want to be part of a growing team, send an email to info@mm-eh.ca

UFC President Dana White’s tweet Wednesday afternoon was short and sweet – “U wanted it! U GOT IT!!!”

So read the first line of a major announcement at UFC.com today.

The major announcement of course is that Canadian Welterweight Champion of the Ultimate Fighting Championship Georges St.Pierre (22-2) will put his belt up against brash UFC returnee Nick Diaz (25-7) at UFC 137 on October 29 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.

St.Pierre is coming off of a Unanimous Decision win over Jake Shields at UFC 129 just over a month ago — a 5 round fight in which he lost vision in his left eye partway through the third round due to an eye-poke by Shields.

In the current Strikeforce champ Diaz, he’ll be meeting someone with impressive overall skills on both his feet and the floor.  Diaz has been under contract before, going 7-3 in his time with the promotion, which ended in 2006.

MMAJunkie is reporting that Albertan Ryan McGillivray (11-4-1) will be taking on Shamar Bailey (11-3) at “The Ultimate Fighter 13″ Finale this weekend at The Pearl at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.

McGillivray started his MMA career in Edmonton’s Maximum Fighting Championship, garnering a 7-3 record before moving over to fight in several other organizations.

He was the lone Canadian on the current season of TUF, and was the second pick for Team Dos Santos.