MMA Madness

Written by Cameron Gidari
Olympic wrestler-turned-mixed martial artist Daniel Cormier will make his professional debut Friday at “Strikeforce Challengers: Kennedy vs. Cummings” against fellow newcomer Gary Frazier. For Cormier, the chance to start a new athletic journey is exciting, and he is putting in the work to make sure he succeeds.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, Jorge Gurgel (13-5) will face undefeated Billy Evangelista as the main event of Strikeforce Challengers’ November 6 event. Gurgel defeated Conor Huen via unianimaous decision at Strikeforce’s June Challengers event. Evangelista was on the Challengers event a month prior where the bout was ruled a “No Contest” due to an illegal knee after originally being ruled as Mike Aina winning due to disqualification in the second round.

After having his first opponent promoted to the main event, Paul Bradley returns to the Strikeforce: Challengers card. His opponent will be Levi Avery, and the fight will be on the preliminary portion of the card.

Top-ranked fighter Fedor Emelianenko will take on undefeated Brett Rogers on a Strikeforce card in the fall. The venue or date has not been set.

Spike TV’s telecast of UFC 100 (originally airing on pay-per-view July 11) drew more Men 18-34 (513,000) than anything else on television on Saturday, August 15.  Airing from 10:00pm-12:30am ET/PT, the telecast drew 2 million viewers, a 1.8 rating in Men 18-34, a 1.7 rating (950,000) in Men 18-49, and a 1.5 household rating.
The telecast [...]

Cris Cyborg became the first women’s champion in Strikeforce history.

According to a press release sent out this morning by Strikeforce executive, Mike Afromowitz, the most wanted man in MMA has inked a deal with Strikeforce. Fedor’s handlers, M-1 Global, will be co-promoting the events; Fedor is expected to debut this fall on Showtime. Emelianenko has been fighting professionally for nine years and has ammassed [...]