Strikeforce Challengers 17 Fighter Salaries

Filed under: ,

The fighter salaries are out for this past Friday's Strikeforce Challengers 17 event from the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas and all winners on the televised card earned five figures.

Headliner Bobby Voelker made $11,000 for his TKO win over Roger Bowling, who walked away with $4,500.

Former Strikeforce champ Sarah Kaufman earned a gross purse of $10,000, but after paying her license, tax and medical expenses, was paid $6,696. Kaufman did not receive a win bonus because her contract stated she would only receive a win bonus if the fight ended via submission or (T)KO.

Check out the rest of the salaries below.

Please note, these are the purses Strikeforce reported to the Nevada state athletic commission and does not include other earnings such as sponsorships and other potential bonuses.

Also, these gross purses are before license, tax and medical expenses.

Showtime Bouts
Bobby Voelker ($5,500+$5,500=$11,000) def. Roger Bowling ($4,500)
Devin Cole ($5,000+$5,000=$10,000) def. Shawn Jordan ($4,000)
Ovince St. Preux ($6,000+$6,000=$12,000) def. Joe Cason ($3,000)
Sarah Kaufman ($10,000) def. Liz Carmouche ($2,500)

Preliminary Bouts
Adlan Amagov ($4,000+$4,000=$8,000) def. Ron Stallings ($3,000)
T.J. Cook ($2,500+$2,500=$5,000) def. Lionel Lanham ($2,000)
Anthony Smith ($2,500+$2,500=$5,000) def. Ben Lagman ($2,000)
Bill Cooper ($2,000+$2,000=$4,000) def. Maka Watson ($2,000)
Sterling Ford ($3,000+$3,000=$6,000) def. Brian McLaughlin ($2,500)

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Boresha Latte
Bcreamy
Boresha Distributor
Skinny Tea
Boresha Compensation Plan

Strikeforce Grand Prix semifinals headed to Cincinnati

Strikeforce has decided on the location of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix semifinals. MMA Junkie reported that Josh Barnett vs. Sergei Kharitonov and Antonio Silva vs. Daniel Cormier will take place in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The location is notable because Barnett, a fighter who has tested positive for steroids in the past, and will now fight under a state commission that, along with Nevada and New Jersey, is respected as one of the most thorough in country. Earlier this week, Ohio Athletic Commission head Bernie Profato told Cagewriter that extra requirements are expected of a fighter who has tested positive in the past.

"If anybody, I don't care who it is, if it's my brother, if they tested previous for drugs, they're going to have to take a pre-fight test," Profato said. "If I look at that database, and I see they've failed a test, then we're going to take a pre-fight test within 30 days of the fight."

They will be joined by a middleweight championship bout between Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza and Luke Rockhold, "King" Mo Lawal's return to action against Roger Gracie, Josh Thomson vs. Maximo Blanco, and Olympic silver medalist Yoel Romero's U.S. debut against Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante.

Boresha Latte
Bcreamy
Boresha Distributor
Skinny Tea
Boresha Compensation Plan

Alessio Sakara Explains Knee Injury That Forced Him Out of UFC 133

Filed under: ,

Alessio Sakara released a statement Tuesday morning explaining the knee injury that forced him to pull out of his UFC 133 fight against Jorge Rivera less than two weeks before the fight.

"I tried to ignore the pain until now, thinking I had just sprained the knee," he said. "I kept training without using my legs. I wanted to get to the fight in a good condition somehow, but the MRI diagnosed that I broke my ligaments, and now I can't fight!

"I apologize to all my supporters. Please remember that I am a fighter and that I want to fight for all my life. But now, I must wait until I am fully healed before I can fight again. I hope you all understand."

This marks the third time in a row that a scheduled fight between Sakara and Rivera has been canceled.

First, a proposed UFC 118 fight was scrapped after Rivera pulled out due to a broken arm. Then Sakara was forced to withdraw just hours before their UFC 122bout after succumbing to flu-like symptoms. And on Monday, Rivera informed The MMA Hour audience that a Sakara knee injury had once again called off the fight.

"I thought it was a joke," Rivera said. "I couldn't believe it."

As a result, Rivera will now face Costantinos Philippou on the UFC 133 pay-per-view card.

Sakara (15-8, 1 NC) is coming off a loss to Chris Weidman in March. Prior to that defeat, the 29-year-old Italian had won three in a row. No word on how long he will be sidelined for due to the knee injury.

UFC 133, headlined by Rashad Evans vs. Tito Ortiz, airs live on pay-per-view on Aug. 6 from Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Boresha Latte
Bcreamy
Boresha Distributor
Skinny Tea
Boresha Compensation Plan

Miesha Tate Hopes to Showcase Women's MMA to Dana White

Filed under: ,

After nearly a one-year layoff between fights due to a knee injury, Miesha Tate has enough to concern herself with simply waiting across the cage from her when she returns. But while Tate's primary focus is defeating Marloes Coenen and capturing the Strikeforce women's welterweight championship at the upcoming Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Henderson card, she also has an ulterior motive.

Tate, a 24-year-old who is among the best-known female fighters in the world, wants to ensure that she has a big stage on which to ply her trade in the future. While Zuffa co-owner Dana White has voiced doubts about the long-term viability of women's MMA in the past, Tate hopes that her upcoming bout with Coenen can convince him otherwise.

"I feel it's exciting because now, I'm going to have that opportunity to say, 'Hey Dana, this is what women's MMA is all about. This is what you've been missing out in the UFC,'" she said. "I just hope Marloes and myself go out there and put on a very impressive performance."

Tate and Coenen will have every chance to do so, as their fight is billed as the co-main event of the July 30 show, which emanates from the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates, Illinois and will be televised on Showtime.

Prior to Zuffa's purchase of Strikeforce, Tate (11-2) once called White's view of women's MMA "ignorant," but she explained during a Thursday conference call that she meant that in the literal sense of being unaware of it, rather than as an insult.

"I just feel he's not informed, therefore he doesn't know enough about women's MMA to make a judgment call about it at this point," she said. "I feel with the purchase of Strikeforce, he's going to be paying closer attention to it. With that in the back of my mind, it's not really added pressure. I always hate that [term]. It has negative connotation to it. To me, it's extra motivation."

Inside the cage, the matchup is an interesting one. Coenen (19-4) has a reputation as a submission artist, with 14 of her wins coming via tapout, but she also has a very good striking pedigree working out of the vaunted Golden Glory team. The one place she's shown to have some trouble is wrestling. In her last match against Liz Carmouche, for instance, Coenen was taken down three times. Carmouche, however, doesn't have the wrestling pedigree of Tate. The discipline just happens to be Tate's speciality.

Tate wrestled for a time on her high school's boys wrestling team, won the girls' Washington state championship, and captured the 2008 USA grappling world team trials in the 158.5-pound weight class.

Functional MMA wrestling, though, is based on timing, and with Tate's long layoff due to injury, there are questions about how she will respond. But after a training camp that included time with the excellent wrestlers at Team Alpha Male (including UFC stars Urijah Faber and Chad Mendes) in Sacramento, California, Tate is convinced she's ready to rock.

"I think ring rust is more of a mentality than anything," she said. "If you let it get to you, if you think 'Oh my gosh, it's been a year since I competed,' and put that pressure on yourself, it'll get to you. To me, I'm excited. I'm really looking forward to it. It hasn't been a year since I fought. I do that on a daily basis with men in the gym. So for me it's just getting back in there. It's exciting for me. I'll be happy and joyful to do it."

One advantage Coenen is likely to hold over Tate is size. The former is 5-foot-9, the latter is 5-foot-6. Coenen also has more weight to cut. Tate suggests that's not a bad thing, saying, "speed kind of kills," and that Coenen's cut could work against her.

Mostly, though, she says it's unlikely to matter. It's just one of several factors outside of her control now, just like how much or how little attention White and the Zuffa brass will pay to the fight and the women's division in the future.

Neither Tate nor Coenen knows exactly what this championship means in the grand scheme of Zuffa things, but they know that at least for a few minutes, the spotlight will be on them. At least for a few minutes, the only match that matters will be one with two women. The world could well be watching, but the eyes of an influential few will be far more important.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Boresha Latte
Bcreamy
Boresha Distributor
Skinny Tea
Boresha Compensation Plan

Thailand sport climbing: can you help?

Since an old friend told me about his climbing trips to Thailand it’s been one of my boxes-to-tick. Climbing by the beach and then relaxing in the blue seas sounds too good to be true. I’m about to find out - I’ve decided to do it later this year… Photo kindly shared by HalonaCoast on Flickr I’m [...]

Boresha Latte
Bcreamy
Boresha Distributor
Skinny Tea
Boresha Compensation Plan

Working in MMA: Mike Dolce talks about peak performance, Maury and manicures

This week, Cagewriter is taking a look at the different jobs that help the MMA world turn. See part I of the series here.

Today, we look at Mike Dolce, the peak performance coach who is known to help fighters improve their nutrition, and in turn, the way they fight. After working as a strength coach for 20 years and appearing on the seventh season of "The Ultimate Fighter," Dolce has worked with fighters such as Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Thiago Alves, Chris Leben and Vitor Belfort.

Cagewriter: What is your job like on a day-to-day basis?

Mike Dolce: I'm running multiple training camps from afar. Right now, in Vegas, I'm running Vitor Belfort's training camp and Mike Pyle's. I also have Thiago Alves coming up, and I'm his head coach. I cover so many hats with him, but Vitor and Pyle, I work specifically with their nutrition and weight management issues.

I say more peak performance coach because I do the meals, I do the weights, I do the overall training management. I'm the filter for the other coaches. I set up the training schedule from day to day. I even structure in their business meetings and social function as they get closer to fight time.

CW: Thiago, for example, you set his day?

MD: With Thiago, I literally set up his 24 hours, seven-day a week schedule. Which coach to go to, when he's not allowed to train, because that can be a problem with him, so I have to pull him back a lot. I have to schedule in massage therapy or alternate therapies to make sure he's not going to go to the gym.

On Sundays, I would schedule "Man-Day." He and I would go have a nice breakfast, and then go to a spa. We'd get a haircut, massages, get our feet and hands fixed it, even the random facial. It's important. I incorporate all those things to make sure my fighters are well-rounded.

I try to keep what I call "the positive bubble around fighters" and not let any negativity in. With Mike Pyle, I would get breakfast ready as he watched a fishing show on Versus, but now the Tour de France is on. It broke our rhythm, so instead of watching fishing, he switched to another channel with Maury and the Jerry Springer show. I'm in the kitchen, 20 feet away and I can feel the negative energy come out of the TV. I had to change the channel just to watch something more positive. You can't start your day with that kind of negative mind frame.

CW: What is a fight week like for you?

MD: I try to get to town a day prior to the athlete, then I set up the hotel room and do the food shopping. For Chris Leben, he got into town on Monday night, and before he even got here, I packed a huge cooler with the proper foods that Chris was going to need. I made sure he had everything he was going to need, coordinate with his team, talk about what his weight cut process is going to be. On weigh-in day, I will be with him through the weigh-ins, and then go back to his room for the rehydration process. That carries all the way through to the minute he steps in the cage, performs, and then even afterwards, when I give him the food and fluids that need to go in his body to help him repair and recover from that. My job typically doesn't end until Sunday morning.

CW: What is the best part of your job?

MD: The best part of my job is spreading health. My primary focus is not world titles, and it's not money, or any of those things. It's to make my athletes as healthy as possible. That's the most rewarding part: seeing kids like Thiago Alves, not so much go out there and have a dominant performance, but it's for him to feel so good and be so happy with himself because his body is in a positive state. Performance is just a by-product of that.

CW: But what's the worst part?

MD: I wouldn't point to a worst part and say that it's bad, but the hardest part is dealing with the ups and the downs of the sport. You can work with an athlete, and have a great training camp and he'll go out there on fight night, and something doesn't work. I'm so emotionally attached to my fighters that it's a hard roller coaster. For me, it's multiple times in a single night.

Actually, the worst part is the time away from my family, but it's a choice, but I'm not going to be a victim to it. It's something we've decided over the next few years to do this.

Follow Mike Dolce on Twitter here. Tomorrow's working in MMA profile will focus on Bernie Profato, head of the Ohio Athletic Commission.

Boresha Latte
Bcreamy
Boresha Distributor
Skinny Tea
Boresha Compensation Plan

Bobby Voelker Knocks Out Roger Bowling at Strikeforce Challengers

Filed under:

For the third time, a Strikeforce Challengers event featured a fight between Roger Bowling and Bobby Voelker. For the second time, Voelker has won by second-round technical knockout.

Bowling looked good in the early going, connecting to Voelker's chin with punches and taking Voelker to the canvas. But two minutes into the second round, Voelker grabbed Bowling in a Thai plumb and landed a hard knee to Bowling's chin, sending Bowling staggering backward.

From there, Voelker went on the attack, landing three punches to knock Bowling down and then nine unanswered punches on the ground before referee Josh Rosenthal stepped in and stopped the fight.

Voelker, who improved his record to 24-8, said he knew Bowling had been beating him, but he also knew Bowling would be susceptible standing up if he could catch him at the right time.

"He was winning the whole thing," Voelker said. "I knew I'd have to wait a little bit, weather the storm, and he'd lower his hands, fade a little bit and I'd catch him with something. And I did."

Bowling beat Voelker in May of 2010, then lost to him in a rematch in October. Now Voelker has won the rubber match, putting a major exclamation point on the trilogy, and on Friday night's Strikeforce Challengers card.

In other Strikeforce Challengers action:

-- Devin Cole beat Shawn Jordan by unanimous decision in a heavyweight fight that had some excitement early on but slowed down in the second and third rounds. Jordan, a former LSU fullback, showed that he's a big, strong, athletic guy in the early going: He hit Cole hard and was able to land a powerful takedown. But as the fight wore on, Jordan appeared to tire out, and Cole stayed in advantageous positions most of the way to grind out the decision.

-- Ovince St. Preux obliterated Joe Cason, forcing him to tap out to punches on the ground in the first round. St. Preux, a former University of Tennessee linebacker who has really come on of late in the cage, first knocked Cason down with a kick and then rained down punches on the ground, and Cason wanted no part of it and submitted. St. Preux is now on an eight-fight winning streak, and he's one of the most interesting fighters in the Strikeforce light heavyweight division.

-- Sarah Kaufman won an easy unanimous decision over Liz Carmouche, 30-27 on all three judges' cards. Kaufman bloodied up the mouth and nose of Carmouche with punches that were landing all night long, and Carmouche's takedown attempts -- which were so effective in her previous fight, against Marloes Coenen -- were completely ineffective against Kaufman. It wasn't a great fight, but it was a solid performance and a one-sided victory for Kaufman.

-- Adlan Amagov beat Ron Stallings by split decision in the fight that got the Showtime broadcast started. Amagov showed off crisp striking, a wide variety of kicks and some great throws in the first couple of rounds and just looked like a much more skillful fighter than Stallings early on. In the third round Amagov gassed and Stallings took advantage, but Stallings wasn't able to put Amagov in any real danger of being finished, and so Amagov was able to escape with the victory, 29-28 on two judges' cards. One judge scored it 29-28 for Stallings.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Boresha Latte
Bcreamy
Boresha Distributor
Skinny Tea
Boresha Compensation Plan

Video you need to see: Jose Aldo on the best slip and slide ever

Fair readers, sometimes we come across MMA videos that we don't understand. Videos that are in Portuguese, but soundtracked by a terrible song in English with nonsensical lyrics. Videos that involve women in bikinis and men in boardshorts cheering on the UFC featherweight champ.

But if we have one rule at Cagewriter, it's that when we see a video of Jose Aldo jumping in a giant slip and slide, we share it.

According to the video's title, he beat Demian Maia in drowning the goose. His next opponent is Kenny Florian. The two will face each other in the co-main event at UFC 136 in Houston. Hopefully, they will both incorporate slip and slides into their training.

Thanks to MMA Mania.

Boresha Latte
Bcreamy
Boresha Distributor
Skinny Tea
Boresha Compensation Plan