This Saturday, June 16, “Battle Xtreme Championship: The Rise” hits MassMutal Center in Springfield, Mass., with an 8-fight card that is stacked with big show veterans and up-and-coming regional talent. Battle Xtreme Championship has brought in high level fighters that have formerly competed for the UFC, WEC, Bellator, Bodog, Strikeforce and IFL.
Here is what President Fernando Rivera had to say about the upcoming event:
“It’s an exciting event because BXC brought extremely high-level MMA athletes together to compete in expertly matched bouts, producing exceptional programming and exciting fights. The bar for each fight has been set so high that each fight could be a feature fight with opponents having almost exact fight records.”
The main event will feature American Top Team fighter Raphael “The Law” Dias (16-9-1) against Ran Weathers (16-11). Dias enters this fight coming off a loss to Marlon Sandro at Bellator 58. He lost the fight via arm-triangle submission in the first round. Prior to that defeat Dias had built up a two fight winning streak beating both Chris Ensley and Jay Ellis before scoring a draw against Jang Yong Kim at Pacific Xtreme Combat 24 in June 2011.
Team Jackson fighter Ran Weathers was last in action at a regional MMA event earlier this year against where he wan a unanimous decision over Sean Dyer. The victory over Dyer was much needed after Weathers had hit a slide dropping three straight fights against Jared Downing, Yaotzin Meza and Lawson McClure. Weathers will now look to pick up a second straight win with a good performance on Saturday.
In the co-main event, 2004 Olympic silver-medalist in wrestling, Sara McMann (5-0), will take on Bellator veteran Anita Rodriguez (5-3). McMann last fought in January, scoring a unanimous decision over Japanese veteran Hitomi Akano at ProElite 3 in Hawaii. Rodriguez is coming off a decision loss to Jesica “Evil” Eye at Bellator 66 in April. Just prior to that she won a unanimous decision over Lizbeth Correiro at King of the Cage in January.
“Battle Xtreme Championship: The Rise” is scheduled to stream live on Sherdog.com at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT this Saturday, June 16.
Tickets for the event start at $32 and are on sale at all Ticketmaster outlets, charge by phone at 800.745.3000, on-line at Ticketmaster.com or at the MassMutual Center Box Office. Battle Xtreme Championship is slated to begin at 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 16, 2012, and doors open at 6 p.m. A public weigh-in is set for 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. on Friday, June 15 in the box office lobby of the MassMutual Center.
The fight card for the event is as follows:
- Rafael Dias Vs. Ran Weathers
- Sara McMann Vs. Anita Rodriguez
- Drew McFedries Vs. Brad Johnson
- Rory Markham Vs. Jon Kirk
- Alexandre Moreno vs Trevor Smith
- Ramico Blackmon vs Chris Davis
- Rafael Rebello vs Bobby Huron
- Robby Roberts vs Kym Sturdivant
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Not so stacked anymore. Card fell apart. 5 MMA fights and an grappling exhibition
I was at the show. Markham did not fight or and drew did not fight either. I think it ended up being a 5 fight night instead of 8…. I know fight promotion is hard when dealing with injuries, the thing that bothers me is there was no notifications of the cut fights. All of the suddenly it was 9 oclock and the main event was on and 3 of the biggest names on the card just weren’t there. It was there first show ever so I’ll give them a break, I don’t think many of the other fans noticed considering they were the least educated fans I’ve ever come across. Considering that they were booing and making sex jokes when one fighter was caught in a near fight ending triangle. It was a ok show but next time let us know if and why the biggest names u use to promote aren’t there