When it came to top matchups around the globe, the United States had the market all but cornered in August.
Not so in September.
Fasten your seatbelts and hang on, as Sherdog.com takes you around the world for 10 tussles mixed martial arts fans must not miss, with stops in Brazil, Japan, Canada, the Czech Republic, Hawaii, England and even the West Indies.
As always, this list does not necessarily focus on the major bouts you already know to watch, but rather on fights from all over the planet that are worth seeing.
For the last few months, former Cage Rage middleweight contender and “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 9 participant Alex Reid was all over the British tabloids thanks to his fledgling relationship with highly controversial English glamour model Katie Price. Reid’s home promotion for the last five years has jumped at the chance to book him into the co-main event of its Sept. 19 event. There, he will return from a two-year hiatus to take on submission specialist
Jack Mason for the vacant middleweight championship.
The tiny island of Aruba rings a bell with every hardcore fan that has been around for longer than 10 years, as it was the site of the infamous World Vale Tudo Championship in the late 1990s. Now, a decade later, newly created promotion Vendetta Fighting Championship will use the same scene for its inaugural show. Headlining “A Night of Vengeance” will be a pair of UFC veterans with plenty of experience: Shonie Carter, 37, will fight in his 73rd recorded bout, while opponent Derrick Noble, 31, will step into the ring for the 36th time.
In this month’s featured heavyweight contest, Slovakian slugger Ilja Skondric will lock horns with Russian judoka Baga Agaev in a classic striker-versus-grappler confrontation. Skondric, a heavy-handed Bratislava native, has knocked out most of the opponent’s he has faced within a radius of 450 miles and will now take on arguably his stiffest test to date in Agaev, a durable submission specialist. The highly decorated ground fighter from St. Petersburg, Russia, won a 16-man tournament in a single night in 2007 and recently co-headlined an Art of War event in China.
On the back of a five-fight win streak, MMA’s favorite Finnish-Canadian, Victor Valimaki, will try to continue his climb back to the major leagues, as he takes on the American Top Team- and Team Quest-trained Lew Polley. While Valimaki appears to be slightly more well-rounded going into the fight, Polley has the edge when it comes to pure submission savvy, having snatched eight of his 10 career victories on the mat. The fight for the promotion’s light heavyweight championship serves as the most high-profile bout in TFC’s brief history.
Nothing compares to two undefeated fighters going at it. Whenever it happens, a special thrill of anticipation fills the air. Such will be the case when Brandon Visher takes on Issac de Jesus. Visher, Up N Up’s defending featherweight champion, was originally scheduled to face
Eddie Yagin but will now defend his strap against de Jesus, a Strikeforce veteran who took the fight on three weeks notice. Despite having fought with a more grappling-oriented approach in the past, both fighters have promised a stand-up war for this one.
Shooto has delivered the goods in its 20th anniversary year, putting together killer matchups like
Shinichi Kojima-
Yuki Shojo and
Masakatsu Ueda-Edudardo Dantas, along with the stacked “Tradition Final” show in May. The oldest MMA promotion in the world continues that route, booking a rematch between second-ranked welterweight Shooter Yusuke Endo and 2007 Cage Force lightweight tournament runner-up Kotetsu Boku; their January clash ended in a draw. With 17 of their combined 38 professional fights going the distance, fans seem destined for another 15-minute grapple-fest.
Mike Fridley/Sherdog.com
"Macaco" and Carneiro will
clash at Shine II in Miami, Fla.
Shine Fights serves up a great main event for ground fighting lovers. In a battle between Brazilians, two of the outstanding no-gi competitors in all of MMA will face each other. Jorge Patino is a third-degree black belt under Waldomir Perez Jr., while Roan Carneiro received the highest honors in Brazilian jiu-jitsu from the legendary Carlson Gracie Sr. Both men have qualified for the Abu Dhabi Combat Club Submission Wrestling World Championships in the past and want to show their submission prowess in the cage, as well.
Two of the most underrated welterweights in the sport will square off against each other at Sengoku’s “Tenth Battle.” The fact that a fighter from Minnesota will take on an opponent from Illinois more than 8,000 miles away in a Tokyo suburb serves as a clear sign that the Japanese fight scene has begun to move again. Thompson is 2-0 inside Sengoku, with wins over
Fabricio Monteiro and Michal Costa. Hornbuckle, meanwhile, raised more than a few eyebrows with his head kick knockout of beloved veteran
Akihiro Gono last month.
In a fight that should serve as a title eliminator, Tyson Griffin (4-0 against opponents from Brazil) will face one of his toughest hurdles to date in former lightweight championship challenger Hermes Franca.
Frankie Edgar,
Gray Maynard and
Diego Sanchez are likely on the fast track to a title shot right now. However, the winner of this battle between Griffin, the inexhaustible power plug, and Franca, the heavy-handed black belt, deserves to challenge champion
B.J. Penn, as well, and probably has a better chance at upsetting the reigning 155-pound king than the aforementioned trio.
When he finally steps into the ring again, Ricardo Arona will have been away from the game for two years, five months and four days. Why one of the most dominant ground fighters in the history of the sport -- a man who can claim wins over champions like
Dan Henderson,
Wanderlei Silva and
Alistair Overeem -- has taken such a long break from fighting will remain his personal secret. UFC veteran and notorious power puncher Marvin Eastman will try to spoil his eagerly awaited comeback with all his strength, grit and experience.
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