Cage Fighting Championships middleweight kingpin Hector Lombard struck UFC veteran Kalib Starnes into verbal submission in the first round of their CFC 11 main event on Friday at Big Top Stadium in Sydney, Australia.
Unbeaten in 16 fights, Lombard, who also holds the Bellator Fighting Championships middleweight crown, has posted 11 consecutive victories. Based at American Top Team, the 31-year-old Cuban judoka grounded Starnes early in their encounter and dropped punches and elbows until “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 3 semi-finalist asked the referee to intervene. ... Read More
(PRESS RELEASE) -- Hector Lombard headlined the first Cage Fighting Championship show on 28 July 2007, where he fought top Australian fighter Kyle Noke. The result was a controversial draw. ... Read More
Bellator Fighting Championships on Tuesday announced an agreement to televise its second and third seasons live on Fox Sports Net. The deal, which covers 24 weeks in 2010, will bring the tournament-based mixed martial arts promotion to 82 million homes ... Read More
When Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney announced that his ESPN Deportes-housed fight promotion would go on sabbatical in order to take advantage of a major (and still unannounced) new TV deal, he promised that his champions wouldn’t be left in the lurch. Lightweight title holder Eddie Alvarez fights on October’s Dream 11 card; now Hector Lombard has a date.
According to MMAWeekly, Lombard has a scheduled brutalizing of Kalib Starnes locked in for October 9 in Queensland, Australia. Considering the relative skills and career projections of each, this isn’t much more than a glorified sparring session. (You’ll remember that Starnes’ fight with Nate Quarry will go down in infamy as unwatchable thanks to his paralyzed offense. )
Get well soon, Bellator. Lombard deserves better. ... Read More
An unfortunate fact of media life: people doing their job right aren’t nearly as interesting as people screwing it up.
Earlier in the year, while terminal companies like Affliction and EliteXC were busy making the kinds of business decisions that put them in the bread line, the Bellator Fighting Championships was quietly issuing a slick, no-frills product that developed a following based on clever viral marketing and a no-flow-chart-necessary tournament format. Spanish-language fans were recruited on ESPN Deportes; English-language viewers, perhaps a little slighted, followed clips on YouTube.
No giant dragons, no pro wrestlers commentating, and nothing much to complain about. Simple works.
Recently, some of that goodwill was deflated when word circulated that Bellator’s second “season” would be delayed from the fall until early 2010. Bellator co-founder and CEO Bjorn Rebney believes he has a very good reason for the stutter -- and it involves 150 million households. ... Read More
Like virtually anything else in life, mixed martial arts has its yin and its yang. The sport’s ever-changing landscape offers fighters, fans and frenzied media ... Read More
On a night when the ninth set of “The Ultimate Fighter” champions were crowned, the reality show’s very first winner, Diego Sanchez, defeated Clay Guida ... Read More
(PRESS RELEASE) -- Shine Fight Promotions (Shine Fights) announces a change in the line-up for Shine 2: American Top Team vs. The World. Replacing Bellator veteran, David Branch versus Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu ace, Fabiano Capoani is now Miami, Florida native, Herbert “Whispers the Gorilla” Goodman ... Read More
Dave Mandel was cageside at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla., to photograph the season one finale of Bellator, which saw Eddie Alvarez take the lightweight crown ... Read More
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