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2017 M-1 Global Prospect of the Year Rising flyweight star Arman Ashimov
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Arman Ashimov is shown above putting Rodrigo Melonio to sleep
Local standouts highlight loaded undercard for Inaugural Boardwalk Boxing card on Saturday, February 24th at The Showboat Hotel in Atlantic City
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IMPACT Wrestling Channel to Launch on Twitch
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Exciting Slugger Eyubov Calls Out Fellow Prospect: ‘Bring me Yves Ulysse Jr. I Will Run Him Out of the Ring!’
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SPORTS TV VETERAN JAY GLAZER JOINS BELLATOR BROADCAST TEAM
DEBUT SET FOR BELLATOR 192 THIS SATURDAY, JAN. 20 – LIVE ON PARAMOUNT NETWORK
LOS ANGELES – Bellator announced today that sports television mainstay Jay Glazer will join the Bellator broadcast team. Beginning with Bellator 192, Glazer will host the broadcast desk as Bellator kicks off 2018 on Paramount Network (formerly Spike) Saturday, Jan. 20 at 9 p.m. ET.
Glazer joins reporter Jenn Brown, play-by-play men Mike Goldberg and Mauro Ranallo, as well as color commentators “Big” John McCarthy andChael Sonnen. In addition to his broadcasting duties, Glazer will also appear in upcoming original content produced by Bellator’s digital team.
“I’m excited to welcome Jay Glazer to the Bellator family,” Bellator President Scott Coker said. “Jay’s knowledge and experience in sports television speaks for itself and he will be a great addition to our incredible broadcast team. As Bellator moves to Paramount Network, I look forward to having him involved with some of the biggest fights of the year.”
“I have always had a tremendous passion for MMA, where the relationships you develop are unlike any other sport, said Glazer. “And I am very fortunate to be able to continue these relationships with an incredible organization like Bellator. I’ve been friends with Scott for many years, and am ecstatic that he brought me into the Bellator family.”
A trailblazer in the sports media world who broke onto the scene as an NFL reporter for the New York Post, Glazer went on to serve as the NFL Insider for CBS Sports in 1999, and later joined Fox Sports where Jay is currently in his 14th year as the NFL Insider on their award-winning NFL studio show, Fox NFL Sunday. In 2007, Jay was named Sports Illustrated’s “Media Person of the Year.” Glazer also became one of the first mainstream media members to cover MMA when he hosted Pride Fighting Championships on FSN.
Jay is also set to begin shooting his fourth season on the HBO comedy hit Ballers, where he has a recurring role.
A longtime athlete and martial artist, Glazer owns the high profile Unbreakable Performance Center in West Hollywood, where the gym has become the home to many elite athletes, actors, musicians and business people, including Demi Lovato, Wiz Khalifa, Chris Pratt, Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture.
Jay also started the first MMA-training program for professional athletes with hundreds of athletes having utilized his training program. In just the last few years, Jay and his team have trained All Pros Von Miller, Aaron Rodgers, Odell Beckham, Bobby Wagner and Andrew Whitworth.
Additionally, Glazer began a new foundation in 2015 called Merging Vets & Players, which works to match up former combat veterans and former professional athletes in order to help each other through the transition into their new lives away from the playing field and away from the battlefield. Learn more about MVP at www.vetsandplayers.org.
Glazer is represented by The Montag Group and currently resides in Los Angeles.
Bellator and Paramount Network open 2018 with a bang when Bellator 192 emanates from The Forum in LA on Saturday, Jan. 20. The event features a welterweight world title fight between current champ Douglas Lima and number one contender Rory MacDonald, while “Rampage” Jackson meets Chael Sonnen in the opening round of 2018’s Bellator Heavyweight World Grand Prix.
2017 M-1 Global Fighter of the Year M-1 Challenge Lightweight Champion Damir Ismagulov
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FROM THE SHORES OF SEBAGO LAKE TO THE MMA CAGE, HARD-WORK IS A WAY OF LIFE FOR KAM ARNOLD
Lewiston, Maine (January 16, 2018) – Kam Arnold might be the ultimate Maine mixed martial artist from central casting.
Blue-collar sensibilities shaped his young life. He grew up in a small community where young boys often had to conjure up their own forms of entertainment. And yes, sometimes that meant fighting solely for the sake of fighting.
“I have two older brothers, and friends who were around all the time that are like brothers. We pretty much adopted them, you know?” Arnold said. “And any time you have that situation, there are fights going on in the yard all the time. I remember one time seeing my brothers rolling around on the stairs in the house, and of course I just had to jump in and get involved in that.”
Arnold, who turns 25 this month, is more structured but no less passionate today about exercising his grit, guile and strength in such physical encounters.
Veteran of one, quick knockout win in the New England Fights cage, Arnold returns for another dose on Saturday, February 3 at Androscoggin Bank Colisee. He will confront Kyle Kenney in an amateur bantamweight bout at “NEF 32: Super Saturday.”
Fighting under the Central Maine Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (CMBJJ) umbrella, Arnold made a dramatic first impression, dispatching Glenn Kasabian in 1 minute, 54 seconds.
“Glenn’s a tough dude. He’s a warrior. He’s a great guy outside the cage. I have a lot of respect for him. He wanted to stand up with me. It’s one of things where I just flipped the switch,” Arnold recalled. “He’s pretty rangy, pretty tall. I went in there wanting to let him know he was in for a battle, and fortunately it turned out in my favor. I was the better fighter that night.”
Arnold admittedly was disappointed that the result wasn’t enough to earn the 2017 “NEF Rookie of the Year” award. He vows not to leave any doubt about his potential in the local hexagon when he takes on Kenney, an opponent about whom he knows precious little.
“Yeah, I was pretty bummed, but I know everybody else busts their ass just like I do,” Arnold said. “I have high expectations for myself, and I want to make a statement with this fight.”
A native of Casco, on the shores of Maine’s Sebago Lake, Arnold describes a hard-knocks upbringing that clashed with the bucolic, tourist-trap surroundings.
Arnold’s family had close ties to a motorcycle club, although he is reluctant to discuss its impact on his life other than to agree that it enhanced his fighting spirit.
“They’re all genuine people. I will say that. I have an awful lot of people supporting me in this. I would be nothing without them. My father and mother are the two toughest people I know,” Arnold said. “As a kid growing up, I had to be tough. That’s just the way it was. I just come from a blue-collar family. I don’t really want to get into all the details of it, but I just had to be tough. It made me what I am today.”
In addition to grappling with his older siblings and their friends, Arnold unfortunately was a victim of circumstances that are all too prominent in today’s schoolyards and playgrounds.
“I was a very small kid for my age,” he explained. “I got bullied a lot in school and had to find a way to manage that. Unfortunately, I got into a lot of fights because I had to defend myself.”
Arnold learned many of those self-defense techniques through his passion for combat sports.
He fell in love with professional wrestling, MMA, and especially boxing, although “there weren’t many options to pursue boxing in small-town Maine,” he said.
While attending Oxford Hills and Lake Region high schools, Arnold briefly took up high school wrestling. It was not until adulthood that he found his way to Lewiston’s CMBJJ, one of the hub facilities that has helped build NEF’s talent base over the past six years.
“Of course there’s a part of me that wishes I had started this earlier, when I was 18 or 19, like a lot of guys,” said Arnold, who turns 25 this month. “But I’m thankful for where I’m at now, and for Matt Peterson and NEF for giving this opportunity to show what I can do.”
Boxing and stand-up skills proved Arnold’s bread-and-butter in his debut. He hopes the Kenney fight will give him a chance to exhibit the wider array of lessons he has learned from his training partners.
Arnold credits former NEF amateur flyweight champion Dustin Veinott with the bulk of his development.
“I feel like I have the best coaching staff in the state,” Arnold said. “I haven’t really had the opportunity to travel around and cross-train, but I have so much faith in the guys at my own gym.
“Dustin Veinott has been crucial. I feel like with his knowledge I can go anywhere I want to in this sport. And when you combine that with Jesse Erickson, Travis Wells, Matt Denning, the sky is the limit. They’ve put their belief in me, and I want to show them I’ve earned it.”
When asked for a prediction about the February fight, Arnold somewhat channeled Clubber Lang’s reply of “pain” from Rocky III.
“Look for some blood,” Arnold said. “It’s coming. I can’t wait to put on a show.”
The opening bell February 3 is set for 7 p.m. Tickets are available at www.TheColisee.com or by calling the box office at207.783.2009 ext. 525.
SECOND-ROUND RESULTS 72nd annual Lowell Sun Charities Golden Gloves Championship
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UNIFIED WOMEN’S SUPER MIDDLEWEIGHT WORLD CHAMPION CLARESSA SHIELDS DOMINATES TORI NELSON IN THE MAIN EVENT OF SHOBOX: THE NEW GENERATION FRIDAY ON SHOWTIME® FROM TURNING STONE RESORT CASINO
Shohjahon Ergashev Shines While Jesse Hernandez Edges Ernesto Garza In Co-Featured Bouts
Catch The Replay Monday At 10 p.m. ET/PT On SHOWTIME EXTREME
Click HERE To Download Photos; Credit Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME
VERONA, N.Y. (Jan. 13, 2018) – Unified Women’s Super Middleweight World Champion Claressa Shields dominated previously undefeated Tori Nelson en route to a 10-round unanimous decision in the main event of ShoBox: The New Generation Friday on SHOWTIME from Turning Stone Resort Casino.
Shields controlled from opening to closing bell, sweeping 100-90 on all three judges’ scorecards in the first 10-round distance fight of her career. The 2012 and 2016 Olympic Gold Medalist out-landed Nelson 225-81 with her total punches, 186-70 in powers shots, and connected at a 44 percent clip with her power shots compared to just 20 percent for Nelson.
“I landed every shot that I thought possible to land,” Shields said. “She was tough, she wasn’t a pushover. She put on a good fight.”
Shields advanced to 5-0 with two knockouts in what was likely her final fight in the super middleweight division. The 22-year-old now has her sights set on the middleweight division where she will eventually target undefeated and Unified Women’s Middleweight World Champion Christina Hammer, who was ringside Friday in Verona.
“I have to drop down and see how I feel (first),” Shields said. “I think I could make 160 easy, I’m going to be bigger and stronger than any girl.
“Hammer just wants to scope. I think she’s pretty scared to be honest. She is more worried about me than I am about her. I’m going to kick Hammer’s ass. People think Hammer is more skilled than me so I can’t wait to show her that she’s not.”
Hammer, who is expected to fight in a co-featured bout on the next Shields card, was interviewed by SHOWTIME analyst Steve Farhood and expressed excitement to make her U.S. debut and eventually face the American champion.
“It’s a great combination me and her on the same card,” Hammer said. “I can’t wait to show the fans who Christina Hammer is. That will be the best fight ever. It will be the game-changer for female boxing. It’s our time to shine.
“I’m long-time world champion and I have more experience. I have longer reach, I’m tall, I have good footwork and better technique than her. I feel the energy, and I can’t wait to fight against her.”
The former world champion Nelson (17-1-3, 2 KOs) became the 173rd undefeated fighter to suffer their first professional loss on ShoBox: The New Generation.
“I’m not happy because I didn’t win, but other than that I thought I executed pretty well,” said the 41-year-old Nelson. “I gave her a better fight than she was expecting.
“No disrespect to Claressa, she doesn’t have great power. She has great speed and she overwhelms you with a lot of punches. My movement threw her off like I knew it would but knowing she was the champion, I needed to just push a little bit more.”
In the ShoBox co-feature, Jesse Hernandez narrowly defeated Ernesto Garza via split-decision in an action-packed fight that was scored 95-94 Hernandez, 95-93 Garza, 97-93 Hernandez.
After a close first round, Garza floored Hernandez with a flush left hand to the nose in the closing moments of the second round. Hernandez recovered, and while the middle rounds featured tremendous back-and-forth action, Hernandez seemingly had no trouble walking down Garza, who’s punches seemed to lack any real power. Garza (9-3, 5 KOs) found a second wind and seemed to pick up the eighth and ninth rounds until Hernandez roared back in an excellent 10th and final round that featured 178 total punches.
Hernandez (11-1, 7 KOs) landed 50 percent of his power punches and connected on 40 percent of his punches compared to just 28 percent for Garza, however he threw just 719 total punches compared to more than 1,000 by Garza.
“I think it should have been a unanimous decision,” Hernandez said. “I’ve always been a slow starter and I feel like I lost the first two rounds, especially with the knockdown. But I won pretty much every round after that, I maybe lost three rounds.
“I’m not completely happy with my performance. I have to control my distance and my range a little bit better. I need to go back to the gym and work on those things. Before the summer comes I hope to have another fight and I hope it’s on SHOWTIME.
“I give Garza a lot of credit for getting in the ring and knocking me down. He hung in there for 10 rounds even after I caught him with some good shots. He was able to withstand those shots, but all that said, I still think it should have been a unanimous decision.”
Garza countered that sentiment.
“I thought it was a bogus decision,” Garza said. “I don’t understand that last judge’s card. I was happy with everything that I did. I executed well and did everything I needed to do to win the fight.
“I’m really disappointed with the outcome. I felt that I won. To me, I won a majority of the rounds and I knocked him down. I know knocking your opponent down usually leads to you winning the fight.”
Undefeated Uzbekistan power-puncher Shohjahon Ergashev handed Sonny Fredrickson the first loss of his career with an impressive third round TKO in the opening bout of the ShoBox telecast.
The win over the top-10 ranked Fredrickson extended Ergashev’s perfect record to 12-0 with 12 knockouts.
The 26-year-old pressed the action from the beginning, negating Fredrickson’s five-inch reach advantage with a steady diet of well-timed, crisp punches. Ergashev landed a wide left to the head that stumbled Fredrickson in the opening minute of the third and continued to tee-off as his opponent wobbled against the ropes With Fredrickson (18-1, 12 KOs) unable to defend himself and eating a series of brutal lefts, referee Benjy Esteves stepped in to stop the bout at 1:58 of the third.
All of Ergashev’s 61 connects in the bout were power shots, and he connected on 77 percent of his power punches in the third and final round.
“The ref saved him,” Ergashev said. “If he let him stay on his feet any longer I would have knocked him out. He couldn’t handle my power.
“At this stage of my career, I am in the best shape of my life and the best I have felt. This is my time right now, especially because I am training with Rick (Phillips) and (Javan) Sugar (Hill Steward). That’s what leads to all of my knockout power.
“I’m ready for whatever comes next. I’m ready for more fights in the U.S., and I want to keep getting more exposure to show off my skills. I’m ready to fight anybody in America.”
Fredrickson, who became the 172 fighter to suffer his professional loss on the prospect developmental series, suffered a jaw injury in the bout and was unavailable for comment.
Friday’s tripleheader will replay on Monday, Jan. 15 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on SHOWTIME EXTREME and will be available on SHOWTIME on DEMAND® and SHOWTIME ANYTIME®.
Barry Tompkins called the ShoBox action from ringside with Steve Farhood and former world champion Raul Marquez serving as expert analysts. The executive producer was Gordon Hall with Rich Gaughan producing and Rick Phillips directing.
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