FightZone TV is proud to announce that they will once again be providing national television coverage for World Fighting Championships “Battle of the Bay 8,” an action-packed Mixed Martial Arts extravaganza at Tampa’s USF Sundome to be held on Friday, July 10, 2009.

The taped event, featuring cageside commentary by Fight Zone’s Jay Adams, will be aired nationally at a later date by FightZone TV to over 21 million homes on Fox Sport Net’s (FSN) affiliates SunSports, SportSouth, and nationally on DIRECTV, The Dish Network and AT&T U-verse, reaching over 20% of US homes with cable TV.

Famed music promoter Ted Lucas of Slip-N-Slide Records and fight promoter and WFC President, Tom Crowther have joined forces to present “Battle of the Bay 8 which will will feature a main event showdown with former UFC Champion and “Celebrity Rehab” star Ricco Rodriguez and Mario “Big Hurt” Rinaldi along with thrilling bouts from some of the top mixed martial artists in the country. To make the evening even more exciting, it will be hosted by special guest cage girl Amber Smith, star of VH-1 TV’S two hit reality series, “Celebrity Rehab” and “Sober House.” With Ricco and Amber Smith, both stars on “Celebrity Rehab,” the July 10th event will aim on creating anti-drug awareness and promote a world free of both recreational and sports-related drugs.

Tickets priced from $25 -$75 are on sale now and available at www.ticketmaster.com or www.mmawfc.com. VIP tables are also available starting at $1,000. Showroom doors open at 7pm, preliminaries start at 8pm, and main event commences at 11:30pm. The USF Sundome is located at 4202 East Fowler Ave, Tampa, FL 33620. Phone is (813) 974-3002. A portion of the proceeds from the event will go to Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, or CADCA whose mission is to create and maintain safe, healthy and drug-free communities.

The main bout of the evening features former Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight and “Celebrity Rehab” star Ricco Rodriguez (29-10-0) against Mario “Big Hurt” Rinaldi (8-02-01). This is Rodriguez’s first fight since becoming clean and sober and losing his UFC belt. “After recovery comes redemption,” says Ricco. “I’m in great shape and ready for the ultimate comeback.”

Ricco Rodriquez is a former Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight champion. He has also competed in PRIDE Fighting Championship, EliteXC, International Fight League, World Extreme Cagefighting and King of the Cage and holds notable wins over Andrei Arlovski, Jeff Monson and Randy Couture.

Rodriguez wrestled in high school while living in New York. He later moved to California and began training in the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with Rigan and Jean Jacques Machado. He competed and won many Jiu Jitsu tournaments before moving on to MMA. In 1997, Ricco Rodriguez became the first American to win a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Championship. He won the ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship in the Absolute (open weight) division in 1998. In the following year Rodriguez began his MMA career with a win against Rocky Batastini. He won several of his first matches before losing to Bobby Hoffman at the Superbrawl 13 event in Hawaii. He later fought in the PRIDE Fighting Championship before moving on to the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Rodriguez’s first UFC match was at UFC 32 against Andrei Arlovski which he won by TKO. Rodriguez went on to beat Williams, Jeff Monson (UFC 35) and Tsuyoshi Kohsaka (UFC 37) to earn a title shot against heavyweight champion Randy Couture at UFC 39. Rodriguez was losing on the scorecard in the initial rounds. In the fifth round Rodriguez was able to achieve a ground-and-pound victory with a stoppage by verbal tapout.

Voted “One of the Sexiest Women in the World” by Maxim Magazine, Tampa- native Amber Smith will be the special guest cage girl. Amber has graced the covers of over 300 magazines worldwide, including Playboy, Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire and Maxim, with her initial fame concurrent with her appearances in two Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues. An internationally recognized supermodel and actress for almost 20 years, today Amber Smith is perhaps even more recognizable as one of the top reality TV stars in America for her participation in the VH-1 TV series “Celebrity Rehab” and its sequel “Sober House.” For more information on Amber, go to www.ambersmith.com.

“Battle of the Bay 8” will feature some of the most talented MMA fighters to step into the ring including Regino Pena vs. Dustin Winterhalt, Frankhad Sharapov vs. Chris Manuel, Brian Eckstein vs. Ralph Acosta, Zack Light vs. Patrick Mikesz, Alex Caceres vs. Matt McCook, Erik “War Face” Covik vs. Caleb Archer, James Wynn vs. Giovani Moljo, Joe Ricart vs. Malachy Freidman, Gino Tutera vs. Andrew Parker and James Powell vs. TBA.

The official “Battle of the Bay 8” WEIGH-INS will be held on Thursday, July 9 at 6pm at the Embassy Suites on USF campus, next to the Sundome and are OPEN to the public. The weigh-ins will include a meet and greet with the fighters as well as on-on-one interviews with the press, available upon request.

A portion of the proceeds Go To Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America.

ABOUT CADCA
Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, or CADCA, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that works to strengthen the capacity of community coalitions in their effort to create and maintain safe, healthy and drug-free communities. CADCA supports its members with training and technical assistance, public policy advocacy, media strategies and marketing programs, conferences and special events. For more information, go to www.cadca.org.

1. I hate their ring announcer. He sucks.

2. The cage is kinda cool.

3. Ricco Rodriguez is still fat.

4. Robert DeNiro was at Oleg Taktarov’s wedding.

5. I still hate the ring announcer. Somebody should choke him out.

6. Oleg by Kneebar.

7. Don’t fall down Butterbean!

8. I’m starting to kinda like the ring announcer.

I can’t help it. It’s not UFC, most of the fighters might not be “top contenders” these days, and maybe it’s just a bit cheesy, but I am super excited about tonights YAMMA Pit Fighting debut. They’ve done a super job at making two “superfights” that I am anxious to see. I never thought I’d get to see Pat Smith and Eric “Butterbean” Esch fight. They really are two of my favorite fighters to watch, ever. I remember Pat Smith from the early UFC days when he would start a fight off by running across the cage and front-kicking some dude backwards, and of course I think most people remember his laying some vicious elbows across the face of a ninja by the name of Scott Morris.

Butterbean is just Butterbean. He will knock you the hell out.

The other “Superfight” is a match between Mark Kerr and Oleg Taktarov. I just saw Oleg recently in that movie Rockaway. For some reason, I’m thinking Oleg is going to win this just because I imagine he’s stayed in better shape over the years.

The rest of the event features a Heavyweight tournament. The fight card is as follows:

George Bush vs. Ricco Rodriguez
Marcelo Pereira vs. Travis Wiuff
Tony Sylvester vs. Chris Tuscherer
Alexey Oleinik vs. Sherman Pendergarst

Damn. I was pulling for a rare Tank Abbott victory in this one. Seriously, the dude has only won 1 fight in the last decade, right? Oh well, I was still giving him a punchers chance, and at least he came out swinging. He looked frustrated after his first few punches didn’t do what he wanted them to do, then he started getting connected on. Tank went to the mat after a Kimbo Slice punch, but Tank kept hold of Kimbos ankle, so Kimbo started raining down punches to the back of Tanks head. The referee stopped the fight to warn Kimbo of the illegal punches. The fighters started back on their feet, but Tank took more punishment, and fell flat on his face. KIMBO SLICE, Knockout, Round 1.

The Ricco Rodriguez/Antonio Silva fight was good, although it went all 3 rounds to a split decision. I had Ricco winning rounds 1 and 3, and Silva winning round 2. However, the judges decided differently and the victory went to Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva.

w00t! Tank Abbott and Kimbo Slice are due to fight in about an hour or so, this should be entertaining whether it’s a good fight or not. I would like to see Tank Abbott KO Kimbo, but I really don’t see it happening. I figure Kimbo will score a takedown and submit or TKO Tank, or, Tank will gas out.

I’m also hoping to see Ricco “Rehab” Rodriguez win his match against Antonio Silva.

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