I talked with George McGinnis of York Mixed Martial Arts Academy in Red Lion last week and he told me a little bit about the victory by his brother, Brett Myers, at the WKU Warrior Challenge in the Poconos.

"The strategy was exactly what he executed ... get off first, set the pace of the fight," George said. "Be the first to make contact ... We had a contingency plan to get the fight to the ground."

"I felt that no matter where the fight was at ... I felt Brett was going to be just fine."

Brett launched a front kick and then a 1-2 combo that nearly knocked opponent Chris Evans out, George said.

Brett backed Evans to the cage wall and pinned him there, standing. Brett unloaded with combos against Evans until the referee stopped the action in the first round and called the fight in Brett's favor.

In two fights, Brett has shown his stand-up, but also groundfighting - he won by armbar in Virginia back in September.

His next fight is against Mike Blackwell at CPWC II.

According to Lewis "The Beast" Rumsey's myspace, the Williamsport fighter will turn pro in November. Fighting out of Team Vicious, Rumsey has amassed an 8-4 record and recently gained a sponsor in Tattoo Fightwear. Rumsey fought Mike Oberdick at the first Central Pennsylvania Warrior Challenge in April, beating Dickie by unanimous decision. Next, he'll defend the LHW title he won at CPWC II on July 18.

Tom and I give our UFC 100 predictions and talk about the upcoming Central Pennsylvania Warrior Challenge II. The Technique of the Week is brought to you courtesy of george McGinnis at York Mixed Martial Arts Academy in Red Lion.

MMACanada.net has the pics, bloodyelbow.com is where I found out about them:

After UFC 99, Mirko Cro Cop Filipovic drew the ire of the MMA community when he announced he was leaving the UFC, although it had been reported he was supposed to fight several more times there. Most speculated he was jumping back to DREAm, the Japanese promotion he had fought under after leaving the UFC the first time. here's an exclusive from Robert K from Big Odds Mike who translated an article from the Croatian site index.hr.

Exclusive UFC owner visiting Cro Cop in Croatia

Index understands that Lorenzo Fertitta, the head honcho and part owner of the UFC flew to Zagreb with his own private jet earlier this morning. He was driven to Mirko's residents shortly after, where he stayed for two hours talking with the Croatian fighter. He returned to the airport afterwards, smiling, where his private jet flew off in to an unknown destination.

from mmajunkie.com:
While Still Standing Productions, LLC recently conducted Pittsburgh's first MMA event, the organization may find itself needing to make a few changes before a announcing a second card.

The Ultimate Cage Fighting Challenge has drawn the attention of the sport's biggest organization, the UFC, and a copyright infringement claim may be forthcoming.

UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner recently told the MMAjunkie.com Radio Network that the UFC was currently looking at potential action against the upstart organization.

"We're always happy to see fans, and we love competition," Ratner told MMAjunkie.com. "There's nothing wrong with it. But there's some copyright infringement problems when they call themselves the UCFC.

No Holds Barred: Eddie Alvarez, Bellator Lightweight Champion

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman speaks with one
of the most exciting and versatile fighters in mixed martial arts, and
the new Bellator Fighting Championships lightweight champion, Eddie
Alvarez (http://www.alvarezfight.com/).

We had a chance Wednesday afternoon to conduct a lengthy telephone
interview with Eddie Alvarez about his life, his career, and his
family. We discussed the importance of his family to him, how and why
he got involved with mixed martial arts, and how his upbringing in
Philadelphia has affected his fighting career. We discussed his
victory in the eight-man tournament to capture the Bellator Fighting
Championships lightweight title, winning all his fights with
submissions, over Toby Imada, Eric Reynolds, and Greg Loughran. We
analyzed his style, which effectively combines boxing, wrestling, jiu-
jitsu, and muay Thai. We discussed his fights last year in the Dream
organization in Japan against Joachim Hansen, Tatsuya Kawajiri, and
Shinya Aoki. And we talked about his plans to fight in the future for
the Bellator Fighting Championships after taking a very well-deserved
rest.

You can play or download No Holds Barred at
http://nhbnews.podOmatic.com/entry/2009-07-01T22_05_40-07_00.

You can also download No Holds Barred at http://www.mediafire.com/?dtmxozmgfzz

From the Grapplers Quest Web site: The new 90,000 square foot Lancaster County Convention Center, connected with the brand new Marriott Lancaster will play host to The 2009 Northeast Grappling Championships on Saturday, September 26th.

The venue is located at the Lancaster Convention Center, 3 East Vine Street,Lancaster, Pa.

DISCOUNT TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW, Save $5 and Experience the Greatest Grappling Show on Earth, Meet Your Favorite MMA Superstars, and Watch the World's Best Grapplers & Fighters,
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For Directions go to, LancasterConventionCenter.com

OFFICIAL Hotel
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• Phone: 1-717-239-1600 CALL 717-239-1600 FOR DISCOUNT RATE OF $139 Per Night
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For more info. go to the official Web site.

Mark Jovich tells me there's still a few tickets left if you want to attend the Central Pennsylvania Warrior Challenge II at Wisehaven on July 18. Get your tickets here. The card is stacked with talented local fighters, and there are two re-matches from the last show. It should be an awesome show, as the first history-making event was, and there's not a bad seat in the house.

from mmajunkie.com:
Any doubts about the ability to draw big crowds in the Northeast will be put to rest at UFC 101.

The Aug. 8 event, set for the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, has already resulted in nearly 14,000 tickets sold and more than $3 million in sales.

UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner discussed the success of the show, headlined by UFC lightweight champion B.J. Penn vs. top contender Kenny Florian, with MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) on Wednesday.

The state of Pennsylvania only recently began regulating mixed martial arts, but Ratner said UFC 101 has already shattered long-standing boxing records in The Keystone State.

"We put tickets on sale, I believe sometime at the end of April or early May, and we've sold almost 14,000 tickets," Ratner said. "It's the biggest event in Pennsylvania history, as far as a live gate, already."

Yeah ... I'll say this: I'm going to reserve my judgment until I talk with promoters Ryan Kerwin and Raymond Gokool. Maybe this is a tongue-in-cheek thing, just trying to create characters, like pro wrestling. You know, give the crowd heels to boo and babyfaces to cheer (or maybe the opposite). Still, if they were going to do that, they could just make up names for teams like The Straight-Shooters vs. The Scofflaws, or something like that. If they're really glorifying actual police officers and criminals fighting, then I have a problem with it. I'm a cops reporter here at the Daily Record, and while officers are not perfect, I have a deep respect for what they do. On the other hand, everybody's an adult here, so if you're a fighter, it's your choice where to fight, and if you're a potential spectator, you can either buy a ticket or not. Either way, I'll keep you updated.

From its Web site, here's who the promotion has signed:
Tom Sauer (cop) vs. Kevin Jordan (con)
Lamont Lister (cop) vs. Mike Bogner (con)
Taylor Sensabaugh (cop) vs. TBA (con)
TBA (cop) vs. Rick Casarez
TBA (cop) vs. Anthony Morrison (con)

MMA legend Pat Miletich helps out with the UFC 100 preview and Jacob "Stitch" Duran talks about why he's one fo the best cutmen in the fight game.

The latest video from Wand Fight Team. Wand - fresh from his fight with Franklin (cuts on his nose and ear) trains his team and gives them a heartfelt psych-up, complete with a classic Chute Boxe-like cheer at the end.

Do it again: Riggs and Diaz for Strikeforce 8/15?

MMAJunkie.com has some interesting rumors, so I'll run 'em down real quick:

- We may see Shane Carwin vs. Cain Velasquez at UFC 104 in Los Angeles.

- For UFC 107 in Memphis, it looks like native son Quinton "Rampage" Jackson will take on nemesis Rashad Evans, in a fight that will most likely determine the number-one contender to Lyoto Machida's title.

- Jow Riggs and Nick Diaz fought once in the UFC, and once unofficially afterward in a hospital ER. They make it official for the second time at Strikeforce's Aug. 15 event.

I was on Team Tap or Sleep's facebook page today and saw this photo:

Playboy model Amanda English, whose TOS photos I posted a while back. Now who wouldn't want to see her as a ring girl at the Central Pennsylvania Warrior Challenge? C'mon, Mark, make it happen!

Right now, the two LHWs are coaches on the set of The Ultimate Fighter 10 (which is actually for heavyweights, but whatever) and ever since their in-Octagon confrontation a while back, can't stand each other.

Gilbert Yvel, who was tooled on by Josh Barnett at Affliction: Day of Reckoning, gets the KO on Pedro Rizzo and the right to fight Paul Buentello at Affliction: Trilogy on Aug. 1.

Here's an email I received from Joe Duffey, co-owner of Academy of Combative Arts in York City:

Daniel (BJJ champion Daniel Beleza) took Jimmy Chappell up to the Poconos for the WKU Warrior Challenge for a fight. Jimmy won in the first round via armbar. Also, Daniel took a team of guys(Team Beleza is the fight name) to Scranton today (6/27) for the PA Brazillian Jiu Jitsu tournament and all of our guys placed. We had 2 in the kids division, Chaz and Jordan, both winning gold, 4 in the adults white belt division(in 3 different weight classes), Tom(gold), Jaysin(bronze), Josh(gold), Tux(silver) which equated to 2 gold, 1 silver, and 1 bronze medal, and 2 in blue belt division(2 different weight classes), Jimmy(gold) and Mike(Bronze) resulting in a gold and bronze medal.
I'm very proud of them so I wanted to share the news. Joe Duffey

Daniel Beleza

Steve Blackman, far right, with his crew at the June 20 Barbarian Fight Club event.

Steve "The Lethal Weapon" Blackman, a former WWF wrestler - who often partnered with Ken Shamrock - has had great success with his MMA team, located in Harrisburg. By the way, A recent message sent to me said, "Jeff Smith just won a 145 title bout at Barbarian Fight Club's Stompin' Grounds along with 4 other wins and one decision loss. check it out at www.blackmanmma.com/results - this is our third amateur belt title this year!

Evinger joins many of the top female fighters in the country in this documentary. Thanks to Jerod Phillips from Tap or Sleep fightwear, who sponsors Evinger and says that in more than one place on the show, you can see someone sportin' TOS fightwear.

Larry Novak at Tattoo Fightwear sent me an email, listing the fighters he's sponsoring at the upcoming Central Pennsylvania Warrior Challenge at Wisehaven on July 18:

Justin Scott 6-0
Chad Strawbridge 1-1
John Andel 2-0
Duane Bastress 2-0
Adam Hostetter 1-0
Brent Kroh 1-3
Troy Jensen 0-0
Lewis Rumsey, 8-4

This video was sent to me by Chad Dubin at LionHeart. Here's the lowdown on LH's fighters: "Phil Davis improved his unbeaten professional record to 4-0 with another 1st round TKO over David Baggett. In his first four professional fights, Phil has gone into the second round only once.

Paul Bradley got back to his winning ways to improve his record to 11-1 with a dominating performance over Leonardo Pecanha. Paul won another stand up war by unanimous decision."

Earl is from Team Balance, run by the Migliarese brothers in Philadelphia. This was at Dover's Good Fight on Jan. 24.

Phil and Ricardo Migliarese, Relson Gracie black belts.

Talked with WKU Warrior Challenge promoter Mark Jovich last night and he had nothing but good things to say about Friday's event in the Poconos at Pocono Manor.

Mark said there were about 700 people in attendence: "Good crowd, plenty of room, not a bad seat in the house," he said. "I was really happy with the way the evetn went."

Mark gave me a few results from the York area fighters: Brett Myers from George McGinnis' York Mixed Martial Arts Academy in Red Lion won in the first round by ref stoppage. Jimmy "Shrapnel" Chappell also won in the first with a submission, follwing a short, but heated stand-up battle with his opponent. And Chad Strawbridge scored a KO early in the first round. Nice job, guys.

I'll have more infortmation as it becomes available.

Still trying to find results from last night's UCFC "Rumble on the Rivers" event that went down in Pittsburgh and featured LionHeart Fighters Phil Davis and Paul Bradley (word was David Sachs did not fight) plus veterans like Rich Clementi and Cole Miller, not to mention hot female prospect - and new LionHeart Fighter Meghan Wright. I'll let you know when I find out something.

Just watched Justin "Skiz" Scott vs. Jesse Finch, who fought at the WKU Warrior Challenge in the Poconos on Friday night. Scott, of York, worked an excellent ground game and scored an arm bar victory early in the first round. Scott, who is 7-0 as an amateur, trains at MACE in Red Lion.

See the video here at MMA Melee. Thanks to Joe Piazza for uploading the video.

Although he still has not been tested, I'm thinking Affliction or Strikeforce is going to sign Lashley, for possibly an event in the fall. Just a guess. And how about all those boos for Lashley? Either the fans in Biloxi simply don't like Lashley, were upset at Sapp for tapping, or aren't too familiar with the ground game.

from sherdog.com:
Bobby Lashley fought with brains and brawn, and Bob Sapp could not keep up in the featured bout at Fight Force International "Ultimate Chaos."

The unbeaten Lashley took down Sapp in the opening seconds and grinded away with ground-and-pound until the larger-than-life Pride Fighting Championships and K-1 veteran tapped out to strikes 3:17 into round one on Saturday at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum in Biloxi, Miss.

Lashley (4-0), who promised to fight Sapp standing in the pre-fight buildup, instead took the more intelligent route to victory.

"Going out there against somebody like Bob, you've got to be prepared," Lashley said. "I just wanted to get him down. I had to go out there take him down, cover him up, keep him flat and pound on him. That was our gameplan. You've got to wear the big man down. We've got other matches where we can test our stand-up."