Cage Talk – MMA – All The Latest Mixed Martial Arts News

(Rebney's thinning patience with Coker showed in this recent Twitter posting.)

By CagePotato contributor S.C. Michaelson

CHICAGO -- With the recent announcement from Strikeforce that it will put on a 2011 heavyweight grand prix tournament, the MMA community has been abuzz with excitement and intrigue. Many analysts predict that a successful tournament could be the catalyst to Strikeforce becoming more of a major player in today's market. However, not everyone is as excited about the prospect of the proposed tournament -- enter Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney.

"Tournament schmurnament," spat Rebney. "Hello, does anybody remember what Bellator is? Our whole company is based around tournaments. Hell, we just had a heavyweight tournament last year!"

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News Bellator, Bjorn Rebney, Scott Coker, Strikeforce, tournament, Winnebago son

(Photo courtesy United Glory/MixFight.nl)

United Glory held an MMA and kickboxing hybrid tournament event in Holland over the weekend and by the video and photos we've seen of the show, it was very good and the production value was better than some mainstream promotions pull off.

The event was streamed free of charge via United Glory's website and even the quality of the video feed was incredible.

The next event, which will include the second round bouts of UG's $120,000 welterweight MMA and heavyweight kickboxing tournaments will be held January 30 in Belgium and will also be streamed live.

Here's a video recap of the event, which was promoted and produced by the owners of Golden Glory:

(Video courtesy YouTube/United Glory)

The MMA portion of the card was sanctioned by Europe's Shooto commission and featured a number of notable fighters including UFC veterans Roan Carneiro, John Alessio, David Bielkeden and Derrick Noble as well as Shooto champion Siyar Bahadurzada.

On the kickboxing side, the show featured K-1 standouts Gokhan Saki, Mourad Bouzidi and Brice Guidon.

If you missed the show, videos of all of the fights are after the jump.

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News Golden Glory, Holland, tournament, United Glory

(The "1" represents the % chance that the event will actually go down)

Well, we can't say we didn't see this one coming.

SHINE Fight Promotions' planned Friday night lightweight tournament is looking less and less likely to happen by the day.

Forget the fact that the event was moved less than two weeks out from its original location of the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Virginia to a Native-owned and operated casino on a reservation in Oklahoma, what is likely to cause the show's kibosh is the fact that there is no commission to oversee the event, which means it is essentially non-sanctioned or underground event.

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News Oklahoma, Shine Fights, tournament, virginia

Filed under: Fighting, News

In a marketing move the promotion is calling "unprecedented," Shine Fights will allow fight fans to assume the role of matchmaker for its upcoming lightweight tournament.

The promotion announced Monday that the first-round matchups for its eight-man, one-night tournament, scheduled for Sept. 10, will be chosen by fans through an online voting process.

News carloprater, drewfickett, georgemasonuniversity, Josh+Shockley, richcrunkilton, Shine+Fights, tournament, virginia

Filed under: News

It will have to change course and move halfway across the country to do it, but Shine Fights’ lightweight tournament will go on as scheduled.

On Saturday, MMA Fighting was first to report the news that the promotion had been denied a license in Virginia for its Sept. 10 lightweight grand prix at the Patriot Center in Fairfax and would be moving the event to Oklahoma.

On Monday, Shine Fights COO Jason Chambers made the move official on his Twitter account. Less than a week before the event, which is scheduled to air on pay-per-view, Shine will move to the First Council Casino in Newkirk, Okla.

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