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Arona, “Shaolin” Gunning For a Return


(Arona, coming soon to a cage near you.)

PRIDE vet Ricardo Arona has stated he’ll be back at it very soon. It’s been exactly a year and a day since Sokoudjou KO’d him in the first round at PRIDE 34 and Arona says he spent the time off training and getting his shit together — my words, not his. He has been working on his physical training as well as becoming a better student of the game, and now both US and Japanese organizations are courting him to fight. So he’s weighing his options. While no specific date was revealed or a possible opponent named, a fight for the native of Brazil appears on the horizon.

Any fighter who is outta’ there for more than a year is prone to collecting a little rust, but Arona, who is 13-5 overall, isn’t worried about losing his timing:

Undoubtedly, if you compete all the time you’ll get always better at the ring, but I’m not worried with this kind of challenge. Although I don’t get into the rings, I’ve faced challenges all day in my life, in everything I do. Being well prepared, the mind will be ready too and I’m not worried about that, I’m worried of being 100%.

Good theory, but the challenges I face in everyday life — like pretending I’m not looking at the cashier’s boobs while she rings up my case of beer and pound of jerky — doesn’t really prepare me for anything other than avoiding being creepy while in public. Maybe Arona will have a different experience.

Since the downfall of PRIDE, Arona has been linked to the UFC, Yarennoka!, and HCF events, but none of those panned out. A bout of Dengue Fever further kept Arona out of action. If you don’t know anything about Dengue Fever, it’s not the start of a good week — unless you enjoy a good rash.

Moving on…“Shaolin” Ribeiro is also ready for action again and says he is recouped from his eye injury. He is slated to fight on a DREAM card in the near future, but it’s not clear who he will fight or which event it will be. “Shaolin” had this to say:

“I’m training full-contact fighting as usual and can do everything. My eye’s 100% and this was just another injury like any other. I should fight in April or May, I’m ready for them to call me, whether its a normal match, part of the GP or a reserve fight, I have a contract with K-1 and I’m ready. On the winners of the first phase of the GP, I wasn’t suprised by anything, all the ones to win were really tough, including Eddie Alvarez who beat Andre Dida. I already knew of him from Bodog. He’s really tough and I knew that if he wasn’t doing well standing, he’d take him down.”

The Brazilian lightweight is 19-2 overall and is a veteran of Shooto, Cage Rage, and K-1 Heroes.

(Props Tatame, FightLinker)

Written by admin on April 9th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on HCF and Shaolin and comeback and DREAM and Ricardo Arona and UFC and Pride and News and MMA.

Afternoon D’light: Fitch Names Next Champ & More


(Future MMA heavyweight champ?)

Slower than molasses today. Here are some snippets for ya’:

— Jon Fitch talked to 5oz of Pain recently about who he thinks are the next big things in MMA coming from his camp, AKA (via MMA Fightline).

There are two guys that stick out the most. One is another Purdue wrestler that just graduated named Nathan Moore. He’s been training with me out here and he was also a team captain at Purdue. He fights at 185 (pounds). Tremendous ability. He’s more of an athlete than I am and a better wrestler than I am. He’s picking up the striking and jiu-jitsu very quickly so he’s a name to watch out for in the next couple of years.

And then the biggest one is Cain Velasquez. I like to call him “Sugar Cain.” He’s a heavyweight and he’s the biggest and baddest heavyweight you guys have ever seen. He’s going to turn the heavyweight world upside down in another year or two. Nobody is going to be talking about Kimbo. Nobody is going to be talking about Fedor or Randy. Everybody is going to be talking about Cain.

…he’s fought a couple of fights for Bodog. The problem is that we can’t find fights for him because won’t just take fights against him. I think what’s going to happen is that he’s going to fight at UFC 83. I think he’s got a fight and they’ve got him on that card. So he’ll be making his debut, I think, at UFC 83. I’m not 100 percent sure on that but he’s been training for that and I think that’s going to happen. He’s tough. He was an All-American at Arizona State. He’s just a tremendous athlete.

Bold statements. We’ll wait this one out.

— I was disappointed with Dan Henderson’s appearance on “Rome Is Burning” this afternoon. Hendo may not be the greatest interviewee, but Rome mostly just stuck to softball questions that didn’t give us much new info or stoke the UFC 82 fires. There is to be a second appearance on “Rome” this week by Hendo, so maybe then we’ll get a better scoop.

— David Loiseau will be the headliner for “HCF: Crow’s Nest” when he faces Todd Gouwenberg on March 29th in Quebec. Loiseau’s nickname is “The Crow”. Get it…”Crow’s Nest”? Originally, “Cyborg” Santos was going to be in the fight, but Gouwenberg stepped in after Santos was dropped by HCF because he plans to fight in a World Victory Road show coming up. The Crow is 1-4 in his last five. Grouwenberg is 4-1 during that stretch.

Written by admin on February 25th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on HCF and The Crow and News and Dan Henderson and Jon Fitch and MMA.