This Sunday March 20, in Phoenix, Arizona, there will be a very strange fight event. UR Fight will host a mixed style event with a few freak shows:
Here is the fight card announced so far:
Boxing: Roy Jones, Jr. vs. Vyron Phillips
MMA: Tank Abbott vs. Dan Severn
Pro-Wrestling: Kurt Angle vs. Rey Mysterio
Grappling: Michael Bisping vs. Chael Sonnen.
The event will be streamed via online pay-per-view for 12 dollars.
The grappling match will be submission only format and three rounds. Michael Bisping will get a chance to avenge an MMA loss to Chael Sonnen.
Bisping recently received a medical suspension following his decision victory over Anderson Silva at UFC Fight Night 84 last month but since grappling matches are not regulated by the Arizona Boxing and MMA Commission, Bisping will be free to compete.
Aaron Avruskin, Director of Programming for UR Fight parent URShow.tv, stated:
Bisping has the UFC’s blessing. The fighters will receive a purse and a “significant” portion of online pay-per-view revenue.
Chael Sonnen is a purple belt in BJJ under Fabiano Scherner, who last competed in Metamoris 6 where he had an uneventful draw with Renato Babalu Sobral. Sonnen spent most of the match in Babalu’s guard. He has also faced Andre Galvao in Metamoris where he lost by submission.
Sonnen has a decorated wrestling career where he earned All-American honors, was a two-time PAC-10 runner-up, was a silver medalist at the 2000 Greco-Roman World University Championships, and was a two-time Dave Schultz Memorial Institutional Greco-Roman winner. In 1996, Sonnen began training in boxing, and had wanted to compete in the UFC upon graduating from high school. In 2000, he had placed third in the Olympic trials in the 85 kilogram division.
On a recent interview with Submission Radio, Sonnen stated:
“He (Bisping) has no chance.”
UFC fighter Michael Bisping is a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Brady Fink.
Michael Bisping has a rich combat sports background. He actually began training traditional Jujutsu at the age of 8. In 1994, at the age of 15, he competed as an amateur in Britain’s first “no holds barred” competition, a precursor to modern MMA, called Knock Down Sport Budo (KSBO).
At the age of 18, Bisping decided to abandon his martial arts training “to pursue real life”. Less than a year later, Bisping began training in Boxing, kickboxing and karate on the advice of Allan Clarkin, owner of Black Knights Kickboxing, who saw potential in the young fighter. Bisping enjoyed a short but successful kickboxing career, winning the North West Area title and later the Pro British light heavyweight kickboxing title. After again briefly quitting competition in 1998, Bisping returned to kickboxing to take the Pro British light heavyweight title for a second time. Soon after winning his second kickboxing title, Bisping was forced to abandon his full-time training for a “real job”. Bisping worked at factories, slaughterhouses and demolition companies; he was an upholsterer, postman, tiler, plasterer and salesman. He came back and focused on MMA.
Out of Bisping’s 25 MMA wins, 4 are by submission. He has been training in BJJ for MMA for the past years both in the UK and in the US.
Bisping has an underated ground game. He has said in the past about Vitor Belfort: “I believe I’ve got more tools than Vitor. He’s got a great submission game, but I believe I can counter that, and I’m not afraid of that. It’s funny how black belts go to white belts when you start punching them and elbowing them in the face,”
Misfits MMA Head coach and BJJ Black Belt Brady Fink gave Michael Bisping his long deserved BJJ Brown Belt on 01/10/2015.
