Jason MacDonald was once considered to be one of the top rising stars in the UFC's middleweight division, but the organization released him after losing five of his last eight fights in the Octagon. "The Athlete" is now looking to rebuild his career in one of the organizations that helped make him into a prospect: Canada's Maximum Fighting Championships. Unfortunately for MacDonald, though, his MFC return didn't go as planned, as he lost a unanimous decision to Travis Lutter in October. The loss marked his third in a row, but MacDonald is still confident that a few consecutive wins will land him a spot, once again, in the UFC.
FanHouse spoke to MacDonald at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas last week about his upcoming fight against Solomon Hutcherson at MFC 23 on Dec. 4 and what he needs to do get his career back on track. The full video interview is below.
Ray Sefo has competed in over 70 professional kickboxing matches, yet he is now focusing most of his attention on his budding MMA career. The 38-year-old, who recently improved his MMA record to 2-0 with a win over Kevin Jordan at a Strikeforce Challengers show in September, has been spending his time training at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, and that's where FanHouse recently caught up with him.
Sefo talked about focusing the majority of his attention on these days on MMA and fighting Herschel Walker -- even though he has never heard of the former Heisman Trophy winner. Check out the video interview below.
As one of the early documentarians of MMA, filmmaker Bobby Razak is used to providing an inside look at the lives of fighters and personalities in the sport. But for his latest project, he's reaching out to individuals outside of MMA. Specifically, lawmakers in New York and Toronto.
"It's really to bring light to what is going on," Razak told FanHouse. "To show certain people in the hierarchy – the New York state commissions, the Toronto commissions – to show what our sport is about, how impressive it is, what good it does to the economy, what good it does to troubled youth. This is a great sport. These are great people and let's let them do what they want to do."
The K-1 World Grand Prix Final 2009 is the biggest event in kickboxing, and it will be broadcast live in the United States on HDNet in the early hours of Saturday morning, December 5. The Grand Prix final is a great event, but it's an event most American sports fans don't know about. So if you're one of those fans, take a moment to get some details from K-1 announcer Michael Schiavello.
Wanderlei Silva has confirmed that he will fight Michael Bisping (not Yoshihiro Akiyama, as previously reported) at UFC 110. And he uploaded a video to his YouTube chanel explaining why this fight is so important to him.
The UFC is targeting a March 2010 date for welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre's title defense with No. 1 contender Dan Hardy, a source with knowledge of the situation told FanHouse.
Once formally agreed to by both sides, the matchup would likely be the main event of UFC 111, which is expected to take place at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.
The 28-year-old St. Pierre (19-2) is one of MMA's hottest commodities after signing major sponsorship deals with Gatorade and Under Armour within the last year. He has been out of action since injuring his groin during the course of a successful defense against Thiago Alves at July's UFC 100.
When Under Armour signed Georges St. Pierreto an endorsement deal earlier this month, the mixed martial arts world took notice, though it likely did not resonate in the larger sports business world.
But the release of a recent study may have the inverse effect.
Scarborough Sports Marketing's new demographic survey, conducted over a six-month span, revealed a young audience with a high income. According to their statistics, MMA fans are 15 percent more likely than the average American adult to have a household income of over $75,000.
The two top MMA promotions in Japan, which originally were to go head-to-head in separate events on New Year's Eve, will instead square off inside the ring on FEG's Dynamite!! 2009 card at the Saitama Super Arena, World Victory Road's Sengoku Raiden Championship and FEG's DREAM announced in a press conference Wednesday.
Chris Horodecki has finally found a home. The former IFL star, who was once considered a top-10 lightweight fighter, has recently seen his career stall a little bit due to injuries and free agency. But the 22-year-old recently signed a multi-fight deal with World Extreme Cagefighting and will make his WEC debut on Dec. 19 against Anthony Njokuani.
FanHouse caught up "The Polish Hammer" at the TapouT Training Center in Las Vegas last week to talk about getting his career back on track and the decision to sign with WEC. Check out the video interview below.
UFC 106 on Nov. 21 raked in $3,003,250 in ticket sales at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, while WEC 44 on Nov. 18 drew a live gate of $131,200 at the nearby Pearl at the Palms.
UFC 106 made its three-plus million-dollar gate by selling 6,631 tickets, but the event was not a sell-out for the rematch event for former light heavyweight champions Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin. The UFC gave away 3,898 tickets valued at $2,331,250 and left 223 tickets unsold.
The K-1 World Grand Prix 2009 is the year's biggest kickboxing event, and as we get ready for the December 5 show, we have K-1 announcer Michael Schiavello offering his commentary on each of the fighters. His thoughts on Strikeforce heavyweight ...
On this week's edition of The MMA Hour, we were first joined by UFC lightweight star Frankie Edgar, who faces Matt Veach at The Ultimate Fighter finale on Dec. 5. Later in the show, we spoke to Strikeforce middleweight Cung Le who returns to action ...
Forrest Griffin was in a celebratory mood after beating Tito Ortiz at UFC 106. But he acknowledged that he still looks back and feels badly about the way he fought the last time he stepped into the Octagon, a first-round technical knockout loss at ...
The K-1 World Grand Prix 2009 is the year's biggest kickboxing event, and as we get ready for the December 5 show, we have K-1 announcer Michael Schiavello offering his commentary on each of the fighters. His thoughts on Ruslan Karaev are below. ...
When we posted our first women's pound-for-pound MMA rankings over the weekend, we had Megumi Fuji at No. 3 on the list. On Monday at the Shooto event in Tokyo, Fuji won again, beating Tomomi Sunaba with a first-round arm bar. ...