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By Jason Comack  March 15, 2010, at 9:08 pm  One of my favorite prospects, Charles Oliveira, has been offered a multi-fight UFC deal and is expected to debut with the company soon.
MMAJunkie.com broke the news.
Oliveira has been offered an exclusive agreement and is expected to debut in the near future. Though the contract has yet to be finalized, the process appears to be a mere formality at this point. An exact date for the 20-year-old Oliveira’s first UFC fight has not been determined, and an opponent has yet to be named.
Oliveira has mostly fought in Brazil but he has one U.S. fight, a win over Dom Stanco. Stanco was a former training partner of mine and I happened to have attended that fight. I can tell you that after watching Oliveira he has Damien Maia at 155 type upside. The guy is 20 years old and moves like a snake on the ground. He’s somewhat thin for 155 but should be able to add weight easily to his long lanky frame.
Photo courtesy of Ring Of Combat
The scariest thing about Oliveira is that as good as he is, and as young as he is, he hasn’t even began to scratch the surface of his potential. Jordan Breen has said on his radio show that Oliveira basically trains in his garage with friends. When he gets to a real camp, all bets are off.
By Anthony De Franco February 28, 2010, at 5:57 am One of Brock Lesnar’s training partners, Cole Konrad, has been dubbed a hot prospect by just about everyone in the MMA world. Last night, he fought at Matrix Fights 1 in Philadelphia, defeating Joel Wyatt by TKO. Shortly after, both Cole and Bellator proudly announced his signing with the up and coming MMA promotion.
Konrad was proud to moving up the ranks so quickly:
“I’m excited to sign with Bellator. It’s a great opportunity to fight for a great company and I’m just really excited for what the future holds with this company.”
While Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney was excited to sign the huge heavyweight for his upcoming season:
“Cole Konrad brings some great characteristics to the table that could make him a force at heavyweight. Brock Lesner’s dominance in the UFC has shown the impact that an elite, world-class wrestler can have in the heavyweight division. As a two-time NCAA heavyweight champion who is aggressively rounding out his MMA arsenal, Cole’s potential is unlimited. We are happy to be teaming up with him and, as a company, we are excited with what the future may hold.”
“We are happy not only to announce our long-term deal with him but to reveal that fans will be able to see his next fight on one of our nationally televised May events on FOX Sports Net, NBC and Telemundo.”
We here at the 3SS have been watching Bellator put together the best young talent in the country and wondering what the hell Strikeforce is doing. As a matter of fact, there hasn’t been a day that’s gone by in the last few months that Jason and I haven’t discussed Bellator quickly coming up in Strikeforce’s mirror. Now, they steal another amazing prospect from them in the form of Konrad.
The scary part about Konrad is that he could be everything that people think that Brock Lesnar is. While Lesnar is the UFC champ, there are still those, including us, that have been unimpressed with his wrestling game. What will happen when he goes up against a guy who is his size? We aren’t so sure that it’s going to be as easy as his last three fights have been.
Konrad possesses the wrestling skills, but has not really shown that he can adapt them to MMA. While training with Lesnar, Sean Sherk, and all the other pro fighters at Minnesota Martial Arts, I’m sure that he’ll develop quickly. It’s yet another steal for the Bellator organization.
By Bryan Berg January 13, 2010, at 12:14 am Just got home from the Coliseum a little while ago… WOW. Of all the things I thought I’d see tonight, a 6-0 Islanders win would have been at the very bottom. A perfect performance from the Islanders tonight, and that is no exaggeration. Maybe the bright future of the New York Islanders isn’t as far away as we all thought.
As for the Blueshirts, they lost in the shootout to the Devils. However, by all accounts, this was one of the best games in the entire league this season. Unfortunately, a quick search of the iO Channel Guide does not indicate a replay of this game airing anytime soon, which means that those of us who didn’t see this game missed out on something special. Hopefully, Zach will be by later on or tomorrow to post his thoughts.
In closing, thanks to the Islanders and the Rangers for giving us great performances tonight. Here’s hoping the season’s second half is full of many more nights like this one.
By Bryan Berg December 26, 2009, at 9:38 pm When the Rangers scored with 47 seconds left in the third period to tie tonight’s game at 2, I assumed that was it for the Islanders. The Rangers would go on to win in overtime; if they didn’t do that, they’d win in the shootout. I had my mental consolation speech prepared. It went something like this: “It’s a damn shame they didn’t win tonight. Kyle Okposo was a beast. Even if he never scores again, he should make the U.S. Olympic team, because he still makes things happen. Oh, and I f*&@ing hate the Rangers.”
Then, almost out of nowhere, Kyle Okposo, he who was a beast tonight, fired off a wrist shot that deflected off Marc Staal’s skate, then the post, and then found the back of the net. Islanders win in overtime.
MSG Plus gave us a bunch of stats that I thought said a lot about these two teams. First, Brandon Dubinsky’s second goal gave the Rangers their first point in a game where they trailed after two periods. That’s plenty of fodder for the “The Rangers have no heart” chorus. Second, the Islanders earned their 37th point a full 13 games before they hit the 37-point mark last year. Third, the one we all know a little too well, this was Okposo’s first goal in nineteen games. Lastly, and perhaps most pathetically, the Islanders have consecutive wins for the first time in almost two months.
Yes, the Islanders gave up a crucial point to the Rangers, a team they may be battling for a playoff spot later this season. But this was a big win for the Islanders. They took it to their biggest rivals tonight and got two points. They got a bit of a raw deal with the schedule – their game against the Flyers tomorrow starts just 22 hours from the drop of the puck tonight – but the Flyers are terrible and the Islanders are riding a great wave of momentum. Truly, there’s no reason why they can’t beat Philadelphia tomorrow night; there’s even less reason why they can’t beat Columbus on Tuesday night. That’d be four in a row. It probably wouldn’t get the Isles into the top eight before the end of the year, but it certainly would send them into 2010 on a positive note.
Huge win tonight. And one last note on Okposo – now that he’s broken his goal drought, look for him to heat up in the very immediate future.
By Anthony De Franco December 16, 2009, at 11:22 am Oh baby. I am pumped for this fight. It looks like Brock Lesnar will continue to be out of commission for awhile, and while it sucks for the UFC’s bottom line, we will get to see all his possible opponents go at it for a chance at the champ. Starting with this one, via MMA Weekly:
It appears the wait for a heavyweight title fight for Shane Carwin has finally been set, except it will be for an interim title, as current champion Brock Lesnar remains on the mend. Carwin will now likely face Frank Mir in an interim heavyweight title match at UFC 111 on March 27 in Newark, N.J.
The rumored bout has started to take shape sources close to the negotiations disclosed to MMAWeekly.com on Tuesday night. Possibility of the bout was first reported by AOL Fanhouse.
The likelihood of this fight came about most likely in two parts following the UFC 107 weekend that just past. First, UFC president Dana White said the company was looking to make a decision in the next 6 to 8 weeks about the future of the title with Lesnar still sidelined.
The second part was Mir’s first round destruction of Cheick Kongo at UFC 107, putting the former champion squarely in the sights of another run at the title belt.
It looks like all the pieces of the puzzle have fallen together and Carwin vs. Mir is now a reality.
I really like this fight. As said above, Mir’s enhanced striking really looked good against Kongo. I really do believe that between that and the extra 25 pounds of muscle he’s added in the last few months, that he is ready to compete with any heavyweight in the world. That means you, Brock.
However, Frank Mir himself called Carwin a better version of Lesnar. Shane is a solid 265, has great wrestling and packs the hardest punch in all of MMA. His striking is nice and tight, and I just don’t see Mir achieving a takedown on him.
As you can probably tell, I like Carwin in this one, but it will be a damn good fight.
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