ZenRhino's MMA Blog: XFC 26 Night Of Champions III Recap

XFC 26: Night of Champions III

XFC 26: Night of Champions III
November 18, 2013
Metro Nashville Municipal Auditorium
Nashville, Tennessee

This weekend was filled with awesome MMA action on the local, regional, national & international levels. Here in Pennsylvania XFE 27 was a huge success. Bellator MMA aired an exciting event on Spike that finalized their Welterweight tournament at Bellator 104. Internationally M-1 Global & OneFC put on action-packed events, and of course the UFC put on a crazy UFC 166 event in Houston that was probably their best fight card in a string of crowd-pleasing fight cards over the past few months.

BUT, for me at least, the highlight of this fight weekend filled with great fights XFC 26: Night of Champions III was my favorite event to watch!

Xtreme Fighting Championships put on an amazing event filled with a dozen incredible fights. There were two title fights plus a fight where Luis "Sapo" Santos pretty much proved that he is the de facto Middleweight champion for the XFC by finishing a very tough opponent in ONLY 33 seconds! (this was the fourth fight in a row with a quick finish for Santos, who has spent only 2 minutes 7 seconds total in the cage for these 4 fights)

There was another women's match-up on the fight card and "Shockwave" Hannah Cifers stepped up on short notice to make her professional debut on a nationally televised event against tough veteran Heather "Hurricane" Clark. (Clark's last fight ended in a split decision loss to Felice Herrig, and later it was found out that Clark had broken her arm during the 2nd round of the fight but kept going until the full 3 rounds)

The co-main event was between Cortney "Cast Iron" Casey and Pearl Gonzalez for the inaugural XFC Flyweight Title. Casey was formerly a professional soccer player turned MMA fighter and was proving her BJJ skills by attempting several submissions, but Gonzalez somehow managed to escape/endure each submission attempt by Casey until Pearl was successful in her own armbar attempt in the 3rd round that won her the XFC Flyweight belt. After the fight Casey was complaining to the officials at cageside about an obvious low blow she suffered during the fight, but was not properly addressed by the referee in her opinion. When the low blow occurred AXS TV Fights commentators Michael Shaivello & Pat Miletich mentioned that it didn't get addressed because it might have been something the referee had never dealt with before & might not have totally understood how to handle.

The main event was a 5 round barn-burner between XFC Lightweight Champion Scott "Hot Sauce" Holtzman and Roger "The Leprechaun" Carroll. It was a knock-down-drag-out fight that went the full 5 rounds, and Carroll showed tons of heart for being able to withstand the assault of Holtzman and make it to the final bell. "Hot Sauce" threw every but the kitchen sink at "The Leprechaun" would not go down & stay there. Towards the end commentator AXS TV Fights Pat Miletich was asking why referee Gary Copeland was allowing this fight to continue when Carroll was so visibly bloody, but I feel it was right that this brave warrior was allowed to continue until the end rather than have the fight stopped when he clearly was still able to continue.

The fight resulted in a Unanimous Decision win for Holtzman as he successfully defended his Lightweight belt for the first time since winning it back in June against John Mahlow at XFC 24: Collision Course.

This was, in my opinion, the greatest XFC event I have seen, and definitely a stacked fight card that was filled with exciting match-ups. Many of the fights went the distance, and not one fight was boring or disappointing. I had posted on Facebook that I felt this event was sure to set AXS TV ratings records for MMA and I still feel that this must be true. Out of all the MMA/Combat Sports events airing on AXS TV this was by far the best & most exciting event I have watched. If the XFC keeps this up they will solidify their position as the #2 MMA promotion.

The next event for XFC will be XFC 27 on Dec 13th, 2013 in Muskegon, MI. The fight card for that event (subject to change) is:

Main Event:
Daniel Swain (10-2) vs Junior Assuncao (14-5)
Co-Main Event Featherweight Championship:
Deivison Ribeiro vs Farkhad Sharipov (14-5)
Feature Bout:
Joe Elmore (10-5) vs Eric Reynolds (18-6) @ Lightweight 155 lbs.
Angela Hill (Pro Debut) vs Stephanie Skinner (2-4) @ Women’s Atomweight 105 lbs.
Alex Trevino (5-3) vs Dave Courchaine (15-6) @ Lightweight 155 lbs.
Opening Bout: Dom Steele (9-4) vs Ryan Thomas (17-7) @ Welterweight 170 lbs.

Undercard Prelims
Ray Lopez (7-5) vs Shamir Garcia (3-0) @ Catchweight 200 lbs. (TV Swingbout)
Kenneth Green (Pro Debut) vs Andy Carter (Pro Debut) @ Middleweight 185 lbs
David Rohn (2-2) vs Drew Morais (1-1) @ Lightweight 155 lbs.
Roy Saldana (Pro Debut) vs Andres Torres (Pro Debut) @ Welterweight 170 lbs.
Gerald Lewis (1-0) vs Ryan Brettingham (1-1) @ Bantamweight 135 lbs.

The results for XFC 26: Night Of Champions III are:

Main Event
Scott Holtzman defeats Roger Carroll by Unanimous Decision to retain the XFC Lightweight Championship
Co-main Event
Pearl Gonzzales defeats Cortney Casey by Armbar at 4:43 of Round 3 to become the inaugural XFC Flyweight Champion
Deivison Ribeiro defeats Jason Hicks by TKO at 4:08 of Round 1
Luis "Sapo" Santos defeats Justin David by TKO at 0:33 of Round 1
Heather "Hurricane" Clark defeats "Shockwave" Hannah Cifers by Unanimous Decision
Luke Sanders defeats Zach Underwood by TKO at 3:38 of Round 2
Nate Landwehr defeats Keith Richardson by TKO at 4:43 of Round 1
Nate Jolly defeats Gerric Hayes by Unanimous Decision
Ben Brewer defeats Anthony Lemon by Armbar at 4:59 of Round 1
Kenny Degenhardt defeats Brian Hall by Unanimous Decision
Mario Scott defeats Jason Giffod by Unanimous Decision
Willie Taylor defeats Cromwell Stewart by Unanimous Decision