The next Australian Fighting Championships 6 card is starting to take shape with some entertaining battles announced for their event scheduled on August 24 at the Melbourne Pavilion in Victoria.
The event will be headlined by New Zealand fighter Daniel Hooker (pictured left) who will be looking at defending his AFC Lightweight Title for the second time when he faces Melbourne fighter Nick Patterson.
Hooker captured the AFC Lightweight Championship back at AFC 3 when he won the belt with a second-round doctor’s stoppage over Rusty McBride. McBride got another shot at the title but in the rematch, Hooker again came out victorious, this time winning via a first round rear-naked choke at AFC 5 in May. Training out of the Strikeforce Gym in Auckland, Hooker has also competed in the Legend FC organisation where in his last outing in the promotion, he got a first round stoppage over Chinese fighter Chengjie Wu in June 2011.
Training out of Kimekai, Patterson has notable victories over Chris Bridgewater, Callan Potter, Jacques Marsters and will be looking at putting himself in the Australian lightweight division. In his lone AFC appearance back at AFC 2, Patterson defeated James Fairman by a first-round stoppage.
In an international bout announced earlier this week, Australian featherweight Robert Lisita will face off against Rodolfo Marques (highlight video) who has previously trained at the highly regarded Nova Unaio gym in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
Since making the drop to featherweight, Lisita (pictured right) has been vocal in recent times wanting to find opponents in his new weight division. Lisita has notable victories against some notable names including David Vergers, Daniel Hooker, Shane Wundenberg and Rory McConnell. He has competed in Hong Kong based promotion Legend FC, where he defeated South Korean Yeong Gwang Choi before losing his last outing to highly rated Yusuke Kawanago. Before facing Marques though, Lisita is first scheduled to meet Jacob Pettett on the Adrenalin-Unleashed chard on June 29.
Marques is now based out of the Nova Uniao Australia – Extreme MMA gym in Chadstone, Victoria, and will bring an impressive 14-2 record into the fight. He has previously trained with the likes of Jose Aldo and Renan Barao and only notable losses in MMA have come to stand-outs Luis Alberto Nogueira and Bibiano Fernandes whom he lost to by unanimous decision on the Dream 2011 New Years Eve card. Marques has predominantly fought in his native Brazil and will be going up a weight division for the opportunity to fight in Australia. He has made his intentions clear on the AFC facebook page commenting, “I can’t wait for (this) fight. I will kill him.”
Lisita is ready for whatever Marques will bring as he told Fight News Australia, “Kill or be killed is how I fight every fight. If he wants to talk tough then meet me in the middle of the ring and we will punch on like men until someone dies.”
The welterweight and middleweight tournaments continue on the event wit the semi-finals set to take place as well.
In the welterweight tournament Corey Nelson will meet Brazilian fighter Walber Brito De Barros. Barros received a bye in the first round of the tournament back in May after his opponent Zein Saliba missed weight. When asked about his future opponent skipping through to the next round without having a fight, Nelson didn’t hold back on the This Week in MMA podcast.
“I find it pretty soft with him skipping through because he had a choice to fight the guy,” Nelson said.
“His opponent did not make weight but he still wanted to fight. The promoter asked him to fight and you get your paycheck and his paycheck and win or lose you still go through (to the next round) and he said no, I don’t want to fight. So I found that pretty soft. If I was in that position, I would love to because I get two pays, get a free walk through and I still get to fight.”
Before that fight though, Nelson’s eyes are truly on his July clash with Ian Bone on Nitro MMA 9.
In the other welterweight bout, local youngster Jake Matthews meets Queensland fighter Dean Purdon meanwhile in the middleweight tournament, Vik Grujic clashes with Steven Kennedy and coming off a 23-second win in the opening round, Slovenian fighter Bor Bratovz returns to face Judo Olympian Daniel Kelly.
Fight Card to date:
- Nick Patterson vs Daniel Hooker – AFC Lightweight Title
- Robert Lisita vs Rodolfo Marques
- Corey Nelson vs Walber De Barros – Welterweight Tournament
- Jake Matthews vs Dean Purdon – Welterweight Tournament
- Vik Grujic vs Steven Kennedy – Middleweight Tournament
- Bor Bratovz vs Daniel Kelly – Middleweight Tournament
- Peter Davenport vs TBA
