For months the war of words between IFL and ROC veteran Brendan Barrett and Randy Smith finally has a venue to be turned physical. Lou Neglia and Brendan both confirmed yesterday that Barrett/Smith will finally go down at Ring of Combat 32 at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City.
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Popularity: 35% [?]

I heard last weekend that Jeff Lentz had been cast on the dozenth (pretend its a word with me) edition of UFC‘s The Ultimate Fighter. He’ll be joined by .
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Popularity: 12% [?]

If you’ve followed Mid-Atlantic MMA since last year (and God bless you, if you have), you may have noticed that events come in waves. Part of the “How to Not Lose Your Ass as a Promoter” eBook involves booking your shows about every 8 to 10 weeks. Any closer together and your don’t give yourself enough time to build the event. Any farther apart and you lose your fanbase’s extremely short attention span. And for some reason, promoters all want to book shows in the same month, so we’ll get very active months with every organization running a show, and then we’ll get months like July, where it seems like nobody wants to run a show.

That is with two distinct exceptions. We’ll start about two weeks from now up in North Jersey, which has suddenly become a hot spot for shows, with organizations like UCC, KAP and the entry-level amateur show, Evolution AMMA. To take another page out of the “How to Not Lose Your Ass” hand guide, I want to point out that MMA.tv has the event, with bout sheet listed, while Evolution’s own website has no mention of any event after the March date. So its very possible that this event won’t happen. Lesson to promoters: Make sure you maintain an accurate and up to date web presence, this includes your website, your event schedule on the site, and your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
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Popularity: 39% [?]

MMA Junkie is reporting that former Ring of Combat Light Heavyweight Champ Ricardo Romero will make his UFC debut against Seth Petruzelli on UFC 116 in Las Vegas on July 3rd.

According to Junkie, this fight falls into the spot originally held for Steve Cantwell, who had his license revoked, and subsequently reissued by the NSAC.

Romero has spent his entire professional career in Ring of Combat where he assembled a 10-1 record, his only loss a DQ to Glen Sandull in 2007. Ricardo now works out under the AMA Fight Club in New Jersey, home of the Miller Brothers and Charlie Brenneman.

Petruzelli is most famous for beating Kimbo Slice in the last EliteXC event. Seth tacked three more wins to his record following the victory over Kimbo, and was recently resigned to the UFC. In his first go with the UFC he went 0-2 before being released.

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Ricardo Romero (10-1) has signed with the UFC. This move has been rumored for a few weeks now, and today the deal was officially announced. Ricardo has spent his entire professional career with New Jersey’s Ring of Combat, and leaves as their defending and reigning Light Heavyweight Champion. Reports are that this is a four fight deal, with the possibility of Romero making his Octagon debut at UFC 116. Romero is managed by AMA Fight Club‘s Mike Constantino. AMA has also produced both Miller brothers and Charlie Brenneman.

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PA Cage Fight 3 starts the weekend, jumping off Friday January 29th at The Woodlands in Wilkes Barre PA. The last Cage Fight went down on Black Friday and featured lightweights Spencer Paige defeating Nate Schut, Friday night’s main eventer Randy Smith TKO’ing Corey Mullis and Gracie NEPA trainer Jim Hettes submitting Jay Haas via heel hook.

This weekend’s show brings back Randy Smith and Jay Haas. Smith, who has 15 pro fights on his card will main event against a relatively inexperienced Michael Oldson. Oldson’s 1-0 pro record is backed by 2-5 amateur record. Between June of 2008 and January 2010 Oldson only has two fights, 1 amateur (1st round loss) and 1 pro (decision win). By comparison, Randy Smith has 8 fights in the same time frame. Didn’t Florida just squash one of Bobby Lashley’s proposed opponents for Saturday night’s Strikeforce show because of the difference in experience? These are the kinds of fights that only get by on regional shows because nobody calls them into question. But I’m afraid this may be another example of managers wanting easy fights to inflate records and promoters going along with it. At 10-5, I want to see Randy Smith fighting a guy like Ricardo Romero (10-1, ROC heavyweight champ). But I will digress for the moment and move on to the card.
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Popularity: 16% [?]