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One of the more exciting Canadian fighters not signed by one of the big promotions, Ryan “The Real Deal” Ford talks about making his return to the Maximum Fighting Championship after his upcoming The Fight Club welterweight title bout was canceled.

HT: MMACanada.net

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Press Release

In a move that an overwhelming majority in the mixed martial arts world believed would never happen, Canadian welterweight sensation Ryan “The Real Deal” Ford has signed a new multi-fight contract with the Maximum Fighting Championship.

A former two-time challenger for the MFC’s 170-pound title, Ford and the MFC bitterly parted ways in early 2009 and the acrimonious split resulted in a rift that most insiders considered impossible to repair. But out of nowhere, there has been a mending of fences and Ford (12-2) is back in the MFC looking to rejuvenate a career that had dramatically stalled in his year-long absence from the organization.

“It’s unfortunate and a shame what happened the first time around, but I think everyone has grown since then,” offered MFC Owner/President Mark Pavelich. “This time around I hope that Ryan reaches the goals he set for himself — the goals he started with in the MFC right from the beginning.

“I hope that he lives up to his abilities that we all know he has. He’s going to be fighting top-notch talent so we will certainly see what he truly has.”

Now fighting out of the ZUMA training centre in Victoria, British Columbia, Ford is expected to make his return to the ring at MFC 26 on Friday, September 10. An official announcement on the host city and lineup for that card is forthcoming.

“I think this is very exciting for the fans,” said Adam Zugec, Ford’s trainer at ZUMA. “There’s been a lot of drama … just like a reality show, and I think the fans really love that.

“I’m expecting great things from Ryan. He’s made to be on TV, his persona is perfect for the MFC’s shows on HDNet, and Mark and the MFC is so good at marketing its fighters on television.

“I always knew that eventually both parties would be back working together. Both sides needed some time to clear their heads and start a new plan. As everyone started to mature they’ve become more willing to work with each other and that’s good for both sides.”

Ford made his MFC and professional mixed martial arts debut back in August 2007, instantly becoming a fan favorite as he rattled off six straight wins including three inside the opening round. His biggest victory in that initial phase of his career came via a second-round submission of veteran Pete Spratt — an outcome that while marred by strikes coming after the bell to end Round 1 also drew Ford favorable comparisons to Georges St. Pierre at the same time of their respective careers.

Following his sixth win, Ford earned a shot at the vacant MFC welterweight title, and although he dominated much of the fight with his takedowns, the Edmonton, Alberta, native was caught in an armbar and forced to tap out to veteran Pat Healy midway through the third round. Two victories followed for Ford which garnered him a rematch with Healy but the reigning champ held onto his belt with a tight five-round, split-decision outcome in his favor.

Unable to agree on the terms of a new contract, Ford and the MFC parted ways soon after the Healy rematch. But at long last, Ford has returned to where his blossoming career began.

“I think the best thing to happen to Ryan was to go to a smaller organization, get some experience and work on some things, and now return to the big show,” added Pavelich, who expects to quickly have a list of opponents lined up to face Ford.

“Ryan is eager to fight anybody,” noted Zugec. “Everybody knows that Ryan is a fighter at heart and he wants to test his talents against the best fighters at 170.”

It would appear that Maximum Fighting Championship president Mark Pavelich is behind on some fees owed to the River Cree Resort & Casino located near the city of Edmonton, Canada according to TheGarv.com.

Pavelich has reportedly been suspended by the Association of Boxing Commissions for “non-payment of fees owing to the commission” which will be lifted once he pays up.

The Garv.com was tipped off today that a member of Canada’s athletic commission filed a request to to the head of the Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC) to officially suspend Mark Pavelich, president and promoter of Maximum Fighting Championship (MFC) for “non-payment of fees owing to the commission”.

6/17/10: It looks like the fees owed by Pavelich and MFC stem back to an event in February, and more than one attempt was made to arrange payment with no response from MFC. From what I understand, the suspension is officially in place, but will be lifted if Pavelich settles up. He’s expected to do so in the next few days.

The MMA News has interviewed the MFC president in the past, and is known for some of his colorful comments on the UG forums. Hopefully this won’t effect some of his promotions upcoming events such as the HeatXC show next month and the next MFC show in the fall, which he’s looking to hold in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada for anyone living in that area. That event should showcase an MFC middleweight title bout featuring BJJ specialist Thales Leites.

The UFC will is holding a press conference on Tuesday at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Canada this coming Tuesday at 1 p.m. ET (10 p.m. PT). Speaking will be UFC Chairman Lorenzo Fertitta and UFC President Dana White.

The UFC has long coveted Ontario as one of the last bastions to be conquered in the drive to bring their brand of MMA to North American fans. With highly successful shows in Montreal, ranking in top five for gate and attendance records, as well as the upcoming UFC 115 event in Vancouver next month, which sold out in record time, an event in Toronto could break all previous marks held by other UFC events.

Currently mixed-martial-arts is illegal in Ontario and the UFC has been lobbying hard to have the Criminal Code changed to legalize the sport. UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre was a recent spokesman for the promotion in helping to lobby the Provincial Government to change the law.

In a recent article from Sportsnet.ca, sources informed them that the UFC has tentatively booked the Rogers Centre, home of the Toronto Blue Jay’s baseball team, for an event on March 26th.

Numerous sources have informed me that the organization has reserved Saturday March 26th, 2011 as their first foray into the province of Ontario. This will also mark the UFC’s first event to be held inside a stadium.

The Rogers Centre, with it’s retractable roof, can seat over 46,000 fans for baseball and football, but when floor seats are added, the number dramatically increases to over 65,000. The current record for paid attendance is 68,237, set by Wrestlemania X8, on March 17th, 2002.

Adding more speculation is a recent message from the Canadian based Maximum Fighting Championship president Mark Pavelich, who stated on his Twitter page that his organization is looking to book an event in early 2011.

The Maximum Fighting Championship Canada’s leading Mixed Martial Arts Organization would like to announce a tentative date in Ontario in Late February 2011. It’s not sanctioned yet but we will just let everyone know we will be there when it is.

Tuesday could be a very exciting day for mixed-martial-arts fans in Canada.

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Legalize MMA Part 3 (Toronto)
HT: EkkoMMA.com

On Friday night Brazilian middleweight Thales Leites proved himself again by defeating another opponent at the MFC 25: Vindication event in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

With a move to the Canadian based promotion, Maximum Fighting Championship, Leites has come out to prove his ability as a striker, the only problem is that none of his few opponents have wanted to stay standing.

In his first fight at MFC 23, Leites tried to keep the fight standing against Dean Lister but only found an opponent looking to take the fight to the ground. In the end a disappointed Leites walked away with a unanimous decision victory.

On Friday night Leites faced the former “TUF 7″ alumnus Jesse Taylor in the main event of MFC 25. Expecting to test his striking against a game opponent, Leites was disappointed once again finding an easy fight.

Taylor was the aggressor from the start of the round and used his wrestling ability to take Leites to the mat quickly. Looking to end the fight early, using his ground-and-pound, Taylor only met a chain of submission attempts by Leites who forced him to tap at 2:27 of the first.

“This wasn’t an easy fight, I trained a lot. Jesse is a very good fighter and an excellent wrestler and I needed to do my homework for this fight,” said Leites “My fight plan was to finish this fight inside the distance. I didn’t expect a submission in the first round. Maybe late in the fight, but not the first round.”


“To be honest, you know I thought that he would try to prove his standup, like I was trying. I didn’t know that he would try a fast shot to my leg. But I was ready for everything. I accepted the ground game and used my Jiu-Jitsu.

With the victory, Leites will more than likely fight for the vacant MFC middleweight title against an as of yet to be determined opponent, and the Brazilian is willing to take a wait and see approach till that fight is announced.

It means a big step for me, I have two fights in the MFC and two victories. Two victories against two fighters. A victory against Dean Lister and a victory against Jesse Taylor. The next step would be the title shot. Let’s see what happens and lets see what Mark (Pavelich) might say.

Though the proverbial spotlight may be firmly planted on Montreal for UFC 113, Maximum Fighting Championship made sure Canadian MMA fans outside of Quebec also had a chance to get their live-show fix this weekend courtesy of last night’s ”MFC 25 – Vindication”. The Edmonton event featured a slew of fighters hailing from America’s northerly neighbor as well as a handful of names once associated with the infamous Octagon.

Chase Gormley, who started his career out with six wins before dropping a pair of fights in the UFC, got back on the winning track by outpointing Ryan Fortin on all three judges’ scorecards. The victory was his second by unanimous decision in the promotion.

Not so lucky in result was TUF 6 alumnus Richie Hightower who emerged a loser after falling victim to a first-round submission at the limbs of Gavin Neil. The Rear-Naked Choke brought Neil’s record to 8-1 and was his fourth win in a row.

However, not all was lost for fighters with Ultimate Fighter experience, as Season Four’s Pete Spratt avoided the judges’ scorecards by finishing fellow Octagon veteran Luigi Fioravanti with less than a minute remaining in their bout. The accomplishment marked Spratt’s eleventh career TKO, while American Top Team’s Fioravanti is now 3-2 since parting ways with the UFC slightly more than a year ago.

To the surprise of some, especially those not flying a flag with a maple leaf on it, Ryan Jimmo lived up to his nickname and proved he is indeed a “Big Deal” by welcoming Brazilian Wilson Gouveia to MFC with a unanimous decision defeat. Gouveia, who showed up three pounds heavy to the weigh-in, has fallen in his last three fights and is now 12-8 as a professional. Comparably, the win improved Jimmo’s record to 13-1 and continued an impressive streak dating back to the Canadian’s only loss – his debut in February 2007!

The evening’s main event involved perhaps the largest contrast in personalities if not styles, as soft-spoken, technical jiujitsu practitioner Thales Leites tested his skills against colorful, physical wrestler Jesse “J.T. Money” Taylor and needed less than two-and-a-half minutes to pass the exam with a Triangle Armbar. It was the third loss for Taylor in his last four fights and his fifth by submission out of six total career defeats. On the other end of the spectrum, the hold brought about the one-time UFC Middleweight Championship contender’s third victory in a row since being released by the organization after a split-decision snoozer to Alessio Sakara at UFC 101.

Here is a complete rundown of results:

Jevon Marshall def. Garret Nybakken via Submission Round 3
Keto Allen def. Aaron Berke via TKO Round 1
Chad Freeman def. Mike Froese via Submission Round 1
Chase Gormley def. Ryan Fortin via Unanimous Decision
Gavin Neil def. Richie Hightower via Submission Round 1
Pete Spratt def. Luigi Fioravanti via TKO Round 3
Emanuel Newton def. Dwayne Lewis via Unanimous Decision
Ryan Jimmo def. Wilson Gouveia via Unanimous Decision
Thales Leites def. Jesse Taylor via Submission Round 1

Join us Thursday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. EST (11:30 PST) for the live weigh-in results for Friday’s upcoming Maximum Fighting Championship event “MFC 25: Vindication.”

The weigh-ins will take place at the City Centre Mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, while Friday’s show is set for the Northlands Expo Centre with the prelim action beginning at 8:15 p.m. EST (5:15 p.m. PST).

You can follow us live on Twitter for the live weigh-in updates and news notes from the weigh-ins.

The full card for MFC 25 is as follows:

Main Card:

- Thales Leites vs. Jesse Taylor
- Wilson Gouveia vs. Ryan Jimmo
- Emanuel Newton vs. Dwayne Lewis
- Luigi Fioravanti vs. Pete Spratt
- Gavin Neil vs. Richie Hightower

Preliminary card:

- Chase Gormley vs. Ryan Fortin
- Chad Freeman vs. Mike Froese
- Aaron Berke vs. Keto Allen

A scheduled bout between Solomon Hutcherson vs. David Heath was removed from the card after Hutcherson suffered a concussion while training for the match.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Edmonton, Alberta, Canada based promotion, Maximum Fighting Championship, has released a highlight video of some the best action from their events.

The MFC’s next event will be next Friday May 7th MFC 25: Vindication and will feature a middleweight title fight between Thales Leites vs. JT Money.

Press Release

What was seen on CBS this past Saturday was to say the least an absolute embarrassment for the sport of mixed martial arts.

And on top of that, it also should be considered a giant step backwards as well. While gigantic steps have been made over the past 10 years for MMA all it takes is one ridiculously stupid incident to push everything back in a big way.

As the night unfolded I was asking myself why in the world so many fighters, corner men, hangers-on, etc. were all allowed into the ring when the fights were over. It was obvious to me that it was an accident waiting to happen. I didn’t realize that an incident of such unfortunate magnitude would take place mere minutes later.

The sport of MMA has grown in prominence by such large leaps and bounds in the past few years but all it took was one disgusting outburst to ruin things. Is it any wonder that despite all the progress MMA has made that companies like Nike, McDonald’s, AT&T, and the like haven’t jumped on board. Sure there are brawls of similar magnitude in baseball, football, and hockey, but those sports have made their progress and are cemented into everyday society. MMA hasn’t got near to that level of household acceptance. How would you like to be the company with a huge logo in the middle of the ring and instead of seeing slick fighting taking place over top of it, you’re seeing sick, street brawling.

And how would you like to be the parent explaining that riot to a youngster. It wasn’t about a pitcher throwing at a batter’s head or a quarterback being thrown down out of bounds by a lineman. Go on explain it. Would it make any sense to say “Well, all I wanted was to put my name out there for a rematch” or “He disrespected me.” Doesn’t quite carry the same weight in an argument, does it?

First and foremost this incident should never have happened, and as someone who personally looks after a ringside area, I virtually guarantee that it would never happen at Maximum Fighting Championship. True it’s tough to absolutely guarantee anything but for sure I can steadfastly say that every precaution is taken to not allow that kind of riot to happen.

Why can I be that confident? Because from Day 1 of working with MFC and particularly when being put in charge of the ringside area, it was taken as a very serious responsible by myself and my staff that safety and sense be first and foremost in our minds. You can do that in several ways. The first is simply by being present and accountable. You can’t be wandering off, schmoozing, visiting, chilling in the backstage area or just being caught being a fan. You’re working and you’re responsible for the most important of the arena other than the actual inside of the ring or cage.

The next step is talking to the fighters and hand in hand with that, making it clear what is tolerated and what is not by laying it out in the fighters’ itinerary. It’s clearly stated what is allowed when it comes to entourages and what is not. In the MFC you can have as many guys as you like walk you to the ring, but they have to leave once you’re at ringside and they can’t come back – win or lose. It was clear watching CBS the other night that the fighters, not the staff, were in charge in ringside. They did whatever they wanted – in this case bringing teammate upon teammate with them to ringside, having them camp out, and then still being allowed into the ring at the end of the fight.

No matter what a staff does to control things at ringside if you’re out-numbered by a 4:1 ratio, you’ve lost whatever handle you had on things. And if that staff is on their toes like the MFC staff is you cut the chances of such a violent down to a very low percentage.

It’s about being on your toes, too. Yes there are hotheads at every fight and the testosterone is pumping so tempers are up and emotions are running high. But obviously no one on that CBS card was awake – how could you miss an obvious situation brewing like that? It’s called keeping your head on a swivel. You have to know what’s going on around you. Case in point, when Nick Thompson and Pat Healy butted heads in a potential tete-a-tete at an MFC event, we were on top of it enough that other than some heated words and a minor push, no other escalation resulted.

Even when the MFC had some much more volatile names on its roster, nothing serious ever came up because we knew what could potentially happen and those situations were snuffed out before they became a problem. A little nose-to-nose beefing at the end of the fight is one thing. But when it gets physical it’s gone too far. Real professionals know where the limit is. Spotlight-stealers and those with a gang mentality have no realization when that line is about to be crossed.

And finally, it’s about respect. The MFC staff respects the business and doesn’t want to let an event such as a televised riot take place on its card. Most importantly though the fighters on the MFC roster have a respect for the staff and the brand of the show and they don’t want to embarrass themselves or the organization under whose banner they fight for. As an example, you might see Dwayne Lewis come to the ring trailed by an entourage that stretches back to the dressing room. Yet that crew knows the rules, abides by them, and represents with dignity not disdain for the sport and the opposition.

I’m knocking on wood, for sure, but I’m still promising that this type of obscene incident isn’t going to be taking place in the Maximum Fighting Championship.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu artist Thales Leites (16-3) is working hard to prepare himself for his upcoming Maximum Fighting Championship title fight on May 7th. He’ll be stepping into the ring against veteran mixed martial artist and former “TUF” competitor Jesse Taylor.

The match is an important one for Leites as he is looking for the tough fights in his efforts to climb back up the middleweight ladder. He spoke recently to Tatame.com about his title fight and his opponent Taylor.

“I believe that our game matches, I’ve been watching his fights and I could tell he’s really explosive. He goes and takes the guy. Now it’s just wait and see, practice, study his game and adapt myself.


“It would be a fight for the belt and I don’t know why it changed all of a sudden. I want to fight independently if it’s for a belt or not, but of course that when you fight in a competition, you want to reach the top of it. I’m focusing on this particular fight. You will see an embattled guy, who’s always trying for a knockout or a submission. I’m going for a combat, always, and I believe he will do so. It’s has everything that takes for an excellent fight.”

HT: Tatame.com