Thursday, September 10, 2009

Tyron Woodley vs. Zach Light Booked for Upcoming Strikeforce Challengers Card

Originally posted on MMA.fanhouse.com

A welterweight bout between prospect Tyron Woodley (3-0) and veteran Zach Light (6-8) has been signed for Strikerforce's upcoming Challengers card on September 25. Light's agent, Ken Pavia, confirmed the news with FanHouse on Tuesday. The event airs live on Showtime from the SpiritBank Event Center in Bixby, Okla.

Woodley is one of the up-and-coming fighters in the Strikeforce 170-pound division. He defeated Sal Woods via first-round Brabo choke submission in his Strikeforce debut on the undercard of the Jake Shields vs. Robbie Lawler event in June (video above).

"T-Wood" was a two-time All-American at the University of Missouri and the school's first conference champion. None of his MMA fights have gone past the first round.

Light, the head wrestling coach at Wolfslair Academy in the United Kingdom, has lost his last three fights in a row. His most notable fight was a loss to Pete Spratt at UFC 37.5 in June 2002.

"I'm extremely impressed with him," Light said. "I think he's probably going to be one of the toughest guys I've ever fought. When I say that, the benefit to me is that he is a straight wrestler. He comes from the exact background I come from. We're both very good at the exact same thing. His striking is not any better than mine, I would say it's probably about the same. But my experience, I think, it's going to be the deciding factor.

"I've been in this game for nine years, and I have been in training camps with the best fighters in the world for the last nine months. We're seven weeks off. The only reason I haven't been fighting is because we're in training camps with "Rampage," Michael Bisping, Paul Kelly, Cheick Kongo, and I'm running, training, lifting, doing jiu-jitsu, wrestling ... everything, every day with these guys."

Pavia said the Woodley-Light bout is expected to take place on the televised portion of the card, and Light is looking at this fight as the beginning of the new chapter in his career.

"My plan is to win this fight, and win a couple more in the Challengers series, beat a couple of similar guys, and make a step up from there. ... I plan on kicking the sh** out of this guy, and I mean in that in a good way. I'm not disrespecting him, but it's going to be exciting, and I'm going to look to finish the fight."

Strikeforce also recently announced that K-1 veteran Ray Sefo (1-0 in MMA; 54-20-1 in K-1) will fight Kevin Jordan (11-7) on the card, as well. The 38-year-old Sefo is works as a trainer at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas.

The event will be headlined by Zak Cummings vs. Tim Kennedy.

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