Not much has been heard about what is going on in Northern
Europe in the last couple of years ever since European Vale Tudo hit legal
opposition and subsequently disbanded back in 2006. That appears to be changing as Superior
Challenge (SC) continue to grow to the point EVT were when they folded. October 31st’s SC 4 “Bad Intentions” card at
the Fryshuset Arena in Stockholm, Sweden not only has a good representation of
fighters from Sweden, it has a good representation of fighters from literally
around the world.
Coming off a win in the last SC event Reza Madadi headlines against Mindaugas
Smirnovas. Madadi fights out of Hilti
MMA and is mainly known for his submission victories, most recently defeating
Raymond Jarman by arm triangle.
Smirnovas hasn’t fought MMA in almost two years and is coming off two
losses but his Muay Thai style is thought to be a perfect match for Madadi,
depending on who has the better wrestling skills to control where the fight
takes place.
What makes this card stand out is the amount of foreign fighters, such as UFC
vet and former WEC champion Mark Weir.
Being British Weir made an unlikely WEC North American middleweight champion,
a title he won by defeating Will Bradford in WEC 12 and lost to Alex Serdyukov
in WEC 14. Weir was also the Cage Rage
British welterweight champion. With both
those titles being secondary to those organization’s world titles Weir never
transcended being known as a 1-2 UFC fighter.
Weir had two fights so far this year, a loss February 7th and a draw
February 21st. Now Weir faces relative
unknown Tor Troeng from Ren Yi Fight Camp in Sweden, said to be 9-3-1 but
verifiable as a pro record of 4-2.
Fans may remember Piotr Jakaczynski from Bodog where he had the fight of the
weekend against Steve Berger in February ’07 and a loss to Dan Hornbuckle in
August of that year, understandable considering those were his second and third
fights. Piotr also picked up a win
against Lukasz Les in March ’08 but has no verifiable fights since then. This night he faces Ibrahim Moginot, a
fighter with an almost identical record but who has only been fighting since
Piotr has been inactive.
Other international fighters on the card include DEEP vet Yashusi Kitazaki from
Japan, M-1 Challenge vet Daniel Acacio from Brazil, and M-1 Challenge vet Jose
Luis Zapater from Spain. Fighters also
hail from France, Austria, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic.
-73kg Reza Madadi vs. Mindaugas Smirnovas
-91kg Bobby Rehman vs. Daniel Acacio
-84kg Tor Troeng vs. Mark Weir
-77kg Diego Gonzalez vs. Yashusi Kitazaki
-84kg Assan Njie vs. Tomas Kuzela
-65.8kg Tchavdar Pavlov vs. Jose Luis Zapater
-70.9kg Hamid Corassani vs. Peter Mettler
-93kg Martin Wojcik vs. Sascha Weinpolter
-77kg Piotr Jakaczynski vs. Ibrahim Moginot
-84kg Magnus Cedenblad vs. Jonas Hellqvist
-65.8kg Navid Yousefi vs. Scott Pooley
-70.9kg Meher Aziz vs. Michael Bobner
-70kg Olivier Pastor vs. Ocimar Costa
-65kg Gabriel Nesje vs. Nicklas Backstrom
