Cung Le

Henderson, Shogun, Serra, and Cung Le Join Round 5 Summer Release

MARKHAM, ONTARIO, CANADA – Four of the most popular and accomplished champions in mixed martial arts, Dan Henderson, Cung Le, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Matt Serra, have partnered with Round 5, the leading producer of MMA collectibles, to create figurines that will be included in an expanded Series 4, it was announced today by Barron Lau, Round 5 CEO and co-founder and Damon Lau, president and co-founder. The series, scheduled to be available at retail in July in time for UFC 100, will include the four plus fellow superstars Fedor Emelianenko and Gina Carano.

Round 5 also confirmed today that Series 3, which features Andrei “The Pit Bull” Arlovski, “Big John” McCarthy, Frank Mir and Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira, will be in stores across North America and at online outlets including Round5MMA.com in late May, about a month behind its original schedule.

“With six figurines, Series 4 will be our largest issuance to date,” said Damon Lau.  “Adding four more of the biggest names in the sport – with wide fan bases – to what began as an already stacked set is huge for Round 5 and a great opportunity for fans to quickly add to their collections.”

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Cung Le Planning Fall Return to Action

In his latest interview with ESPN Radio 1100 and Yahoo! Sports’ Steve Cofield, reigning Strikeforce middleweight champion Cung Le reveals that he intends to fight for the first time in well over a year this fall. Le’s most likely opponent? Frank Shamrock, according to him at least.

Cung Le Featured in December Issue of Black Belt Magazine

Reigning Strikeforce middleweight champion Cung Le is currently featured in the December issue of Black Belt Magazine. Le, who is featured on the magazine’s cover, is featured in a cover story chronicling his transition from a successful Sanshou kickboxing career to the world of mixed martial arts. The issue is on sale now.

Fight of the Day: Frank Shamrock vs Cung Le

From the EliteXC and Strikeforce’s co-promoted extravaganza in March, here’s Frank Shamrock vs. Cung Le for the Strikeforce Middleweight Title, recorded with Showtime’s patented “Cage Cam”. Enjoy the three-round war.

Evening News and Notes: May 16, 2008

EliteXC heavyweight sensation Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson will serve as one of the presenters at Sunday night’s Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas according to Josh Gross of Sports Illustrated. The event will air on CBS from 8-11 PM ET. Slice’s appearance will likely have him make some kind of mention of EliteXC’s debut on the network next Saturday night.

Report: Moreno to Face Haselrig at EliteXC on CBS

New Jersey-based heavyweight Carlos Moreno will step in to face former NFL All-Pro offensive lineman and NCAA wrestling champion Carlton Haselrig at Elite Xtreme Combat’s upcoming “Primetime” event on May 31st according to Sherdog.com.

Moreno has won two out of his last three fights. He most recently fell to Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran Kevin Jordan at a Battle Cage Xtreme event last October. Haselrig was originally slated to take on Fightfest veteran Joe McCall, who will be unable to compete at the event due to family obligations.

Kelly Perdew Resigns as CEO of ProElite.com

EliteXC parent company ProElite announced today that Kelly Perdew, the winner of the second season of NBC’s “The Apprentice”, has resigned as President and CEO of the organization’s official website through the company’s SEC filing.

Perdew filed his resignation on May 9th and it will go into effect next week. According to MMA Junkie, Perdew will now move on to rotohog.com to serve as the fantasy sports company’s CEO. A successor for Perdew has not yet been named.

Donruss to Create Cung Le Trading Card

Popular trading card company Donruss has announced it’s intention to create a trading card featuring the likeness of newly crowned Strikeforce middleweight champion Cung Le, who defeated former UFC middleweight champion Frank Shamrock in March to claim the title.

“We’re excited to be able to include Cung in our program,” said Scott Prusha, Marketing Director for Donruss, said in a press release sent out to the media today. “Cung is an extremely exciting fighter and winning the Strikeforce championship was really a big thing.”

“Strikeforce on NBC” Premieres Tonight

Strikeforce, will take the leap from San Jose and Showtime to national television when the organization’s new weekly highlight show premieres late tonight on NBC.

“Strikeforce on NBC” will air tonight (tomorrow morning) at 2:00 AM ET, right after “Poker After Dark”.

Tonight’s half-hour show will focus around newly crowned Strikeforce World Middleweight Champion, Cung Le, who is coming off of arguably the biggest win of his career, a stoppage of former UFC middleweight champion Frank Shamrock two weeks ago.

Le’s life inside and outside of the cage will be profiled and his TKO win over Brian Warren in June 2006 will also be shown. A welterweight clash between longtime veterans Duane Ludwig and Tony Fryklund will be seen as well.

After years of promoting strictly kickboxing, Strikeforce began to focus on mixed martial arts in 2006 and hired Frank Shamrock and Scott Coker to oversee their new venture. The organization put on the first-ever MMA event sanctioned by the state of California in the same year and also broke the North American attendance record for an MMA event at the same time.

“Shamrock vs. Cung Le” Does $1.1 Million Gate

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A crowd of 16,326 generated over $1.1 million of live gate revenue for the “Shamrock vs. Cung Le” mixed martial arts mega-event at San Jose’s HP Pavilion on Saturday, March 29th.

“It was an incredible night all around,” said Scott Coker, CEO, Strikeforce, which co-promoted the event with EliteXC. “Our main event between Frank Shamrock and Cung Le was an epic battle that lived up to, if not exceeded, everyone’s expectations. The energy in the arena was as electric and intense as that at a Superbowl. You could really sense the magnitude of the fight and what was at stake in it through the emotions each fighter’s thousands of fans were expressing.”

In the main event, Le was crowned the new Strikeforce world middleweight (185 lb. limit) champion after a broken right wrist forced Shamrock to retire between rounds three and four.

Prior to the stoppage, Le was imposing his will with repeated round kicks to the body and side of Shamrock’s head as well as quick hands that found their mark on Shamrock’s face.

In the second half of the third round, though, Shamrock made a bold stand, backing Le into one side of the cage and tagging him with several punch combinations that appeared to put Le in trouble.

Two days prior to the event, NBC and Strikeforce announced that their two entities had entered a partnership agreement to produce the first-ever 52 week mixed martial arts series for a major TV network.  “Strikeforce on NBC” will air every Saturday from 2-2:30 am ET, beginning on April 12th.  Each show will be comprised of fighter profiles as well as Strikeforce mixed martial arts fights and highlights.

Before the close of 2008, three Strikeforce events will be distributed live on the Mark Cuban-owned HDNet.  Strikeforce programming is also available in 22.5 million homes across Europe, The Middle East, and parts of Africa courtesy of Extreme Sports Channel.

Cung Le Sweeps Shamrock

A highlight posted to Youtube by ShoSports:

Le Breaks Shamrock in Instant Classic

SAN JOSE – In a bruising battle of Bay Area rivals, undefeated Cung Le broke the right arm of defending champion Frank Shamrock en route to capturing the Strikeforce middleweight title with a thrilling, give-and-take, crowd-pleasing third-round TKO Saturday on Showtime.

The long-awaited, eagerly anticipated mixed martial arts event, presented by EliteXC and Strikeforce, attracted an enthusiastic, well-behaved crowd of 16,326 at the HP Pavilion that produced a gate of more than $1 million. Those in attendance included EliteXC standouts Kimbo Slice, Jake Shields, Nick Diaz and Phil Baroni.

The fight card aired on Showtime at 9 p.m. ET/PT (delayed on the west coast).

Gilbert Melendez (14-1) of San Francisco successfully defended his Strikeforce lightweight belt with a second-round knockout over hard-trying but outclassed Gabe Lemley (11-7) of New London, Iowa, in a second world title match on a five-bout telecast.

In other televised scraps, Drew Fickett (32-5) of Tucson, Ariz., earned a shot at the vacant EliteXC welterweight crown against Jake Shields by submitting Korea’s Jae Suk Lim (9-4) in the first round; super heavyweight Wayne Cole (11-6) of Oklahoma City, Okla., submitted (armbar) Mike Kyle (9-6-1) of San Jose in the first round and EliteXC standout Joey Villasenor (25-6) of Albuquerque, N.M., knocked out Ryan Jensen (11-4) of Omaha, Neb., in the first round.

In the top non-televised fight, Tiki Ghosn (10-7) of Huntington Beach, Calif., registered an upset three-round decision over previously undefeated welter Luke Stewart (5-1) of San Francisco by the scores of 30-27 and 29-28 twice.

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Tap Selections: Frank Shamrock vs Cung Le

Here’s our take on the main event of Elite Xtreme Combat and Strikeforce’s co-promoted show later tonight where former UFC middleweight champion Frank Shamrock will defend his Strikeforce title against undefeated former Sanshou kickboxer Cung Le in a battle of supremacy between San Jose residents.

“Shamrock vs Cung Le” will take place at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. Showtime will begin airing the televised portion of the card starting at 9 PM ET.

Bill Reger: For the last year plus, Cung Le has been calling out Frank Shamrock. For his part, Shamrock continually ducked him and said Cung was not ready for him. Well, Scott Coker got the signed names on the contract and here we go. During all the pre-fight hype, Shamrock has repeatedly said he sees a bunch of weaknesses in Le’s standup and he plans on exposing that standup.

Everyone is in agreement that Frank holds the decided advantage on the ground, so Shamrock may be taking a big chance keeping this fight on the feet. But if one watches the Shamrock’s fights over the last 8 years, he never goes for the takedown. He has even stated that he has done little wrestling training in preparation for this fight. This fight will remain standing and give Cung Le a legitimate chance at the upset.

Stylistically, Le’s striking is absolutely beautiful to watch. But up until this point, his opposition has been extremely weak. This is a huge step up in opposition. That being said, I’ll let the fan in me make a prediction and say Cung Le will win. Le is going to catch Frank with a nasty kick that stuns him and will go on to finish him. Cung Le by TKO in the 2nd round

Jamie Fitzgerald: Whenever you pick a guy using your heart rather than your head, it rarely works out. My heart is telling me that Shamrock will stand with Cung Le, and we’ll get to see Le display his diverse striking. My brain is telling me that Frank will take this fight to the ground and finally test Le’s ground game in an MMA event. Frank’s talking a big game about standing with Le. I really don’t believe him but if he does, we’ll see a game plan change.

Le’s stand-up will keep Shamrock guessing, but if Frank can stay calm, wait for his opportunities to take him down, he’ll win this with a late round submission. Otherwise, I think we’ll see Le with a 3rd round TKO. I’m pulling for Le, but think Frank will take it. This is a huge step up in competition for Le and there’s no doubt Shamrock experience will play a big part in the fight.

John Chandler: While Le’s unorthodox striking should be able to give Shamrock fits on the feet, I’m not seeing Frank keeping this fight standing for very long, despite what he has been continually saying about wanting to out-strike Le in the media. Shamrock can hold his own with almost anybody standing, but he’s definitely outclassed in this one. I’m sure he knows it too.

With that said, Shamrock should be able to dominate the fight if he’s able to take it to the ground. He’s been widely regarded as a submission wizard for years and he’s certainly going to look the part if he’s able to take Le out of his element and to the mat. I definitely don’t see this fight going the distance. Shamrock wins via armbar in the second round.