CHICAGO, Ill. (March 17, 2010) — Bellator Fighting Championships put the final piece in place for its much-anticipated Season 2 lightweight tournament today with the signing of 9-3 up-and-comer Pat Curran.

The 22-year-old Curran is the cousin of UFC, WEC, Strikeforce and PRIDE veteran Jeff Curran but is quickly stepping out of his cousin’s shadow and carving his own path in the MMA world.

Pat Curran first gained widespread notoriety thanks to his appearance on Season 2 of the short-lived TapouT reality show, where he was given the nickname “Paddy Mike” by the show’s host, Mask. Most recently, in late February, Curran won a unanimous decision over Robbie Olivier, one of Britain’s top ranked fighters, at an event in Olivier’s home country.
Pat delivering shots to Olivier on his way to a unanimous victory.

“My cousin and I have the same last name and he helped pave the way for me, but that doesn’t help me once I’m in the cage—it’s all on me then,” Curran said. “Bellator is a huge step in my career and I’m excited for the chance to really prove myself and make a name for myself around the world.”

Curran grew up in South Florida where he was an All-State high school wrestler and moved to Illinois in 2007 to begin training at his cousin’s Curran Martial Arts Academy in the Chicago suburb of Crystal Lake.

He will make his Bellator debut at Bellator XIV on April 15th in front of a hometown crowd at the Chicago Theatre.

Curran is the final competitor to be added to Bellator’s eight-man Season 2 155 lbs. tournament along with former UFC superstar Roger Huerta, Season 1 runner-up Toby Imada, former Olympian Ferrid Kheder, undefeated Canadian phenom Mike Ricci, European stalwart Janne Tulirinta, the undefeated Chad Hinton and former All-American wrestler Carey Vanier.

Each tournament fight will be broadcast live in prime time on FOX Sports Net every Thursday night beginning April 8th and replayed in special highlight shows on NBC and Telemundo every Saturday night beginning April 10th.

First round matchups will be announced later this week.

“Pat is a very solid addition to our stacked 155 lbs. tournament,” said Bellator founder and CEO Bjorn Rebney. “Pat comes from MMA royalty and is ready to make his own impact on the sport. He was sought after very aggressively by several other major promotions, so I’m excited for him to be a part of our organization. It will be great to see him fight in front of his many hometown fans next month at the Chicago Theatre.”

For more information, visit Bellator.com, follow Bellator on Twitter @BellatorMMA or on Facebook at Facebook.com/Bellator. For tickets, go to Ticketmaster.com.

Ok, for the record, this was not a planned feature for the site or anything we told Pat to do. As a matter of fact nobody would have ever seen any of these unless you browsed through his photo’s on Facebook.

Apparently Pat has been doing this for quite some time now and you never know where he will pop up. If he is in your town beware… you may get served.

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First impressions… Punk Ass meet your new sponsored fighter. Served. 3/13/10

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Archived Servings

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(Post Serve) For those who thought this pic was fake… Monk was pissed! 12/10/09

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shhh… Be vewy vewy quiet… Served. 11/16/09

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Pshhh… Dana, shmana… Served. 11/4/09

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Boo!!!! Served. 11/4/09

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Outside, snow storm, with a windchill factor of 15 degrees… Served.

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Liftin weights, feelin strong, impressing the ladies with your dead lift form… Served.

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Mindin your business, doing some laundry… Served.

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Gettin a fresh cut, can’t risk any big movements or your do is gonna get screwed… doesn’t matter… Served.

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Teammate? doesn’t matter… Pettis… Served.

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Not really part of the series but… Served none the less.

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Check back as we will update the servings as they come!

For immediate release, March 13 2010:
SuckerPunch Entertainment, an MMA Management company has signed two new athletes to its stable of professional mixed martial arts fighters. Michele Gutierrez and Catia Vitoria are the first female athletes to be signed to SuckerPunch’s stable of professional fighters.

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Michele Gutierrez
Pro Record 0-1-0
Muay Thai/BJJ Fighter
Out of Las Vegas, NV
Next fight: Art Of Fighting, April 3

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Catia Vitoria | Bellator
Pro Record 2-0-0
Muay Thai/BJJ
Out of Las Vegas, NV
Next fight: Bellator, April 15th

On March 19th Junior Assuncao will fight John Mahlow for the XFC lightweight belt. Junior took the time to answer some questions for us in between training.

Q. What have you been doing since your fight in SHINE?

JR. Man I have been itching to fight sooo bad. SHINE kept changing the date of their show so I sat longer than I wanted. I have been helping my brothers get ready for their fights and just staying in shape.

Q. How do you see this fight going against Mahlow?

JR. I am going to win. John is a tough guy but my training with my brothers and team here at Ascension is so good right now I’m just ready to kill haha. If he wants to stand, we will stand. If he wants to go to the ground then we go to the ground. I feel my game is so complete right now that I’m not too worried about where it goes.

Q. The Assuncao name is getting recognized as a force in MMA, what does the future hold for the 3 brothers?

JR. Yeh that was the plan. We let Freddy cook for a long time before we brought him into the sport and he is looking really good right now. Raphy is a machine and will be the champion soon. Me, I am going to work my way back to the UFC and show the world that I belong with the best.

Q. Whats next for you after the XFC?

JR. I am supposed to fight in SHINE in May but I would look forward to defending my title here at XFC after I win it! haha.

Q. Anything else on the horizon for the Assuncao’s?

JR. Raphy will be back in the WEC soon and Freddy is supposed to fight on April 25th here in GA.

Q. Any closing statements?

JR. I would like to thank Tokyo5, Brass Knuckle Therapy and Full Tilt Poker and thank the XFC for having me on their show. XFC is a good show and I am glad to have a shot at getting their belt. Also have to thank Brian Butler and SuckerPunch for taking such good care of me and my brothers.

For more information go to Xtreme Fighting Championships

For immediate release, March 5 2010:
SuckerPunch Entertainment, an MMA Management company has signed 5 new athletes to its stable of professional mixed martial arts fighters.

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Ron “Abongo” Humphries | StrikeForce
Pro Record 5-1-0
Freestyle Fighter
Out of Atlanta, GA
Next fight: StrikeForce Challengers, March 26th

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Warren Thompson | The Ultimate Fighter season 11
Pro Record 5-0-0
Muay Thai/BJJ
Out of Atlanta, GA
Next fight: Sport Fight X (Red Line Grand Prix) March 26th

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Brent Weedman
Pro Record 16-5-1
Karate/Muay Thai/Judo/BJJ
Out of Louisville, KY
Next fight: N/A

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Dhiego Lima
Pro Record 1-0-0
BJJ/Muay Thai
Out of Atlanta, GA
Next fight: Sport Fight X (Red Line Grand Prix) March 26th

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Eric Kriegermeier
Pro Record 1-0-0
BJJ/Boxer
Out of Chicago, IL
Next fight: N/A

What can we say about Bart? If you don’t know Bart Palaszewski, your impression of him might be that he is a rough, tatted up, red headed wild man. If you google him you will see fight after fight and war after war… a guy like this has got to be a jerk right?

The truth is Bart is a promoter’s best kept secret. He is one of the nicest, funniest characters in the sport and will step up and fight anyone at a moment’s notice.

Bart has been fighting since the age of 18 and now at the ripe old age of 26 he is considered a veteran and an underdog rather than a young, improving contender in the sport. Bart knows all about being the underdog and even being bullied. After all, he got involved in training after getting beat up in school by a kid who trained in Mixed Martial Arts. Ironically, Bart was bullied by a student that trained with Jeff Curran at the time so he decided to go to the source and seek training himself. For Bart to show up at the the bully’s school definitely took some brass. Bart showed great potential and Curran took him under his wing. Outside of Curran, it wasn’t long before Bart became the top fighter in the gym. As for the student that that bullied him, well he mysteriously stopped showing up for classes.

Bart’s successes lead him to a shot in the now defunct IFL where he made a name for himself by being involved in some of the promotion’s most historic wars and cementing his name as a KO artist. However, few people know that he is a very talented BJJ brown belt which often goes unnoticed because of his KO ratio.

After the IFL Palaszewski exploded into the WEC with a KO over Alex Karalexis but then took back to back losses to last minute replacements Ricardo Lamas and Anthony Nyojukwani. With his WEC career on the line Bart was asked to fight the undefeated phenom, Anthony Pettis. “It was a big risk taking that fight with Pettis because I really wasn’t able to put in a proper camp due to an injury that only allowed me to jog and hit pads 3 days a week” said Palaszewski, “but I don’t like to complain about injuries because we all have them all the time”.

On March 6th Palaszewski will face Karen Darabedyan and there have been rumblings that a win over Bart puts Darabedyan in the hunt for a title fight. This frustrates coach and friend Jeff Curran, “Anyone that thinks Bart has peaked or has reached his potential is out of their mind. He isn’t a Gatekeeper of the LW division, he is a top contender and deserves respect.”

Matt “Meat” Mitrione announced today that he will enter his training camp for his next fight at legendary striking coach Duke Roufus’s gym in Milwaukee, WI. Roufus has built a successful camp that boasts fighters such as Pat Barry, Eric Schafer, Alan Belcher, Anthony Pettis, Eric Koch, Ben Rothwell and Razak Al-Hassan to name a few.

“I have been looking for a camp that can develop my natural skill sets and my manager Brian suggested coach Roufus as an option because of the size and type of guys he has out there”, said Mitrion, “I have heard nothing but good things about coach Roufus so trust me when I tell you, I’ll be ready for my next fight.”

With a such a high quality collection of Heavy and Light Heavyweights at Rufus’ gym Mitrione will be able to work with fighters such as Rothwell, BJJ black belt Eric Schafer and possibly the best striker in the UFC’s heavyweight division in Pat “HD” Barry, giving Mitrione an opportunity to evolve into a legit contender. “I like Matt and I think he got a bad rap on the show” said Duke, referring to Mitrione’s stint on TUF10. “I think this man can fight and he’ll be a great addition to the group we have here.” Duke also goes on to say, “We have a very good camp especially for big guys in MMA and we are looking forward to Matt getting in here.”

Mitrione has made it clear that he has set his sights to finish his next fight in an explosive manner and making the move to train with other elite heavyweights is a major step towards that goal.