By Dwight Wakabayashi
There is a tiny light at the end of the dark tunnel for starving mixed martial arts fans in Ontario as new mixed martial arts promotion Substance Cage Combat announced its very first live event will take place on June 29 from the George Bell Arena in midtown Toronto.
After a seven-month drought for MMA fans in Ontario, SCC 1.0 will feature several of the province’s top stars, including Adrian Wooley, Randy Turner, Alex Ricci and undefeated Score Fighting Series and Bellator fighter Elias Theodorou.
SCC president Neil Forester, a longtime Toronto concert and event promoter and co-owner of Grant’s MMA Gym, stated in an SCC press release that the promotion’s primary focus is to help fighters in Ontario and Canada by providing them with another stage to perform on.
“I recognized a major void in Ontario of opportunities for our local pool of talented fighters to fight at home. Score Fighting Series was the last legitimate local organization helping to promote and develop Ontario MMA fighters, and I just felt like the sport needed someone to come in and fill that void,” he stated. “This isn’t about making money for our group; it’s about helping to further develop the sport in Ontario and providing a stage for our local fighters to gain fight experience and get more exposure.”
Wooley and Turner will headline the show in a flyweight tilt, and many of the fighters on the card will be guys from Forester’s own gym.
Forester has a strong team of friends in the MMA and event promotion world that are heavily involved in helping him make sure this venture is a long-term success. Ontario has seen a bunch of one and done shows in the region since MMA was legalized in 2011. Bellator Fighting Championships has had a regular schedule of four shows in Ontario in each of the last two years, but has not held a show in Ontario this year and has not announced a show for the province in 2013.
The Score Fighting Series was also a strong promotion in the region, with two to four shows a year but the SFS halls have been dark since late last year. Ontario’s top fighters, including Jesse Ronson, Chris Horodecki, Chad Laprise and Jesse Gross have all had a tough time getting a fight this year and have had to accept fights out of province to keep busy and stay sharp.
If the inaugural event goes as expected, Forester says the group plans to run up to two more events in the Greater Toronto Area this year. In the meantime, his focus is on bringing Ontario MMA back with a bang on June 29, and fans in the region can’t wait to get to see it.
Here is the fight card announced to date (all are awaiting approval from the Ontario Athletic Commission):
Flyweight – Adrian Wooley vs. Randy Turner
Light-heavyweight – Todd Stoute vs. TBA
Lightweight – Alex Ricci vs. TBA
Middleweight – Elias Theodorou vs. TBA
Featherweight – Neelan Hordat-Reece vs. TBA
Flyweight – Abdullah Teymouri vs. TBA
Welterweight – Vanja Vojvodic vs. TBA
Middleweight – Jared Rodd vs. TBA
Lightweight – Albert Cheng vs. TBA
Bantamweight – Ahmed Akkar vs. TBA
Dwight Wakabayashi is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report UFC and regular contributor to Sportsnet.ca’s UFC section. Follow him on Twitter @wakafightermma.
