FIGHTERS AND PROMOTERS AT ODDS OVER CAGE BRAWL EVENT CHANGES
Posted on | March 9, 2007 | 2 Comments
CAGE BRAWL CONTROVERSY
BY: RICH BERGERON
Illustrating the fact that the sport of MMA is not immune to the same kind of controversy that has plagued boxing over the years, an amateur event called Cage Brawl has created quite a stir in recent weeks. Promoter Sam Ibrahim is working feverishly to salvage the event after some fighters and sponsors recently pulled out due to differences of opinion and a few broken promises.
Since Fight News Unlimited wound up in the middle of this whole dispute, we thought we’d try to put it to rest with a story illustrating both sides of the whole argument and then put it up for a vote at the end. We’ll explain the point of view of two fighters who pulled out, give you Ibrahim’s perspective, and also offer the opinion of another fighter in the middle of this mess who has come out in support of Ibrahim. At the end we have posted a poll allowing our fans to vote on the issue and decide just who is right and who is wrong.
Let’s start with the facts as we know them: Cage Brawl is set to be held on June 9th in Columbus Ohio and will feature a host of amateur MMA fighters shooting for title belts in their respective weight classes. Shannon “Sinister” Elliot and Greg “Country Boy” McDowell were both asked by Sam Ibrahim to be the main event and co-featured bout. A matchmaker was later brought in, and soon Ibrahim had to let both fighters know that they could not compete for a title belt since their sanctioned records were technically 0-0. He invited them to participate, anyway. Both eventually refused. Some sponsors also pulled out during the whole process leading up to Elliot and McDowell deciding to opt out.
We’ll start with what the fighters have to say about this issue.
“It all started around January 5th when I was promised the Main Event,” said Greg McDowell. “I still have on my profile all the bulletins Sam sent me. He’s a liar, and he promised me everything was gonna be there on his bulletins. He told me he did not want me to fight in any event until Cage Brawl.”
McDowell reported that he was told to save it for Cage Brawl, and that Ibrahim continually promised him that his word was good. “My best friend in my life, my father, told me to print something out, and since January he’s been telling me this, and it bit me in the ass,” said McDowell. “It’s pretty much a crooked deal.”
McDowell fights for Team Norsemen, a fight team that was also supposed to sponsor the event. Tim Riddle, who heads up that team, has reportedly now pulled out as a sponsor. McDowell said Tim Riddle is also pulling five of his fighters out of the event.
Feel The Pain Fight Gear, who is McDowell’s new sponsor, had also signed on to sponsor the event after McDowell personally helped make up the different sponsorship brackets for the event with Ibrahim. He said he has copies of what he and Ibrahim worked on for hours. “He told me that for anything I bring in, I get 20 percent,” said McDowell about his reasoning behind doing all the work. “I helped Sam pick up Feel The Pain as a sponsor and because I helped Sam out one night he promised me he was going to wait 72 hours to put the word out himself on the sponsorship packages. He said to me, ‘I’m not gonna post ’em out, you’re a promoter’s dream. I’m gonna let you go out there so you can make a little something on it.'”
McDowell toiled away, trying to lure Chuck Liddell and other big name fighters to participate in the event somehow or make appearances. “I went out of my way, out of my training and my fighting mindset. I became his gopher, cuz he can’t do the job,” said McDowell. “Then, all of a sudden he has a big time fighter around January 22nd, when Shannon ‘Sinister’ Elliot came in. He’s a big time brawler. He became the Main Event, and I got dropped down to be the co-feature.”
Ibrahim explained the changes to McDowell and he didn’t take any issue with it. As long as he’d still be a fighter in the event and still be shooting for a title, he said he didn’t mind. “He told me and Shannon we’d be the main guys on the fight, and he kept saying, ‘Trust me, my word is good.’ His word is so good now that I’m considered an alternate because I got a 0-0 record, and he said the Commissioner of Ohio won’t let us fight for a title,” said McDowell. “Basically what it came down to is me losing my spot on the card as a title spot contender. So, I talked to my sponsors. Tim Riddle from Norsemen didn’t want his fighters in the event. Bottom line is that it’s Sam Ibrahim’s event, and that’s just the truth. Now he brought in someone who’s a matchmaker. Justin, or something, and he’s running the show.”
McDowell maintains that he wouldn’t represent anything that’s a lie, and he even promised to take a lie detector test to prove it. “I know what the truth is,” he said.
Shannon “Sinister” Elliot also discussed the issue with Fight News Unlimited. He just found out about losing his title shot and main event slot after getting back to business when his child was recently born. “I’m not trying to do no smear campaign,” said Elliot. “But, we were both promised fights, and he pulled out on it. He hired some matchmaker, and he pulled out on us. He asked myself and McDowell not to fight until Cage Brawl, and we both agreed. We both passed up events where we could have had fights, and he knew what our sanctioned records were from the beginning. I’ve been banging for a while, and he knew that, and he promised me a title shot in writing in the first bulletin when I responded. He responded in another bulletin, and he admitted he promised me the main event. I know this matchmaker is just bringing in his friends to fight after we both went all out to promote the whole event. Greg did an interview with you guys, and I went out and did all these interviews with newspapers and the local news stations. I even contacted James Lee on MySpace, and he agreed to come in as a guest commentator. I have that on my Myspace, all my talks back and forth with him. I spoke to him Monday after his fight in Pride where he had that 33 second win.”
Elliot maintains he’s been putting the word out about Cage Brawl since the end of December. He’s passed flyers out, posted flyers all around where he lives, and told all his friends to come out and watch him in the main event match. According to Elliot, he wound up as the main event when McDowell was offered a chance to participate in another amateur or pro event, and he pulled out of Cage Brawl for that. When McDowell found out he couldn’t fight in the event after all, he came back and talked to Ibrahim, who had by then promised Elliot the main event. “He had guaranteed me the main event, and I’ve been promoting myself as the main event of Cage Brawl,” said Elliot. “I spoke to Darrick Patrick, James Lee, Thug Fight Wear, Feel The Pain, and they all knew what was going on, that I was the main event and McDowell was the co-feature. So I was out of loop with my wife having a baby here, and I figured I needed to talk to Sam to see if I still got a fight lined up. I talked to Sam, and he said everything’s fine, no big deal. He called me back 40 minutes later, and he said we’re both still on the card, but I’m not the main event anymore.”
McDowell added, “Sam Ibrahim called me a week and a half ago, and he told me we need to get some type of record real quick or you’re gonna get pulled off the card completely. We were told not to fight from January until June, and he told us that in Cage Brawl we will make a home for ourselves. He was making us sound like kings. Every time he’d talk to you, he’d say, ‘My word is gold, my word is good.’ If I had a dollar for every time he said that, I’d be a millionaire. I really felt used at the end of it all.”
Elliot simply feels duped by all the recent developments. “We, as fighters, put our body and soul into this, and we give everything we have, and you think you’re dealing with a reputable business, you think you’re lining yourself up with people who are good for their word. So, I said OK, I’ll fight. I got the main event, and I started promoting,” he explained. “Sam told me that any sponsorships I can pull in, I’ll get 20 percent, and I told him that’s great, but I just wanna fight. I knew it would be televised worldwide on the Internet, and there would be a lot of publicity. John Quinn, who’s affiliated with the MMA Guys and Cageside Live, he was gonna get The Sicillian Assassin. He was gonna fight, but I don’t know if he still is or not. I told John I’m gonna pull out. Why would I drive 8 and a half hours to an event that’s wishy-washy? I’m not gonna fight in an event where people are still gonna be looking for their seats. I can fight closer to home if I wanted to do that and fight my way up to the main event that way.”
Elliot contends that Ibrahim changed his tune when both fighters stopped bringing money in. “He offered me 20 percent, but I said, ‘I just wanna bang.’ My thing was he asked about sponsors, so I started talking to Feel The Pain, Tim Riddle, and Greg and I were talking to the same people. Greg and myself are in different financial standings, and I’ve been offered sponsors, but I turned them down. I don’t really need them until I’m ready to go pro,” said Elliot. “Greg’s in a different spot. He needs sponsorships to get the ball rolling a lot quicker. Sam offered us both a piece of the action for whatever sponsors we could pull in.” Elliot went on to explain everything seemed rosy between he and Ibrahim as long as he was able to convince sponsors and big names in the business to sign on.
McDowell said he feels like he was a gift certificate in the eyes of Ibrahim. He also claims that what occurred with Ibrahim promising both fighters 20 percent of the sponsorship money is likely illegal. “We were both brought into the event as a money thing for Sam Ibrahim,” said McDowell, “Not for the fact that’ we’re fighters, and it was the same thing with Norsemen.”
Elliot is particularly upset, he explained, because his background totally betrays the way Ibrahim has painted him as a fighter unqualified to battle for an amateur belt. He is convinced he’s been underestimated. Not only is he trained as a law enforcement officer, but he also works with a local Gracie gym, The Northeast Boxing Academy, and he goes to all the gyms around his area to invite the best fighters to come to his house and train. “I understand his point of view, and I understand cards are subject to change. But how can he go from having us as the main event and co-feature, and then not even put us on the undercard for a belt? I asked him can I get it in writing, and he said ‘Don’t worry, my word is good.’ One of the reasons he took the title away, is he told us the commissioner of Ohio was not allowing us to fight,” said Elliot. “Now, I have an unofficial record of 14-2, and if I was gonna lie about my record, I’d say I was 0-2. I would make my record less than it is, not more, if I wanted to sandbag people. Why would I lie and get put up against better fighters? So I can get my ass kicked? That’s my record, from boxing, and from fights I had in Thailand and Korea while I was in the military.”
Elliot laid out his unregistered, unsanctioned fight record of 14-2. He explained that he fought in Lop Buri, Thailand in an event called Cobra Gold. Back in 1993 he had two fights at Camp Casey in Korea. He fought in the Ranger Battalion King’s Guard, and he’s had 12 boxing matches with the All-Army boxing team at Fort Bragg and at Fort Benning, Georgia. “They could look at my military records and find it all,” he said. “I can’t get proof, and I don’t have tapes of it, but I’m sure somebody does. I grew up in foster care, and I became an Army Ranger, and now I’m a police officer. Why am I gonna lie about my fighting abilities? If anything I’d say I had no fights, or I’d say I’ve only been fighting in my garage. I’ve trained with Jay Valentine, Tom O’Malley, and I used to train under Jeff Reese who runs the Royce Gracie Jiu Jitsu Network here in Scranton. All of my friends are fighters, that’s what we do. I have a black belt from Jennings Karate Academy in Isshinryu Karate.”
Not only does he feel like his skills in the cage have been doubted, but he also feels he hasn’t been given due credit for the way he’s helped spread the word about the event. “I’m getting fighters from all four-corners of the United States to promote this event, and all the time he’s promising us one thing,” said Elliot. “Now that the event’s all blown up and promoted, now he’s going to switch it on us. We promoted the Hell out of the event. Everybody around here knows about it. People are always asking me ‘When’s your next fight,’ when I’m out running. I’ve told everybody about it being a Pay-Per-View event. Everybody’s waiting for the event, and I even got a bunch of people who were all going to rent a bus and drive down. It kind of bothers me. Myself and Greg have been promoting the Hell out of the event, and now we’re getting switched up.” Elliot even had a friend who planned to pay to become a licensed corner man to accompany him at the event.
McDowell also wants to know why Ibrahim hasn’t changed his flyer that promises all winners of the event a title belt. He added that Ibrahim hinted he may have to change Cage Brawl to a pro event because Ohio’s amateur rules are very strict. “He was wishy-washy every day I talked to this guy. He literally drove the training out of me,” said McDowell. “My job is to fight, bottom line.”
Elliot maintains he’s not out to sully the reputation of Ibrahim. It’s a matter of principle for him. “It just pissed me off,” he said. “I’m not running any smear campaign against the guy. If he holds this event, all it does is blow up the sport. I just know he pulled the rug right out from under us. We did all the leg work and then he’s pulling us out and not granting what he promised.”
McDowell argues that the primary reason for Ibrahim’s change of heart is all based on the financial backing of the event. “He’s offering the sponsors that come in and fill the top four brackets the belts we deserved. That’s where our belts are going to,” he said.
Elliot pointed out that the fight business is slimy enough without the kind of things he’s seen here. He said he remembers going on MySpace and seeing four Cage Brawl fighters at 185 pounds. He started talking shit to his scheduled opponent about what kind of training he had. The fighter wound up backing out. Ibrahim got him a new opponent “Sam told me the guy was a local boy, and that I would be the underdog. He said, ‘I hope you’re ready.’ I told him I’d fight anybody. As long as he’s an amateur and not some pro guy that blew out his knee and has it all taped up. I just wanna fight. Just find me an opponent. I don’t care if it’s Matt Hughes or Chuck Liddell,” said Elliot. “I’ll be friends with him before and after the fight, but when the cage closes, it’s a fight. I’m gonna show what I’m training to do, and I’m ready to do that against whoever it is. I take a week off to have my baby, and he tells me, ‘You might not be on the fight card.’ This is after I did interviews with the local paper, had reporters come to my house and take pictures, and I take a week off to have my son, and he has jaundice, and he’s a little sick. Then the first time I talk to anyone, he made it seem like I’m lucky to even be on the card.”
McDowell is equally infuriated by the turn of events. “We were planning on really proving ourselves in that event, and he’s taken that away from us now. It just takes the fighting out of the fighter. This guy is wishy-washy like a Martini on the rocks that’s been blended up,” he said. “How am I supposed to explain this to my people on MySpace, my 330 friends? They’ll have to get in touch with you now, because they all know Fight News Unlimited Covers Country Boy McDowell. They’ll approach you, because they’re not getting answers from me.”
Above all, Elliot calls into question the integrity of Ibrahim in the whole process. “I asked Sam several times, put it in writing, and I haven’t got it yet. He told me he was finding me the best fighter in the area, and then he turns around and says, ‘With with your experience, I can’t put asses in seat with that 0-0. But, he can throw a carrot in front of my face, let me promote it that way, and then tell me no I’m not gonna fight in that event. I’ve got sponsors sending banners, planning on putting up tables. And I’m not even signing with nobody, I just wanna fight,” said Elliot. “Just like I told Sam and Country Boy, I don’t want a sponsor right now. Still he told me he could offer me 20 percent of anything I could bring in. I told him I just wanna bang. I’ll come in like Tyson with a white t-shirt with a smiley face on it. I teach my kids all you have in life is your integrity, and nobody can take that away. They can take your clothes, your house, or your car, but they can’t take your integrity. I tell them to never lie. I was born and raised in Rochester, New York, and when I was 16 I got put in jail for 19 months for assault. The judge offered to seal my record if went in the military. At 17 I was a ward of the state, so I went to basic training, airborne school, air assault, and then straight to Kuwait. I first went in thinking I’d get kicked out and go back on the streets, but I went in, and the military was like Beverly Hills. I fell into it. I did two tours in Kuwait, and I did a stint in Mogadishu.”
McDowell has only spoken out publicly once so far about the whole mess. That came in an interview with the fledgling MMA news group Knockout Nation. “My people know, if I’m considered Pinocchio, I hope to God I get my nose broken off,” he said. “When they interview, they know me. They know they’ll get the real truth, and nothing but the truth. I’ll fight all the liars. This type of thing ruins a fighter’s dream.”
McDowell considers himself a true survivor, and he’s obviously had a rough life with having to come back from a car accident and being lucky to even be walking at this point. “My intentions weren’t to sandbag Sam, and my friends were planning on ordering this event, and now I’m not gonna be in this event. And that’s for due reason, because I wasn’t gonna be in this event to fight for nothing. My heart’s broken. I passed up two events to fight in, and for me to go ahead and say no because of Cage Brawl, it’s not fair,” he said. “I feel like I had a number on me, and it really took the fighter out of me. I just hope to God no other promoter looks at this example and think this is something they can get away with. This is not the way to get it done.”
He went on to offer a bit of advice to other MMA fighters. “Put it in print, don’t listen to people run their mouths. Go on contracts. Let them put it down in writing, and that’s so much easier for you to lean on instead of all this he said she said going on here. This all happened because someone would not put the print button behind their mouth, and now me and Shannon are paying the price,” he said. “Do not get involved in an event unless that event comes to you with a written contract to sign.”
THE PROMOTER’S DEFENSE
Joshua Penuel is a leader of a fight team involved in Cage Brawl who supports Sam Ibrahim all the way in demoting McDowell and Elliot to non-title bouts. “He’s not gonna put someone in there that doesn’t have at least few fights under their belt,” said Penuel. “The way Country Boy is handling this is kind of messed up.”
He said he discussed the subject of people trying to make their fighters look good with Ibrahim before, and they both agreed that matching someone who was 0-0 against someone with any record was not a good idea, and they were both trying to keep that from happening.
“I’m supporting Sam 100 percent, because he’s doing this the right way. You can’t overmatch someone like that, and you can’t even put someone that’s 1-0 against someone that’s 4-0. You’re not gonna get that good of a fight, it’s uncalled for, and it’s not professional,” he said.
Although Penuel admits the setting of the matches resembles a tournament where an inexperienced fighter might end up going against a proven winner just because of the way the brackets work, his understanding of the event was that it wasn’t so much of a tournament. “You might have four guys, and they’re 170 pounds each. You set it up so these two fighters are gonna fight, and whoever wins out of each fight is gonna fight for title,” he said. “Sam told me personally, every fight or every other fight is gonna be a title match, so it’s a tournament, but not in that nature.”
Penuel sees no issues with the way the even has been set up and plans to maybe even fight himself in the event if he has to. “I’ll work some stuff out so one of my guys, if not myself, gets in there to fight,” he said. “I only got one side, which is Sam’s side, and Norsemen Fight Gear is one of our team sponsors, but I haven’t really got each other side. I’m gonna try to get a hold of Tim Riddle tonight. I’m basically a supporter for the way that Sam is doing the show. So many shows pit you up with a small record against somebody that is out there already. So you end up in your first fight going against a guy 6-1. A lot of these shows are pitting you against one of their best guys, and they don’t care who you are. If you’re going up against a guy with three times the experience you have, you might win, but you could still get hurt.”
Penuel found out about the event when he got online and applied there for a fight team he runs out of Deleware, Ohio. “I had some fighters, and they were interested. Sam lives about fifteen miles down the road, and we’ve been conversing back and forth,” he said. “Today about noon, I called him on his lunch break. I heard he lost sponsors over the whole thing, but he’s doing it right, and he’s not mismatching people.”
Penuel is also good friends with Tim Riddle of Norsemen Fight Gear, and he said he’s known Tim a lot longer than Sam, but he still supports what Sam’s doing, because he’s doing it right.
Sam Ibrahim himself contends his recent moves were simply a matter of procedure and part of the nature of the business. “This is not the first time something like this has happened where a main event and co-feature on a fight card gets changed,” he said. “These guys are just trying to make a name off the event. No one told them to pull out.”
Ibrahim is convinced both fighters are blowing a big opportunity based on a simple issue. “I was afraid that if I set them up with title shots it wouldn’t make sense, and I seriously doubt that the commissioner would allow that. McDowell had made a statement that I had told him that the commissioner would not allow it, period, and I never said anything like that. I have to match fighters up with same type of experience,” he said. “I don’t want my belts to go up as a joke. I want fighters who are proven and tested to be crowned as champions. It doesn’t make any sense to have a guy who’s 0-0 fight for a title. Get a couple fights under your belt, and then you’ll have your title fights. If you prove yourself, there’s no problem. They had an objection to that, so they pulled out. McDowell’s just gonna try to make a name for himself. Cage Brawl does not consist of these two guys. If they were smart they would take the opportunity I gave them, and I’m still offering them the exposure. No one’s offering that to ’em but me. If the guy was smarter, he woulda made a couple bucks, but no, he had to open his mouth, and he blew a lot of things for himself.”
Ibrahim insists he never offered Elliot a portion of what he gained for Cage Brawl in sponsorships. “I only offered that to McDowell. I didn’t offer that to anyone other than Greg,” he said, also arguing that their being dropped down to non-title bouts was not as a retaliatory move for them not bringing in sponsors. “It had nothing to do with that. One thing I am is politically free from all sponsorship stuff, although it’s nice to have them. The real reason it changed was because we ended up with a lot of fighters making their debut on Cage Brawl, and what I wanted was fighters who had a fan base, so I could not match them up. If it’s going to be a title fight let it be more compelling, and let’s have fighters who are more deserving. Greg is only a gym fighter, and he hasn’t fought anywhere. Sinister, I don’t know why he pulled out. They’re a coupla guys where each one echoes the other. Neither one of them have a mind of their own. All the other fighters who registered before the matchmaker signed on just wanna fight, whether it’s for a title or not. Why are they so different? True fighters fight. True warriors fight, and they’re not going to talk all politics, and they’re not gonna get involved in all the he said, she said. McDowell is doing all this and sabotaging me and the event all because I was trying to be too nice to the guy.”
The promoter wants to stay above the fray, and he argues he did nothing wrong. “I’m gonna keep my professionalism one way or another, and I’m not gonna sink down to that level. Fight cards change all the time. It’s not a matter of who gets on the card is who pays the sponsor money. I’m not gonna be bought out by nobody,” he said. “Elliot or McDowell, I’m not gonna let them ruin the show. Nobody heard of them other than Cage Brawl, and they’re using me trying to make a name for themselves. Elliot was fine Friday, and then he spoke to Greg, and now he says he was forced to pull out. Nobody forced him to pull out. As far as I was concerned, he was still on the card. And what promoter doesn’t offer sponsorship money to fighters as far as ticket sales and such? That 20 percent is a lot of money, and McDowell can’t even afford a gym pass, and he said he hasn’t had a hot meal in a while. That’s all it boils down to. His sponsor pulled out because of Greg’s shenanigans.”
He admits he told them they would be the title fight and co feature, but he also points out that it’s not the first time or the last time a fight card changes. “I don’t want no mismatches, and I don’t want no one in there getting hurt because they can’t defend themselves. I want to set each fighter up with the right opponent,” he said. “It’s not good for me if a fighter gets injured. I want them to come back for the next event. It’s about entertainment and putting on a competitive fight. Boxing and MMA are two different sports altogether. You might be able to get away with it in boxing, but you can’t in MMA.”
Outside of all the back and forth and a little flip flopping on Ibrahim’s part, he insists it’s his show and he can do what he pleases. “No matter what they said at the end of the day, it’s my call,” he said. “As far as the flyers promising belts to every winner, that just has to be changed, and it doesn’t concern him [McDowell]. If he wants to fight on the card, he can. Flyers and all that, that’s none of his business, and it’s nothing out of his pocket. If he’s so big and bad, the door’s open for him to fight.”
So who are the fighters who will get title shots? Ibrahim explained they are MMA fighters with records like 3-0, 6-0, and 5-1. He also said there are still a couple of 0-0 fighters registered, but if they stay on the card they will be matched up in non-title fights. “Guys who have experience are more deserving of a title, so let them prove it,” said Ibrahim. “That’s why I got a matchmaker.”
The Cage Brawl promoter did admit that he indeed instructed McDowell and Elliot not to fight in any other event before Cage Brawl. “That point they have 100 percent correct. I did tell them not to take anything. Again, I think that’s because of my crossover between boxing and mma,” he said. “Boxers train about two-and-a-half months for a bout, and mma is totally different. But, at the same time, I’m no one’s manager. I’m a promoter, and I shouldn’t be giving them advice on when to fight. That’s up to them.”
He denied their contention that the matchmaker was putting his own fighters in key title slots. “That’s not true. What basis do they have for that? This guy is a matchmaker, and he knows about every organization. He’s a man here in Columbus, Ohio who knows how to reach the industry,” said Ibrahim. “He’s gonna put the fight card together. That’s the end of it, and I don’t know where they’re coming up with that. Can they prove anything? No.”
Ibrahim regrets getting embroiled in this whole bout of bickering, but he is committed to keeping the show on schedule. “It’s unfortunate that I got wrapped up in this controversy. That’s not my style, and I have a lot of things to do. I’m busy with so many other things, and I don’t need this. The bottom line is if they want to fight, they can, but it’s got to be a non-title fight until they prove themselves,” he said. “If they don’t wanna fight on the card, leave me alone. The matchmaker I have has talked to numerous people in Ohio, and I have a good working experience with him. When you’re promoting, and you’re set up to do something, you leave things like this in the hands of people qualified to do the right thing. Every promotion has a matchmaker, and every fight card changes. I tried to appeal to them, but they don’t want to listen. Cage Brawl’s gonna happen one way or another.”
Despite arguing both fighters have blown the matter out of proportion and are acting irrational, Ibrahim said he’d be glad to have them back on his fight card. “Either fight or sit down. I’ve got seven or eight other fighters in the same boat, and none of them has a problem, but these two guys are parrots. None of ’em got a mind of their own,” said Ibrahim. “The door’s wide open, and still, at end of the day, I would love to have ’em on the card, and I would gladly talk to them about that. We’ll witness for everyone concerned who fights and who doesn’t and who keeps talking end of the day and doesn’t show nothing.”
As far as a final message, Ibrahim slipped back into his comfy promoter’s shoes and rattled off another plug for his event: “I would tell the fans to watch Cage Brawl June 9th, because it promises to be a great show. There’s a lot of fighters out there who have proven themselves in sanctioned fights. There’s going to be plenty of competitive, epic fights. The Cage Brawl fight league and title belts are gonna shine in 2007 and 2008.”
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