On Saturday night, BRACE’s new championship tournament format finally commences at the Big Top situated in Luna Park, Sydney.
As previously announced, the Australia-based organization will be embarking on knockout-style championship tourneys across multiple divisions much like Bellator’s, but with a few differences.
Eight fighters (in each division, Bantamweight to Heavyweight) will fight their way through to be crowned champions of the promotion. But, the BRACE champs will only be classified as champions for that particular year. So that means a tourney champ in 2014 returning for the 2015 season, will have to compete again if he wishes to re-capture his title.
In November, it all climaxes in the very first BRACE Australian MMA “Grand Final” where all title belts will be on the line.
And at BRACE 26 this weekend, the opening round brackets will finally kick off.
The event’s headliner features a match-up from the Middleweight tournament, between Gerhard Voigt (3-4) and Mohammed Naim (2-4). Voigt is 2-1 under the promotion’s banner, and is coming off a loss in his previous outing at BRACE 21. Naim, meanwhile, will be making his first appearance on Australian soil since 2010.
The other Middleweight opening round brackets on the night include Billy McAlees (2-0) vs. Shane Phillips (1-1), and John Mitchell (0-1) vs. William Namoa (1-2).
Also on the card is 145-lbs combatant Luke Standing (4-1), who’ll be making his first appearance since his title defeat against Martin Nguyen at BRACE 24. He’ll take on rising MMA starlet Jan Johannes Van Aswegan (2-0), a native of Newcastle who looks to keep his unscathed record in tact come fight night.
Josh Pecastaing (0-0) vs. Jamie Mullarkey (2-0) makes up the rest of the opening Featherweight tourney brackets set for this weekend.
The second set of opening round match-ups have been slated to BRACE 27, which takes place May 17 at the AIS Arena in Canberra.
Check out the full fight card heading into BRACE 26 this weekend:
- – Gerhard Voigt vs. Mohammed Naim (BRACE Middleweight Tournament match-up)
- – Billy McAlees vs. Shane Phillips (BRACE Middleweight Tournament match-up)
- – Luke Standing vs. Jan Johannes Van Aswegen (BRACE Featherweight Tournament match-up)
- – Darwin Sugarit vs. Giancarlo Embradora (BRACE Bantamweight Tournament match-up)
- – Steve Micallef vs. Hoshi Freidrich (BRACE Welterweight Tournament match-up)
- – Josh Pecastaing vs. Jamie Mullarkey (BRACE Featherweight Tournament match-up)
- – John Mitchell vs. William Namoa (BRACE Middleweight Tournament match-up)
- – Chris Lofts vs. Connor Murphy (BRACE Light-Heavyweight Tournament match-up)
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