Keep a spot for Chris Volo on that heavy weight list.
There are so Many Bad Mofo's running around Jersey it is Sick. You mentioned some great talent in your list.
Some others off the top of my head -
Guys like Dave Ellis - Olympic Level Judo Player with a Brown belt under David Adiv/Royler Gracie
Bill Scott Black Belt under Big Dog great wrestling and a tuff SOB.
The list of relatively unknown badasses is huge Dave Cordoba (beat Frankie Edgar many times in High School wresling) Multi time state Champ has been focusing on NHB, Fred Pita another killer wrestler, Paddy McAteer a 240 pound Renzo purple ( I believe) with sick stand up and like a thousand street fights. Kevin Santos 170 pound M Thai wrecking machine who was a State place winner in wrestling. Neil Iton from East Orange teaches MT and has trained over seas and has a deadly ground game to boot.
One thing for sure is Jersey is losded down with great training, phenominal wrestlers and tons of bad asses.
Another fighter to look out for is Dominic Tafuri.....
Other than Al Buck, who's in South Jersey?
I really, really need to get back into shape.
Max
Jim...how about Shane Ott at HW?
Shane is taking on Kerry Schall next weekend at the Extreme Challenge in Ohio...
Hey Jim -
Awesome rankings!!!!
Watch out for Helwig at 205 & Chris Volo at Heavyweight.
Mike Constantino
since when has dave cordoba started training for MMA huh???
How about Sergio Vignare from Ricardo Almeida's at 170lbs?
He will be fighting Greg Soto at the Battle Cage Xtreme show 5/12 in NJ...
"he looked great against joe diamond"
How'd that fight go? Diamond is an older guy, isn't he? I was thinking about training at his school since it's right down the road from me.
ed hsu-
see my first post: i excluded people under contract by the ufc and the ifl (as they've "made it" to the national stage). sergio vinagre is tough, but he has yet to be tested.
marzz-
joe diamond looked good with his kickboxing and jiu-jitsu, but for the most part pergola out-scrambled him (pergola wrestled at hofstra, i believe) and repeatedly banged him up with punches (pergola has really heavy hands).
Although Nick Cottone lost this weekend he should be mentioned.......bantamweight
the problem with that is there are so few active guys at those weights.
"2. Deividas Taurosevicius ?the second-best lightweight in New Jersey right now. Another fantastic grappler with strong striking, he recently subbed some dude in an IFL prelim."
that "dude" he subbed was Zach George who was 9-0 with 8 VERY QUICK first round finishes (only fight he didn't finish was his decision win in his first IFL fight against Danny Suarez). This kid is a fucking beast with ridiculous standup and great wrestling and has been tearing up EVERYONE in the midwest area.
cool. that makes deividas' win even more impressive.
DT vs. Edgar was a great fight....
Didn't Deividas also fight on the IFL last weekend?
Also at Bantamweight you have Zach McKofski,Andre Soares,Leondro Escobar and a few guys coming up at that weight class...I have 3 bantamweight fights on my June card...
i got the impression from renzo that deividas' IFL fight was a one-time thing. like, maybe if both eric owings and joe sampieri are injured, deividas will have another shot in the IFL, but other than that...
renzo was pleased with deividas, though.
DT is a monster SOLID stand up and a great grappler plus very talented. IMO best lightweight in jersey.
DT has one more loss on his record than Jim Miller. incidently, i was there for that Sportfighting bout back in 2002; DT looked tough as nails then, but he lacked jiu-jitsu at the time and lost the decision because of that.
Jim Genia,
nice rankings! Boetsch is actually 3-0 pro MMA and his first fight was at heavyweight against a veteran of over 30 fights in Damian Decorah who is 260 lbs. in Madtown Throwdown in Madison, WI. He since has dropped to 205 where is is 2-0.
Up next for him, he will be competing in Abu Dhabi May 5th in the 217 lb division and then May 19th will defend his reality fighting belt against Louis Pascavage and then the big fight the east coast has been waiting for, John Doyle and Tim Boetsch June 9th in a unification bout for basically all the east coast belts at Extreme Challenge!!!!
MC