HERSCHEL WALKER TO MAKE MMA DEBUT;
NICK DIAZ AND CRIS CYBORG RETURN TO ACTION
AT STRIKEFORCE EVENT IN SUNRISE, FLORIDA
by Mike Afromowitz
STRIKEFORCE
www.strikeforce.com
Ticket Pre-Sale
Begins Monday, December 7
NEW YORK
(December 4, 2009) - Just months after the stunning
announcement that he would try his hand at
mixed martial arts (MMA),
NFL and NCAA football legend, Herschel Walker, will make
his highly-anticipated STRIKEFORCE MMA debut at
BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida on Saturday,
January 30. Superstar Nick Diaz and STRIKEFORCE world
145-pound women's champion Cris Cyborg will co-headline
a stacked fight card during STRIKEFORCE's historic first
visit to the state of Florida.
A special pre-sale
ticket purchase opportunity will take place for
"STRIKEFORCE Insider"
e-newsletter subscribers beginning at 10:00 AM, ET
Monday, Dec. 7, and ending at 10 PM, ET on Thursday,
Dec. 10. "STRIKEFORCE Insiders" will receive a special
e-newsletter Friday,
Dec. 4 with the pre-sale code.
Tickets officially go on-sale next Friday, Dec. 11
at the BankAtlantic Center ticket office as well as
online at
www.Ticketmaster.com or by phone at
(800)745-3000.
Walker, the 1982 Heisman
Trophy winner and two-time Pro Bowl competitor, will
face an opponent to be announced in one of as many as
five live, SHOWTIMEŽ (10 p.m. ET/PT, delayed on the West
Coast) televised bouts on the STRIKEFORCE card.
The 6 foot 1 inch, 220 pound former running back, who
already holds a fifth degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do
and boasts additional training in the combat
disciplines of
Muay Thai and Kenpo, recently entered a 12 week MMA
training camp at San Jose, California's American
Kickboxing Academy (AKA), which plays home to a host of
the world's greatest fighters, including STRIKEFORCE
Lightweight Champion Josh "The Punk" Thomson and
undefeated middleweight superstar Cung Le.
Walker, a 1999 College Hall of Fame inductee who was
also selected to Sports Illustrated's NCAA All-Century
Team that year, has never been one to shy away
from
the road less traveled.
Following his junior
year at the University of Georgia where he had set the
NCAA freshman rushing record en route to an undefeated
season and Sugar Bowl
championship victory over
Notre Dame,
Walker, a born-again Christian,
astonished the sports world by withdrawing from school
to play professional ball in the newly formed United
States Football
League (USFL) rather than wait to
enter the NFL draft after the graduation of his
collegiate class, a rule maintained by the world's
largest professional
football league at the time.
While the vast majority of football players
typically follow an intensive weight room regimen,
Walker relied on bodyweight exercise, conditioning, and
calisthenics while maintaining very little body fat.
Walker was eventually drafted in 1985 by The Dallas
Cowboys and established himself as a premiere running
back in the league. In 1986, he was the driving
force behind a historic trade that sent in to The
Minnesota Vikings in exchange for five players and six
draft picks.
In 12 NFL seasons with four
different teams, he became the only player to gain 4,000
yards three different ways - rushing, receiving, and
kickoff returns. He
is one of six players to exceed
60 touchdowns rushing and 20 touchdowns receiving and is
the only player in NFL history to register a 90 plus
yard
reception, a 90 plus yard run, and a 90 plus
yard kickoff return, all in one season (1994).
Off the gridiron, Walker has achieved a handful of
feats, including a seventh place finish in the 1992
Winter Olympics two-man bobsled competition. Now 47
years of age, the native of Wrightsville, Georgia will
look to conquer a whole new world.
Diaz will
make his first start since he submitted hard-hitting
Scott "Hands of Steel" Smith with a rear naked choke in
the third round (1:41) of their
STRIKEFORCE:
Lawler vs. Shields matchup at St. Louis, Missouri's
Scottrade Center on June 6, 2009. The 26 year old Diaz,
a native of Stockton, California,
will put a five
fight win streak on the line.
Cyborg made history
on August 15, 2009 when the 24-year-old native of Brazil
stopped superstar Gina Carano with a punishing barrage
of strikes in the first
round (4:59) of their
meeting to become the first-ever STRIKEFORCE women's
champion. The long-awaited showdown between Carano and
Cyborg also marked the first women's main event in the
history of any major MMA promotion.
Doors at
BankAtlantic Center open at 7 p.m. The first
non-televised, preliminary card fight will begin at 8
p.m.
STRIKEFORCE in March 2009 signed a
multi-year agreement to stage live MMA events on the
premium cable television network. The promotion made its
live, primetime debut on CBS with the "Fedor vs. Rogers"
mega-fight that it co-promoted with M-1 Global on
Saturday, November 7 and generated 5.46 million viewers
for the main event between the world's number one
heavyweight, Fedor Emelianenko, and superstar Brett "The
Grim" Rogers.
About STRIKEFORCE
STRIKEFORCE (www.strikeforce.com
<http://www.strikeforce.com/> ) is a world-class mixed
martial arts cage fight promotion which, on Friday,
March 10,
2006, made history with its "Shamrock vs.
Gracie" event, the first sanctioned mixed martial arts
fight card in California state history. The star-studded
extravaganza, which pitted legendary champion Frank
Shamrock against Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt Cesar
Gracie at San Jose's HP Pavilion, played host to a
sold-out, record crowd of 18,265. Since 1995,
STRIKEFORCE has been the exclusive provider of martial
arts programming for ESPN and, after 12 years of
success as a leading, world championship kickboxing
promotion, the company unveiled its mixed martial arts
series with "Shamrock vs. Gracie." In May 2008,
West
Coast Productions, the parent company of STRIKEFORCE,
partnered with Silicon Valley Sports & Entertainment
(SVS&E), an entity created in 2000 to
oversee all
business operation aspects of the San Jose Sharks and HP
Pavilion at San Jose.
