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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 (http://strikeforce.com/insider.html)
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.
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