Two It's Showtime Brazil Qualification Tournaments Tomorrow

Friday, 24 August 2012 21:55

Written by Rian Scalia

If you didn't know, It's Showtime has an event scheduled for November 10 in Brazil's capital, Sao Paulo.

They've got quite the infrastructure built up for the event, working with Brazillian kickboxing promotion WGP Kickboxing, where the best kickboxers in Brazil fight. WGP Kickboxing boasts two pretty good live TV deals in Brazil also with Band Sports and Esporte Interativo, which airs Bellator. They also have sponsors such as Adidas and the Government of Sao Paulo State Secretary for SPort, Recreation and Youth. On July 7, the same night that Anderson Silva fought Chael Sonnen, WGP held an event in Sao Paulo and drew around 4000 people, quite an impressive feat considering how much bigger MMA is than kickboxing in Brazil.

Tomorrow, August 25 in Maringa, Brazil, WGP will start their It's Showtime qualification tournaments. The winners of each tournament will be fighting on the It's Showtime card on November 10. The tournaments tomorrow are one night, four man tournaments at 70kg and 77kg. Two other events with It's Showtime qualification tournaments are taking place, with the next one being on September 15 in Sao Paulo and having tournaments at 63kg and 85kg and the last one being on October 20 in Belo Horizonte.

Tomorrow at 70kg the four tournament participants will be Wallace "Negao" Lopes, Alex Oller, Alex Sandro "Canguru" Alves and David Silveira. Alves has fought in the Tatneft Cup before all the way up at 80kg, where he went 1-1. Oller is a veteran of over 140 fights and has fought the likes of K-1 veterans Warren Stevelmans and Marfio Canoletti.

At 77kg, the four tournament participants are Cesar Almeida, Fernando Nonato, Rogerio Bezerra and Juliano Goncalves. The one to watch here is Cesar Almeida, who has trained at the legendary Chakuriki Gym under Thom Harinck and has fought in Holland with the likes of much heavier fighters Fred Sikking and Jason Wilnis.

Brazil generally doesn't produce a lot of top fighters on the international scene, and that's not to mention that barely any fighters from Brazil get international opportunities. It's good to see some solid infrastructure being set up to produce Brazillian fighters to fight on the international stage for It's Showtime.

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