World Championship Fighting promoter Joe Cavallaro talks about their upcoming card this Thursday, February 8th, at Aleppo Shriners Auditorium in Wilmington, Massachusetts. You don't want to miss what he had to say as he discusses the event, the special guest appearance by Dana White who will be in attendance to scout potential UFC talent, his goals for the organization and much more.
PC: How's everything going?
JC: Good. So far, so good. Tickets are going fast, thank God. We're almost 3 times where we were last time. We're still a week out, with this being the last week obviously, but I think it will sell out. We actually did the tickets to this venue a little different this time. The first time we did about 2,200 seats and we made the venue smaller because we blocked off a lot of it. The venue actually opens up to about 3,700 so we opened it all the way up so tickets are going to be good.
PC: Are there any tickets available and if so, where can fans purchase them at?
JC: Yes, tickets are still available and you could buy them online at wcfighting.com or by phone at 1-800-495-4849. The tickets are $40 for general admission seats, $45, $65, $100 and $250 for ringside.
PC: Could you tell us a little more about the WCF and how many events you guys are looking to put on this year?
JC: We just signed a 4 fight deal. We're going to be doing our next one June 21st. We'll do 4 shows here in Wilmington. It's about 13 miles north of Boston so it's just far enough outside the city to where you don't have to deal with the traffic and the parking and all that. You could get to it pretty easy. It's literally one highway. You jump on 93 North and it's right off of the highway so it's a great venue and that helps us out a lot. We have a 2-year commitment to these guys to fight there. We're going to do 4 this year and kind of see how that goes and maybe do 6 next year. Then what we're looking to do, and we have a verbal agreement, is to go to Philly. We want to get a venue down there to do 6 shows. We're waiting on the boxing commission so as soon as they get the legal stuff done that they need to do, we're going to go to Philly. That would be great because Philly is such a great fight town and the people down there love it and it's going to be really good. They're dying to get it over there so I think it will be really fun. We're also looking at Newark, New Jersey. I'm just beginning the talks with the venue down there. I think Newark is great because it's so close to New York. We could still draw all of the Jersey fighters and New York fighters and then, when New York opens up, we'd like to be one of the first guys to come into New York. The idea behind thisÂ…and I manage guys like Kenny Florian, Marcus Davis, Sam Hoger, Alex Karalexis and Drew Fickett's entire UFC career so I've been around both sides of the business for a while and I also have a background in boxing. I worked with a guy that was the middleweight champion of the world in boxing. That's where I kind of got my feet wet with this and my thing is it needs to be a place for guys to be able to grow, showcase their talents and then move up to the bigger organizations. There needs to be a consistent show to do that; a place where the bigger shows could actually look. They're doing it everywhere. I mean, there are shows in bar rooms, arena's and all of these different shows happening, but nobody has established themselves as a feeder to the bigger shows and that's where our sweet spot is. I want to get the best guys in New Jersey to fight the best guys in New Jersey, the best guys in Philly to fight the best guys from Philly and the best in Boston to fight the best from Boston. Then we would start bringing these guys together and let them fight each other to give them the opportunity to fight on bigger shows. In boxing, that's the way it works. You could watch Tuesday Night Fights every Tuesday and watch the up and coming guys like Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Mickey Ward and Arturo Gatti and you could watch them and get to know who they were and then they would take the step up to these big Pay Per View events and nobody's really capitalized on that. Our goal is to do, and we'll start with baby steps, but our goal is to do twice what we did at the first show and then we'll have something to go to television with. We'd have national television and whether we doÂ…we may do something regional at first, but that's where we're going with it. We want to get it to where the best guys in New England want to fight each other to see who the best guy in New England is. Then we'll kind of move it up because it's so many titles out there, but you need some kind of affirmatory that's says, "If you own this belt, it's worth something. It means something to hold this belt for this organization." It's difficult now to tell who's good and who's bad because you have guys 8-0, but have never fought anybody. This will be the next step towards that; that's what we're working towards.
PC: You have some special guest coming through as well. Can you name some of the guests that will be in attendance?
JC: We have everybody and their brother coming. It's going to be great. We're bringing in Dana White, the President of the UFC, and Dana is a great buddy of mine and it really helps me out quite a bit for him to come in and do the show. The guys that are coming to fight have 2 sets of pressure on them coming into the show. The first show that we did was some of the best fights I've ever seen and I keep saying that to the guys that I work with. I don't know how these guys are going to be able to live up to those fights. That's how good they were. They were incredible; just unbelievable fights. In any fight, you see a couple of knockouts in an event and 2 or 3 knockouts is a lot, but to see knockouts comeÂ…one was in overtime and one was in the last round. They were very evenly matched. Of course you want to get knockouts, but we want to get fights that are so evenly matched that you have people saying, "I can't believe that's the way it ended." We had a couple of those for the last one. I think that's pressure on the fighters to live up to how the first show went and then they have the added pressure of fighting in front of Dana. Some of these guys, this will be their only opportunity to ever fight in front of Dana and some of them, Dana might like what he saw and call them up and keep his eye on them. It's a real big opportunity and we're real excited about having him come up. Dana is a real good guy. Then, as far as fighters, we're bringing in Marcus Davis, Kenny Florian, Sean Gannon, the only guy to ever beat Kimbo Slice, Jorge Rivera, who just came off of a devastating knockout of Kendall Grove, Alex Karalexis is going to be there, Ninja Ruas, Mark DellaGrotte and Peter Welsch is also going to be there. It's going to be fun. I think Tamden "The Barn Cat" McCrory may be coming also, but he hasn't confirmed that with us yet. We'll definitely get in touch with him, but he may be coming out also.
PC: Will there be an opportunity for the fans to meet these fighters?
JC: We're actually doing an autograph signing Friday night at 5:00 to ticket holders. We'll open that up to the public at 5:00 and the drawback is we're going to have to shut it down when the fights have to start and the guys have to get in. It's almost a first come, first serve. We're going to accommodate as many people as we can. It's going to be nice; it's going to be a lot of fun. It's a good opportunity to get out and see the guys. You have Marcus and Jorge coming off of those big wins and Kenny getting ready to fight Lauzon. I think we have the best fighters. New England just has incredible fighters. We have some of the top athlete's in the world; we really do. I really appreciate these guys being gracious enough to come out to the show.
PC: Anybody in the Massachusetts or surrounding areas that enjoy watching good mixed martial arts fights, there are still tickets left. Go check out my man Joe Cavallaro and World Championship Fighting on February 8th at the Aleppo Shriners Auditorium in Wilmington, MA. Anything we left out Joe that you want to add?
JC: I should've mentioned this, but we have Tapout coming out and actually filming the event for their show on Versus. They're going to follow Dan Lauzon and a guy named Frank Latina. Frank is out of the Dogpound out there in Connecticut. They're going to be filming live and they will be filming at the weigh-in, which is open to the public Thursday. Doors open for the weigh-in at 5:30 so come down and meet the Tapout guys. The Tapout guys will actually be doing the autograph session also. It's going to be fun.
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