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Ready for BodogFight PPV on April 14th By Keith Mills From multiple angles Amanda Buckner's next fight in BodogFight on April 14th in St.Petersburg, Russia, is going to be one fans will be talking about. Amanda trains and teaches with her husband Jay Jack at the Academy of Mixed Martial Arts in Portland, Maine and has a verifiable MMA record of 9-4-1, plus an extensive submission wrestling background including the Abu Dhabi Combat Club '05 Worlds.
The first reason to track Buckner is that in the last six months a new wave of interest in the women's 135-pound division has hit the "startup" shows. Gina Carano, for instance, has proven to be a goldmine for both Strikeforce and EliteXC while BodogFight's first pay-per-view featured Tara LaRosa. Looking ahead, BodogFight started a 125-pound division as well, while smaller shows are featuring all-women's cards similar to HOOKnSHOOT Revolution back in April '02. From that perspective, Amanda is one of the only women who fought back in the women's 135 lb. weight class breakout of 2002 that is still fighting today. Along the way, Buckner has won several titles including the International Fighting Championship's United States Women's Middleweight Championship, the Ring of Fire Women's Lightweight Championship, and the Smack Girl Open Weight Championship of '06. Amanda was the one Jaqueline Andrade beat at 145 lbs. to become the Women's Light-Heavyweight Champion and Tara LaRosa beat in the first season of BodogFight's "reality" show to earn her PPV shot. Another reason is BodogFight's reality series. No matter what your feelings about the promotion, BodogFight is making big waves with its second season currently airing and the Fedor Emelianenko vs. Matt Lindland PPV in April. On Season 2, which taped in St. Petersburg, Russia in December, Amanda beat Julie Kedzie and earned the right to fight on the PPV against Hitomi Akano. Akano beat Tama Chan on Season 2 to earn her spot. From that perspective, Amanda is one of the only fighters to fight on both Season 1 and Season 2 and one of the only people that can accurately compare them. Amanda's fight against Julie Kedzie can be viewed on bodogfight.com. The real reason to track Buckner though is she is, plain and simple, an exciting fighter. Watch her fight against LaRosa in BodogFight Season 1 or former HOOKnSHOOT Champion Jennifer Howe in Extreme Challenge for what was widely cited as being fight of the night on those cards. Amanda's win over Julie Kedzie was more cut and dry, but Akano is a closer matchup to Amanda just as LaRosa was. FCF: How do you feel about being part of BodogFight? AB: The organization is something I'm really enjoying being a part of. It is definitely a place I'd like to make my home so to speak as long as they want me around. I have a pretty good relationship with them so far I think. I think they like the way I come to fight and hopefully they will keep me around for a while. I've never been treated as well as by them, I'll put it that way. FCF: What do you mean by "never been treated as well"? AB: A lot of it is money based. I haven't had really bad experiences like you get there and don't have a place to stay. I've had pretty good luck at Sven [Bean's] shows, fighting in Ring of Fire. I fought in some other really good shows and had some good experiences but Bodog is just on another level as far as backing and budget. It makes you feel like you are being taken care of more as a professional athlete. You can actually live off it as opposed to having to fight once a month to pay your food bills. FCF: Most of your fights have been in relatively established shows, such as Extreme Challenge and IFC. BodogFight has only been around since the "reality show" taping last August but is basically Euphoria MFC who you have fought for bought by a larger group. The question is how do you view BodogFight? AB: I don't really think of them as a startup show because they are so large in scale and the fighters they have on the show are established names like Yves. It is not like a startup show where you haven't heard of any of the people. They have good money behind them, people like Miguel [Itturate] doing the matchmaking, and Jeff Osborne just getting hired [as Commissioner]. The people are way beyond anything you could consider startup but it is a whole different thing that the MFC too. It was a whole different experience. So far I've only done the two TV shows and that is a whole different experience as far as the filming and then the fights themselves are on a closed set. MFC [Mixed Fighting Championship] was run really well but was a regular event. I'm not sure, maybe it will feel a lot different doing this next one which is an actual live event with people watching and whatnot. FCF: Long question, hopefully with a long answer ... Mike Brown is also on this show, he recently said he started at HOOKnSHOOT in Indiana where Jeff Osborne was promoter, Miguel was matchmaker, and Troy Waugh was a ref, plus a couple others behind the scenes. Then he went to Absolute Fighting Championship in Florida and Ring of Fury in Massachusetts where it was Jeff originally co-promoter, Miguel, Troy, etc. It was even basically the same core group minus Jeff for MFC in New Jersey. Now they are all involved with BodogFight. You don't have that level of history with these guys but trained with Mike Brown before he moved to American Top Team and fought for MFC yourself. What does that familiarity or level of comfort mean to you? Is it a factor on where to fight and is this a case of the Evansville Hillbillies struck oil? AB: It is definitely nice especially someplace different like Russia, having a lot of international fighters on those cards. It is definitely nice to see a familiar face and people you have known for a while, even people you trained with. It is like this is the same thing we do all the time.
FCF: On the flip side of the coin what does it mean to you to fight in Russia, called in your lifetime the "evil empire"? AB: It doesn't mean anything to me once the bell rings. I could be fighting in a ring in my living room and I don't know if I'd know where I actually was. Basically it affects more leading up to the fight, trying to keep focused and trying to keep yourself feeling as normal as possible. Things like the filming and things like that. FCF: How was fighting in Russia in December different from Costa Rica in August? AB: I really like going to different places and having different experiences. It wasn't so much the place, it was I had been there the first time around completely not knowing what to expect and then got to go do it again knowing what to expect. It was nothing like I imagined it was going to be the first time around. I didn't realize how intensive the filming was and how tiring it could be. Second time around I was fully prepared, mentally prepared, and felt totally different about it. FCF: Can you describe what you mean about the Costa Rica first season experience? AB: Like I said it was a lot more intensive than I thought it would be. I worked really hard that first season trying to be really accommodating, pretty much any filming thing they asked me to do. Only thing I didn't do is I refused to do the "show the Bodog Girls the move." I was trying to be really accommodating and really wore myself out. I was tired, really drained. I felt great by the time the fight came around; it had nothing to do with that. The second time around it wasn't I was refusing to do stuff, but I realized you can work really hard or medium hard and they are going to use about thirty-five seconds of the footage. I tried to film my part of what I was there to do but also take better care of myself as far as making sure I was ready to go for the fight. They have a job to do and are really good at fixing things from the season before and tried to be accommodating too. They have a very good staff and they want to take care of the fighters too. They aren't a bunch of TV guys who don't care what you are there to do. FCF: Recently Gabe Ruediger was talking about the filming of The Ultimate Fighter and mentioned the comfort or support he felt when the crew would for instance clean the mats four times a day, that they learned from their experience from previous seasons. Bodog had some issues in Costa Rica but can you compare and contrast the differences between the seasons from the point of view of getting up to speed with TUF? AB: I definitely feel very strongly they are trying to make an effort to learn from mistakes that were made. I felt that was an obvious attempt. The training setup was a lot better in Russia. When we were in Costa Rica it was days before we even had mats to train on. "The mats are coming, the mats are coming... " That is very important stuff. We ended up putting down those ab mats on two feet of floor for the first couple of days whereas right away in Russia they arranged it where we had mats set up in the gym facility and hotel. I think they will do that every time out, that each reality show and pay-per-view will get better and better. FCF: I heard they were still making one or two insensitive moves like a banquet the day before weigh-ins in which the fighters cutting weight couldn't eat. AB: I didn't go to that dinner. They don't do it on purpose and I don't think they will do that again. It is not good for them either. You are not going to get any good footage of a bunch of people not able to eat feeling miserable looking at all this food they can't have. It doesn't serve their purpose either. I definitely think next time they'll plan that dinner a couple days earlier. FCF: Do you watch TUF? AB: I watch most of them. I think there was only one I missed and it was the heavier weights. FCF: Can you compare and contrast the two? AB: One thing that makes it hard to compare the two is they are shown on two really different channels. I'd be interested to see if they were both shown on Spike what the reaction would be and feedback be. Bodog at this point is working on a little more obscure channel that you'd never turn on unless you were going to watch Bodog and it comes on at eleven o'clock at night whereas TUF is on a much more prominent channel at much more prominent time. From that point alone it is a little hard to compare the two. That is why they take a totally different stance. On the TUF show you get to know the fighters a lot more. The second season of Bodog it was really small clips of a little bit of interview and footage and Costa Rica they did a lot more in-depth with each fighter. FCF: And no "Bif Naked as matchmaker" WWE angle this time. AB: I don't know what it looks like to somebody from the outside not knowing anything that went into the filming of it. I don't know if it looked like she really was going from place to place finding these people... FCF: Yep. Biff gets on the phone and calls Calvin, telling him about the Wisniewski brothers to which Calvin responds "get it done." Undermines the whole "reality show" definition. Either that or Miguel does a damn good job with his mascara. AB: The one thing I could say is that part did not seem to go over very well with the feedback I saw. They seem to have done away with that so they seem to be listening to the feedback they are getting. FCF: The point is they are making changes and catching up fast? AB: Right. FCF: Looking forward was there anything from season two you think should be changed? AB: I think it is going to be a little playing around because you look at the format of the first two seasons and they were pretty different. It might take a few seasons to settle on a format that is popular and works. Maybe for season three they will move back towards the middle and try something different. FCF: Can you describe the way BodogFight episodes were presented? AB: For the women's episode anyway they went straight through those two fights in Japan and spent a little more time on the two fights that took place in St. Petersburg with some interview footage and training footage with each girl. It was still pretty short compared to the first season. There was probably a max of five minutes of both Julie and I together. FCF: Anything else you want to get across about the show angle before I ask about the fights themselves? AB: It is something I feel comfortable with now that I went through that first experience. I think it can be something really positive because you get something of yourself across and people get to see a little of you as a person so when you do go in the ring they have a little more than this random person they have never heard speak before. I think it adds something to put a little of that in there. I think it is a good aspect to it. |
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