BANGOR, Maine — “The” Ryan Sanders is among numerous mixed martial arts practitioners in Maine who would like to fight more frequently, but those opportunities are limited by the paucity of promotions in the state.
Lewiston-based New England Fights has averaged five cards per year since becoming the first and only promotion to date that stages regular shows in Maine in 2012.
Sanders, who trains at Young’s MMA in Bangor, has fought on 10 of those NEF cards, twice battling Brazilian Gil de Freitas for the promotion’s welterweight title and last year defeating former UFC standout Marcus Davis.
But Sanders’ eagerness for more bouts may be satisfied by the debut of a new Maine-based MMA promotion, Toe2Toe Fights, which will stage its inaugural fight card labeled “T2T 1: Rise to the Cage” on Saturday night at the Portland Exposition Building.
The doors open at 5 p.m., with the first amateur bout scheduled for 6 p.m.
Sanders (7-6) will take on Avery McPhatter (3-6) of Orlando, Florida, in the main event, a welterweight (170-pound) clash that is one of five professional bouts scheduled.
“I’m just excited to be able to fight more,” said Sanders, who is coming off a first-round submission victory over Mark DeFord at NEF XV in Lewiston last month. “That was the biggest drawback for me with just having one promotion in the area, to only be able to fight every few months.
“I’d fight every month if I could if I stay healthy. It’s a young man’s sport, but I want to stay busy and get more wins under my belt and move up.
Toe2Toe is the brainchild of three southern Maine men, Nate Libby, Marty Adams and Allen Berube, who competed in the fifth season of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s “The Ultimate Fighter” television series.
Libby, who partners with Davis to operate Team Irish’s MMA Fitness Academy facility in the Portland area, also was involved in the state’s first sanctioned MMA card at Portland’s Stevens Avenue Armory in 2011, not long after after the sport was legalized in Maine in 2009.
“I kind of pulled away from it after that just because I didn’t have the time,” said Libby, “but now the three of us are teaming up, and we’re in the position that we can just move forward with this.”
Adams and Berube promoted an outdoor MMA show on Old Orchard Beach in August.
“After that was done, the three of us teamed up and basically decided to start doing shows and then we started looking for a place,” said Libby.
With New England Fights staging most of its cards at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston, Libby said his partnership hopes to fill a void in the market by basing its operations in the state’s largest city at the Expo, a facility long known as a boxing mecca in the region.
“NEF’s the only one with a venue in the state, and they’re doing their shows up in Lewiston,” said Libby. “They’ve got their home base and they’re doing their thing, but Portland’s always been known as a big fight town, and the Expo’s one of the best venues around.”
Libby said Toe2Toe Fights hopes to stage “three or four cards” per year.
“For us it’s not about the money, we didn’t get into it to say, ‘Let’s quit what we do and become promoters,’” said Libby. “We do it for the passion and the love of the sport, and we’re just taking our passion and generating a place for people and the fighters to know it’s all about them.
“Obviously we don’t want to lose money, but we really want to make sure the fighters are taken care of. That’s our No. 1 concern,” he said.
In McPhatter, Sanders said he’ll face an opponent taller than most he has faced and in some ways a foe who’s a mirror image of himself — both stand 6-foot-1.
“He was a professional boxer before he turned to MMA,” said Sanders. “He’s built like me. He’s tall and pretty lanky and with his boxing background, he has really good movement. He has some ground game, and he’s fought some really tough guys, so his record is pretty deceiving. He’s 3-6, but he’s fought a lot of tough guys, so don’t let the record fool you.”
Sanders expects the fight to be waged mostly from a standing position.
“He’s not known for his takedowns so it will be a little different to have a fight where I’m not so worried about the takedown and end up on the ground,” he said.
The Toe2Toe show also will feature several Team Irish combatants including veteran Jon Lemke, who will take a 4-2 record into his 145-pound bout against Bill Jones (11-7) of Berwick.
Fellow Team Irish pro Tommy Balzano also is scheduled for action, as are amateurs Andrew Tripp, Adam Nelson, John Lough and Taylor Constantino.
