The southern Maine-based Toe2Toe Fights promotion is scheduled to hold its second mixed martial arts show Saturday at the Portland Exposition Building.
The card, set to start at 6 p.m., will feature four professional bouts and eight amateur contests.
Headlining the card will be a featherweight rematch between Vovka Clay of Amherst, New Hampshire, and Bill Jones of Berwick.
Clay is 3-0 as a professional, including a unanimous decision over Jones in their first meeting on Dec. 6, 2013, in Derry, New Hampshire. That was Clay’s first pro bout after he compiled a 5-1 amateur record.
The veteran Jones, who has competed in both boxing and mixed martial arts, is 12-8 in a pro MMA career that began in 2007.
Among the other professional fights is a lightweight contest matching “The” Ryan Sanders of Bangor and Brazilian Regiclaudio Macedo.
Sanders, who trains out of Young’s MMA, is 7-7 overall but will be competing in the 155-pound weight class for the first time against Macedo, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt. Sanders is coming off a split-decision loss to Floridian Avery McPhatter in the main event of Toe2Toe’s first card held Dec. 13 at the Expo.
Macedo, 7-3 as a professional in Brazil, will be fighting outside his native country for the first time.
Another lightweight bout will match Devin Powell (3-1) of South Berwick against Scott Jurgen (0-0).
Ashland native Buck “Knuckles” Pineau, once one of the top-rated amateurs in the Northeast, will make his professional debut in a middleweight bout against Bryan Cromer.
Pineau, now living in southern Maine, compiled a 7-4 amateur record.
Cromer, a Floridian, also will be fighting as a professional for the first time after going 3-1 in the amateur ranks.
The amateur portion of the card includes a women’s bantamweight bout between Hillary Cooledge and Rachel Reinheimer.
Other scheduled amateur fights match welterweights Andrew Tripp against Raphael Carneiro and Jordan Tyresse against Damon Pinks, light heavyweights Duncan Smith against John McAndrews, featherweights Caleb Hall against Dylan Lockhard and Dan Lynch against Henry Clark, bantamweights James Dougherty against Dan Ward, and John Lough against Kyle Adams at a catchweight of 150 pounds.
Jones controversy impacts Boetsch card
Last week’s decision by Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White to strip Jon “Bones” Jones of his world light heavyweight title is having a trickle-down effect on a June 6 UFC show in New Orleans, Louisiana, that will include Lincolnville native Tim Boetsch.
Daniel Cormier, slated to fight Ryan Bader in the main event of UFC Fight Night 68 at the Smoothie King Center in downtown New Orleans, now will replace Jones in the main event of UFC 187 on May 23 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Cormier will face Anthony “Rumble” Johnson for the title vacated by Jones.
Cormier’s ascension to the UFC 187 title fight leaves Bader without an announced opponent for the June 6 show in New Orleans, where Boetsch (18-8) is slated to battle Dan Henderson (30-13) in a three-round middleweight bout on the main card set to be televised by Fox Sports 1.
That fight will be the third for Boetsch since he began training at Marcus Davis’ Team Irish MMA Fitness Academy in Brewer last summer.
Jones, widely considered the world’s best pound-for-pound MMA combatant, was stripped of the UFC title and suspended from competition after being arrested on a felony charge of leaving the scene of a motor-vehicle accident involving personal injury for his alleged involvement in a hit-and-run incident on April 25 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that left a pregnant woman with a broken wrist and forearm.
Boyington-Raio rematch set
New England Fights professional lightweight champion Bruce Boyington will be fighting a rematch on that promotion’s NEF XVIII card scheduled for June 13 in Lewiston, but perhaps not against the opponent some fight fans anticipated.
Boyington is coming off a first-round loss to Windham native Jamie Harrison in the main event of NEF XVII in Lewiston last month, a fight that became a non-title affair after Harrison failed to make the 155-pound weight limit.
But Harrison, who now lives and trains in Jacksonville, Florida, said after the bout he had no immediate plans to return to Maine to fight again and instead was focusing his attention on last weekend’s open tryout in Las Vegas for Season 22 of “The Ultimate Fighter” UFC television series.
An estimated 250 lightweight fighters and 150 welterweights turned out for the tryout, according to UFC.com, though qualifiers for the TV series scheduled to air this fall have yet to be announced.
Instead, Boyington (10-8) next will fight another former opponent who handed him a controversial defeat in John “First Class” Raio (2-7) of Topsham. Their bout will be a non-title affair at 150 pounds.
Boyington and Raio first met in February 2014 when Boyington controlled the early moments of the fight with his striking only to have Raio take his back on the mat and apply a rear-naked choke. Boyington briefly waved his hand in the air, a signal referee Jimmy Bickford took for a submission and awarded Raio the first-round win.
Boyington immediately protested — saying he was only trying to reassure the crowd he was not in danger.
“This (rematch) is solely about redemption and giving the fans what they have been wanting to see,” said Boyington. “Sometimes you have to step outside of what is best for you in this sport and entertain and that’s what I’m doing.”
Raio is coming off two straight losses to Derek Shorey of Dover-Foxcroft, the most recent by first-round TKO last month.
