Keith KO KID Berry to fight on ShoCX June 27th

ShoXC: Hector Lombard, Cyrille Diabate and KOTC champ Keith Berry in action June 27

By: James Iannotti

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Promising welterweight fighter, Hector Lombard, will make his highly anticipated Elite XC debut at the next ShoXC Challenger Series event (which will be outdoors) at the Sycuan Casino & Resort in San Diego, Calif.on Showtime, June 27, according to FiveOuncesofPain.com.
No opponent has been named at this time.
Cyrille Diabate — another recent Elite XC acquisition — will also mix it up with Jaime Fletcher in a light heavyweight tilt. Diabate is a Muay Thai specialist who has not competed in more than one year. His last fight, in fact, was a first round submission (armbar) win over Ryan Robinson at Cage Rage 21: “Judgment Day.”
Before that “Snake” had notable losses to Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at Pride: “Final Conflict Absolute” in September 2006 (first round technical knockout) and to Renato “Babalu” Sobral at Cage Rage 9: “No Mercy” in November 2004 (first round submission).
Diabate has been competed in mixed martial arts since 1999, but only had two fights in the last two years. Thats a long layoff in between fights.
His opponent Jaime Fletcher, on the other hand, is just the opposite. His MMA career started less than two years ago, and he’s already had nine fights.
Fletcher was victorious in his first five matches before losing three in a row. That came to an end with a much needed win in March over one of the promotion’s top prospects, Aaron Rosa at the ShoXC event in Santa Ynez, Calif.
Both are solid fighters looking to make an impression being on the main card of a Showtime televised event.

Not to be outdone, for the first time ever a King of the Cage (KOTC) championship belt will be decided outside of the organization — middleweight kingpin Keith “The KO Kid” Berry (6-2) will defend his strap against Reggie Orr (5-5-1) in one of the main card matches.
KOTC is owned by Pro Elite, which is the parent company of Elite XC and other MMA organizations. Pro Elite purchased KOTC in September of 2007.
Berry is a boxer with highlight reel-type power in both hands. He has four (T)KO’s to his credit out of his 6 six wins. He’s also a very big middleweight. He primarily fought at light heavyweight before winning the KOTC title.
One of his two losses was in October of 2006 against Terry Martin at WEC 24: “Full Force” at light heavyweight. The other came in February of last year at Cage Combat Fighting Championships 24: “Judgment Day” against Kawika Morton.
That fight was a hard fought split decision loss.
Since those two losses “The KO Kid” is on a three fight winning streak including his most recent win at King of the Cage: “Final Chapter” last December over Omar Luv (6-2).
You might remember the challenger, Reggie Orr, from this season’s The Ultimate Fighter (TUF). I say might because he wasn’t on there for too long. In fact, he lost in the very first episode to Paul Bradley — the guy with the neck herpes.
Orr never made it into the house.
He’s had an up and down career since making the transition from Muay Thai and jiu-jitsu to mixed martial arts. His 5-5-1 record is nothing to be impressed by, but he’s reeled off three straight wins for KOTC and will be looking to impress in his first real fight with a major organization on Showtime.
All in all this is shaping up to be a pretty sweet card for a ShoXC event. Stay tuned for more updates.