Kindom MMA will take place at the Neal Blaisdell Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. The first bout will kick off at 7:30 HST, which places it at 1:30 am ET for most of us in the states.

A side-note for all of you diehards; The undercard of the event will be broadcast live at BJPenn.com beginning at 1:30 am ET.

Famed UFC referee “Big” John McCarthy will be on hand to officiate some of the evening’s bouts

Miller, more commonly known as just “Mayhem”, has established himself as one of MMA’s most respected combatants during the course of his career, putting together wins over the likes of Denis Kang, Ronald Jhun and Robbie Lawler along the way. His last appearance saw him on the losing end of a decision to Ronaldo “Jacare” de Souza back in June of 2008. Prior to the bout with Jacare, Mayhem had strung together four consecutive victories.

Hose is known for his heavy hands with his most talked about victory being a grueling fifth round knockout over Phil Baroni in March of 2008. He has put together a record of 7-2 during his mixed martial arts career with all seven of his victories coming by way of knockout. His most recent outing saw him stop Rolando Dominque by TKO in the second round of their August 2008 bout.

A full list of the bouts scheduled for tonight’s Kingdom MMA event are listed below.

Jason “Mayhem” Miller vs. Kala Hose
Brandon Pieper vs. Ricky “Hoku” Wallace
Ronald “Machine Gun” Jhun vs. Rylan Lizares (submission grappling match)
Pisa “Ata” Tivao vs. Tasi Edwards
Geno Venti vs. Sale Sproat
L. John Borges vs. Andres Cohea
Tommy Tuiloma vs. Dejuan Hathaway
Elijah Manners vs. Trey Corrales
Paul Lopez vs. Rob Anduha
Bernard Beroti vs. Nathan Haring

Miller will be headlining Kingdom MMA’s inaugural show at the Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu on March 28 against former ICON Sport middleweight champion Kala “Kolohe” Hose.

“I have already been having dreams of fighting Mr. Miller,” Kolohe is quoted as saying in a press release. “He was a great champion. But he gained his fame from the Hawaiian fans and then turned his back on us. He better be ready for a war… Hawaiian style!”

Miller apparently didn’t take too kindly to the accusation by Hose.

“Did he really say that about me? Does he remember how I dismantled the other Hawaiian fighters when they put me down,” Miller asked rhetorically. “Maybe he should talk to Egan Inoue or Ron Jhun or Niko Vitale or Mark Moreno? He wants to make me out to be the bad guy? Fine. Bring it Kala.”

Miller, 21-6, is known as being one of the most charismatic fighters in the sport. He has been idle since losing to Ronald “Jacare” Souza during DREAM’s middlweight Grand Prix this past June. The 28-year old announced his retirement soon after but the revelation was met with great skepticism.

Hose, 7-2, last competed in August during ICON’s “Hard Times” event. Matched up against Rolando Dominique, Hose recorded a TKO victory at 1:05 of round 2.

Tickets for the March 28 event will go on-sale on February 21 at the Blaisdell Box office, Ticketmaster.com and all other Ticketmaster locations. Prices will range from $15 to $150.

Bryan Levick contributed to this report.

According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Phil Baroni won via TKO at 51 seconds into the first round after landing an uppercut and a right hook that dropped his opponent, Ron Verdadero to the mat. According to the report, Verdadero immediately got up as the referee jumped in to stop the fight:

Shimada stops it as Verdadero QUICKLY gets back up. HORRIBLE STOPPAGE. Verdadero wasn’t even hurt. Oh man.

Also in action was Kala Kolohe Hose, who toppled his opponent Rolando Dominique via TKO in round two. With this victory, Hose rebounds from a stunning first round submission loss to Bubba McDaniel at the EliteXC: Return of the King show in June. Hose, from what the report says, doesn’t seem to have appeared too impressive but got the job done.

Also on the card was an apparent barnburner and a fight that the Star-Bulletin is calling Fight of the Year material between Mark Oshiro and Bao Quach for the ICON Sport North American championship. The fight was back and forth, with Quach having Oshiro in trouble several times with armbar attempts. It sounds like the fight was up and down, back and forth, and went everywhere that an MMA fight could go. Quach was able to secure a unanimous decision victory to become the new ICON Sport North American champion.

Also in action last night were Alberto Crane and Drew Fickett at Rage in the Cage 113. Crane is an ex-UFC fighter and Fickett is a veteran of the UFC and EliteXC. According to Sherdog, Crane apparently took care of business, getting his opponent, Adrian Valdez, to the ground quickly, then transitioning from an armbar attempt to a guillotine choke to force a tap in the first round.

Fickett didn’t fare as well, apparently coming into weigh-ins two pounds overweight:

Fickett came in over weight and had to run off two pounds, which may have taken its toll on him. Villa and his camp figured they would take full advantage of that by letting Fickett come out strong and then tire.

According to the report, round one was all Fickett with two head kicks, a takedown, and submission attempts from Fickett. But apparently he gassed early and in round two he paid dearly. Richard Villa came out firing with a hard right hand that dropped Fickett and he pounced on him from there, landing a barrage of strikes that forced a referee stoppage.

Full results for ICON Sport: Hard times can be found here. Full results for Rage in the Cage 113 can be found here.

According to MMAWeekly.com, Crunkilton suffered an injury and Cerrone will now face Danny Castillo.

Castillo is a California-based fighter with a perfect 5-0 record, according to Sherdog’s fight finder. He has competed for both the Gladiator Challenge and Palace Fighting Championships promotions.

Cerrone, a top lightweight prospect, has not fought since defeating Kenneth Alexander at WEC 30 in Las Vegas last September. However, the win was ruled a no contest and he was suspended after the Nevada State Athletic Commission announced that Cerrone had tested positive for a diuretic.

This Sunday’s WEC show will air on VERSUS starting at 9 p.m. ET and featuring Urijah Faber defending the WEC featherweight title against former UFC lightweight champion Jens Pulver.

Maybe some blame can be assessed to the WEC for not finding a better opponent for Paulo Filho, but if you want to find his equal then you’re going to have to bring in Dan Henderson, Matt Lindland, Rich Franklin, or Anderson Silva. That’s not going to happen and I think Joe Doerksen was a handpicked opponent to allow Filho to look dominant and help build up his name recognition in the States. 

If that was the goal, then mission accomplished. If you had never seen Filho fight before then I don’t know how you couldn’t have been impressed with him after last night’s performance.

I do think some people are getting carried away though as I’ve read some message forum posts proclaiming Filho a good striker now. While his punches looked pretty powerful, his technique was not refined. He works hard on his striking but he still has a long way to go before he can be labeled a good, technical striker. 

I was also disappointed by the quick outcome of the Larson vs. Condit match. I expected a war. But you can’t blame anyone because looking at it from a matchmaker’s perspective, there isn’t a bigger challenge to Condit currently on the roster than Larson. It was a great matchup that just didn’t go according to plan. 

I am thoroughly impressed by Condit each time I see him fight. He’s going to be big time and will definitely be fighting in the UFC within the next two years. The WEC will need to bolster their welterweight division though if they want to make things interesting until then. If he can get past Larson that quickly then there’s no one who will pose much of a threat. 

Jeff Curran vs. Stephen Ledbetter wasn’t anything special in my book but it was just good to see Curran in a televised match. It looks like there is a build towards a WEC featherweight title match between Urijah Faber and Curran. While I think Faber would win that match, it would still be pretty exciting. 

Jamie Varner looked great in a dominant performance over Sherron Leggett. Varner is now 13-2 and should get to fight the winner of WEC lightweight title match next month between Razor Rob and Rich Crunkilton. That’s not anything I’ve heard, just my opinion. 

Random Rants: 

• I’m usually a big fan of Frank Mir’s work as a commentator. I thought he did great during the first live show several months back but I thought his game was off a little last night. It seemed like he couldn’t get his timing down.

• To piggyback on a point made by Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer several months back, having Frank Mir do the post-fight interviews is just a bad idea. Mir towers over everyone and makes them look like midgets. Why not just pay some local Vegas sports reporter $2,000 per show to come in and do the interviews?

• Because of quick results to a lot of the fights they were able to show a lot of fighters in attendance. It makes the WEC seem a lot bigger. I also liked the interviews with Jens Pulver and Rob McCullough and how they promoted the next show. They did a much better job of future promotion this time than last but that’s likely because when they did the first Versus live show, there weren’t a lot of definitive details about the second show.

• Speaking of Pulver, if Mir is ever in a position where he can’t do a show because he’s training for a fight, Pulver would be an excellent substitute. He’s already done some broadcast work for the UFC and the IFL. If ESPN ever hired their own analysts for their coverage of MMA on ESPNews, Pulver would be a perfect for such a role.

• They should do an even better job with future promotion. Why is it that Joe Riggs is telling The Fight Network he’s fighting Jason Miller in October? Why do so many promotions get scooped on their own news? Maybe there wasn’t enough time, but it would have been cool if the report was addressed in some fashion.

• I am real curious to know the duration of the WEC’s contract with Versus. I just feel the product deserves a better distribution outlet. They have a lot of potential superstars in Condit, Filho, Larson, Urijah Faber, Jason Miller, Carlos Condit, “Razor” Rob McCullough, and Rich Crunkilton but I just don’t think Versus gives them enough exposure. I know a lot of people who still don’t get Versus and on systems that do carry it, it’s usually buried. I have DirecTV and it’s in between a tier of premium sports channels on channel 608. The non-premium sports channels (ESPN, ESPNews, NFL Network, etc.) are all in the 200’s. You can run all the promos of the fighters you want on Versus but what good is it if the only time people watch Versus is for the WEC? People really don’t even watch the NHL on Versus. Hell, there are already rumblings that the NHL could be going back to ESPN once their Versus deal is up.

• Prime channel positioning is important. My in-laws don’t even like MMA yet they knew exactly what the IFL was when they found out I was going to cover the show this past Thursday. They know what the IFL is because they watch it every Monday in spite of the fact they don’t like MMA. Why do they watch it? Probably because there is nothing but reruns of sitcoms or first run versions of scrub reality shows on network TV right now and the IFL is on channel 17 here in the Philly area. If you’re a channel flipper, you’re going to be passing the IFL. If you’re a channel flipper, odds are you aren’t going to find the WEC.

• If they aren’t looking into it already, Zuffa should be exploring other future television options for the WEC. I know it’s easier said than done, but I think the USA network would be great. The clearance is strong and the channel has prominent positioning on most cable systems. And of course, ESPN would be even better. You would think ESPN would have room for the WEC on ESPN II with WrekCage every Tuesday or Wednesday night along with a live monthly show.

• They should also do some kind of deal with YouTube that would put all the WrekCage shows on the Internet for free. They have a product that is very appealing to hardcores and it’s time to let everyone see it and get them all talking.

• The WEC champions are as follows: Chase Beebe at bantamweight (135 lbs.); Urijah Faber at featherweight (145 lbs.); “Razor” Rob McCullough at lightweight (155 lbs.); Carlos Condit at welterweight (170 lbs.); Paulo Filho at middleweight (185 lbs.); and Doug Marshall at light heavyweight (205 lbs.). That’s a pretty impressive lineup of champions. It could be a long time until McCullough, Faber, Condit, and Filho lose (if they ever lose in the WEC).

• Right now the only fighter currently on the WEC roster who poses even a small threat to Filho is Jason “Mayhem” Miller. If Filho gets past Miller, he’ll have smooth sailing until an inevitable debut in the UFC.

• There’s still a lot of talk that more additions will be made to the WEC roster consisting of a lot of the Japanese fighters from Pride. I still haven’t heard any names though. A non-Japanese fighter from Pride that I’d love to see is Zelg Galesic. Pride signed Galesic from Cage Rage and he debuted at Pride 34 and lost. However, the guy has a ton of potential and has earned the nickname of “Mini-Cro Cop.” He’s a prospect and would fit perfectly on the WEC roster.

• The WEC should have shown highlights of fights that took place on the preliminary portion of the card. Antonio Banuelos fought earlier on the show and has increased name recognition after being featured on TapouT. He could be a future title contender at 135 lbs. but there’s no promotion behind him coming from the WEC.

According to MMAWeekly.com, the rumored main event for the 9/5 show is a WEC lightweight title defense by “Razor” Rob McCullough against Rich Crunkilton.

The 8/5 show is rumored to be featuring a co-main event with Paulo Filho taking on Joe Doerksen and Carlos Condit defending the WEC welterweight title against Brock Larson.

If the rumors are true, the WEC will be putting on some damn good cards in the coming months.