Three championship bouts will feature on the 2016 Brace championship tournament finale card this Saturday night in Canberra. Brace 45 takes place at the AIS Arena in Canberra and will be streamed live on UFC Fight Pass.
In the main event, hard hitting Central Coast welterweight Rick Alchin will look to make it three wins in a row when he comes up against Sydney’s Theo Christakos.
Alchin earned his spot in this year’s welterweight title fight with victories against James Klingner and Tristan Murphy, who he most recently outworked at Brace 42. Another regular in the promotion, Christakos replaces the man who submitted him in August, Sam Hayward. Saturday’s fight will be Christakos’s second attempt at capturing welterweight gold in the promotion after falling to local veteran Benny Alloway last year.
The 2016 bantamweight title is up for grabs in the co-main event with Victorian based Irish fighter Richie Ivory facing ATT Sydney’s Darwin Sagurit.
Ivory started 2016 on a tear, claiming quick-fire knockout wins over Matt George and Ben Watson. The Dublin born fighter, however, would later come unstuck to undefeated Michael Tobin just last month. These two were scheduled to meet earlier in the year at Minotaur 3, a fight that did not eventuate. Sagurit went on to meet Gustavo Falciroli at the event, and kicked off his 2016 campaign with a highlight reel KO of arguably the best bantamweight Australia has seen (fight video). The stocky power puncher later dropped a unanimous decision to Rex De Lara in the Guam based Pacific X-treme Combat. “Sugar” put that defeat behind him in style though, stopping Byron Cowell with punches at Brace 42.
In the other title fight scheduled for the night, Brisbane based Kiwi Alex MacDonald takes on Adelaide’s Anthony Bynoe for the 2016 lightweight strap.
MacDonald outpointed Victorian submission specialist Jesse Medina at Brace 42 in his last outing. The victory followed the Kiwi’s KO of Guy Belgrove back in May. Bynoe is also 2-0 this year with victories against Paul Franchi and Nurbolat Kuandyk.
Fight Card (Pro):
- Rick Alchin vs. Theo Christakos – 2016 welterweight tournament championship
- Richie Ivory vs. Darwin Sagurit – 2016 bantamweight tournament championship
- Alex Macdonald vs. Anthony Bynoe – 2016 lightweight tournament championship
- Caitlin McEwen vs. Jess Doueihi
- Stephen Owens vs. Mason Lord
- Reza Almasi vs. Cameron Rowston
Fight Card (Amateur):
- Jason Croft vs. Jonathan Stamatis
- Sam Daniel vs. Jason Argento
- Matt Oliver vs. Aladdin Daghestani
Brace 44 Recap: Michael Tobin chokes out Richie Ivory to move to 12-0
