A cross Tasman featherweight bout between current XFC champion Shane Young and challenger Julian “Julz The Jackal” Rabaud headlines XFC 24.
The event takes place at the Mansfield Tavern in Queensland, Australia on May 23, with Young putting his title on the line against Rabaud.
Fight News Australia asked Young on the importance of this fight in his career, with the New Zealand based fighter responding, “Every fight is important. Important is an understatement! I’m going to make a career fighting and I’m working every day to get better at this so every fight is like a performance review from my bosses (the fans). I have to impress them to keep progressing in this fight game.”
Young made his XFC debut back in February 2014 where he lost a close edge decision to the then champion, Adrian Rodriguez. The two rematched in November with Young taking it out of the hands of the judges to win by TKO in the third round.
He was scheduled to meet Rabaud earlier this year but an injury forced “Julz The Jackal” off the card with Young deciding to go up a weight division to test himself against Damien Brown. There, Young lost a majority decision to Brown in a fun back-and-forth slug-fest. The Auckland City Boxing trained fighter is looking forward to returning back to his normal weight division.
After competing at bantamweight, Rabaud will be moving up to the featherweight division in what will be his long awaited XFC debut. The Gold Coast based fighter has been inactive since a KO loss to Ben Nguyen in March last year however he does believe that the weight change should bring more power and better cardio. Rabaud told us, “I KO’d and TKO’d people at 61 kilograms, drained and very tired.”
He sarcastically added, “So I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do the same at 66 hydrated and strong?”
“Shane may be able to stand my power considering he has a crimson chin,” Rabaud said about his opponent who has not been stopped in his professional career.
That chin was put to the test when Young met Brown. Asked what Rabaud thought on that performance and if he saw any holes in his opponents game, Rabaud responded, “I seen more holes in Damien (Brown’s) game then I did Shane’s. To be honest I wasn’t impressed at all by that fight. Damien and I have trained together a few times and I have fought on so many cards he has. It made it a lot easier for me to determine Shane’s strengths and weakness’s.”
“Finding holes in Shane’s game will be hard he has no holes, but I will try my very best.”
The pro-am event will also feature a pair of women’s MMA bouts with Terissa Wall from Advance Martial Arts taking on Brooke McLeod in a flyweight bout while Megan Anderson will be looking to keeping her impressive form going when she meets Helen Malone in a featherweight bout.
Fight Card (Pro):
- Shane Young (c) vs Julian Rabaud – XFC featherweight title
- Terissa Wall vs Brooke McLeod
- Helen Malone vs Megan Anderson
Fight Card (Amateur):
- Nathan Wilson vs Joel Fahey – XFC amateur welterweight title
- Michael McDaniel vs Matt Thompson – XFC amateur middleweight title
- Mat Moore vs Tommy Aldous
- Kris Mulhall vs Joel Johnston
- Benny Millmann vs Glen Pettigrew
- Justin Wilson vs Jamahl Kelly
- Jon Willox vs Hiki Paikea
