With it’s 32nd show coming up, Fight Festival, one of the longest running combat sports shows in Europe, will stick to it’s proven recipe for putting up a good show: Match local stars with UFC veterans and foreign up-n-comers. The October 13th show will be headlined by a highly exciting lightweight battle between the Finnish brawler Niko Puhakka (25-11) and UFC veteran Yoshiuki Yoshida (13-6) of Japan.
Puhakka won his last fight at Carelia Fight 8 where he beat Frenchman Sébastien Garguier by a lop sided decision. Puhakka is 9-1 in his last ten fights with the lone loss coming to Chute Boxe star Luiz Azeredo by points.
Former UFC welterweight Yoshiuki Yoshida has revived his fighting career after three consecutive losses. At the moment Yoshida is riding a three fight win streak including a win over Phil Baroni at OneFC. Yoshida holds also notable wins over Akira Kikuchi, Luis “Sapo” Santos and Jon “War Machine” Koppenhaver.
In the co-main event UFC veterans Lucio Linhares (17-7) and Logan Clark (17-5) locks horns in a middleweight bout. Linhares’ last bout at the Carelia Fight 8 didn’t go too well for the Helsinki based Brazilian as he was TKO’ed in the first minute of the fight. Before that Linhares battled a decision over Kyle Baker at the Cage Warriors Fight Night 4. American Logan Clark hails from the famed Minnesota Martial Arts Academy. Experienced Clark has fought all over the world in major promotions UFC, WEC and Sengoku and faced top level guys like Jorge Santiago and Kazuo Misaki. Clark is currently riding a three fight win streak with the latest win coming in April at 3RT show in April where Clark submitted Jake Doerr by kimura.
One of the best lightweights in Europe Juha-Pekka Vainikainen (19-5) is still without an opponent but is expected get one soon.
Flyweight top prospect Mikael Silander (7-1) fights American Wade Choate (14-13) and Silander’s training partner Joni Salovaara (10-5) battles Frenchman Mokhtar Benkaci (8-2) in a featherweight bout.
Fight Festival 32 will also host kickboxing and muay thai fights. In the light heavyweight bout Finland’s Jukka Saarinen will fight Portugal’s Antonio Sousa for the WAKO Kickboxing World Championship belt.
Fight Card:
Lightweight: Niko Puhakka vs Yoshiuki Yoshida, Japan
Middleweight: Lucio Linhares vs Logan Clark, USA
Featherweight: Joni Salovaara vs Mokhtar Benkaci, France
Flyweight: Mikael Silander vs Wade Choate, USA
Welterweight: Johan Vänttinen vs Vincent del Guerra, France
Lightweight: Juha-Pekka Vainikainen vs Antun Racic, Croatia
Bantamweight: Janne Elonen-Kulmala vs TBA
Muay Thai: Jere Flinkman vs Franck Gross, France
Kickboxing: Jukka Saarinen vs Antonio Sousa, Portugal
Kickboxing: Jarkko Jussila vs Oleksandr Pindrys, Ukraine
