Variety of martial arts the main event in St. Charles Saturday
Jay Little, Omar Perez, Dan Burke, Bill Gaydo and Will Coto may not be household names amongst most fight fans, but they represent a growing number of athletes trying to make a name for themselves in mixed martial arts competitions.
Those fighters and many others will be featured at the Arcada Theater when Combat Entertainment brings a 10-fight card and live band to St. Charles for a 7:30 p.m. show Saturday.
This will be more than just a night of competitive fighting for those who follow the Ultimate Fighting Championships and similar mixed martial arts events, said Combat Entertainment co-owner and promoter Paul Jonas.
"For those who are familiar with MMA events, the Arcada Theater show breaks that stereotype of a typical mixed martial arts layout," said Jonas, a Cary resident who has been involved with MMA promotion since the late 1980s. "We have customized the ring and formatted it to fit the elevated stage within the Arcada.
"We're essentially utilizing every inch of the stage for our MMA matches and live band performance," Jonas said. "The theater's outstanding video, lighting and audio capabilities are an additional bonus."
The band "Seventh Heaven," which performs a mix of rock and hip-hop music, will play up tempo beats during intermission and at various portions of the event, Jonas said.
"But it all has to have clean language," he added.
That's an important aspect of the whole show, Jonas said, because the age group of those who attend the shows range from "15 or 16 on up."
The theory of a clean show carries over to the fights as well, Jonas added.
"They have done a lot of things to try to clean up this sport with a lot more regulations," he said. "The different sanctioning bodies realized that a younger crowd was being drawn, so it is much better than back in the 'anything goes' days when it was just much older crowds.
"We are well aware that the mixed martial arts realm is misunderstood by some as an over-aggressive, combat sport with few rules or regulations," Jonas added. "In fact, this couldn't be further from the truth. There are specific guidelines each promoter must follow and abide by in order to receive approval by the state and the elected sanctioning body to proceed forward with an event like this."
While the card at the Arcada show will mostly feature fighters looking to move up the ranks in the International Sport Combat Federation, the evening will feature a main event in the 155-pound division when Tommy Lee takes on Jon King.
"Many may know Tommy Lee from his televised fight that aired on World Extreme Cagefighting," Jonas said.
Jonas has a knack for bringing a little more excitement to a traditional evening of fights, getting experience in staging events by helping his mother organize the summer festival Frontier Days in the Mount Prospect and Arlington Heights area in the early 1980s.
"That involved all sorts of entertainment and I brought some of that in creating Combat Entertainment," Jonas said. "We are doing our best to heighten the excitement of the shows with live music and videos by adding more bells and whistles, and it should make for a nice event."
The show will mark the first time Combat Entertainment has worked with Onesti Entertainment, which operates the Arcada Theater.
Arcada manager Johnny Maggio said the theater has staged a wrestling event in the past, but not of this size and with all of the extra entertainment.
"We're always trying to do some different things and this will be our first time trying something of this magnitude," Maggio said. "Hopefully we will fill the theater."
Tickets for the show range from $35 to $78 and can be ordered by calling (847) 795-1800.
Information is available at combatentertainmentgroup.com or by calling the Arcada at (630) 587-8400.