Shamrock, Gracie and MMA fighters galore at ‘Ring of Fire’ presscon

By Joey Alarilla
INQUIRER.net

EXPECT the fireworks to fly this Sunday, Dec. 9 at the “Ring of Fire: World Team Challenge” mixed martial arts competition which kicks off 1 p.m. at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City.

I was at the Crowne Plaza hotel with INQUIRER.net multimedia reporter Erika Tapalla and INQUIRER.net reporter Alex Villafania this afternoon for the press conference that formally introduced the fighters of the four teams competing in “Ring of Fire.”

Here’s a photo of (l-r) me, Erika, Royce Gracie and Alex taken by Rica Manalang, PR officer of Image Communicator, which is handling the publicity for the “Ring of Fire” event.

The four teams competing in “Ring of Fire” are Team Shamrock, coached by Ken Shamrock; Team Gracie, coached by Royce Gracie; Team Barnett, coached by Josh Barnett; and Team Gokor, coached by Gokor Chivichyan. Continuing the legendary rivalry between Shamrock and Gracia, their two teams will square off on Sunday, while Team Barnett will face Team Gokor. An alternate team whose fighters will step in case of injury was also introduced, coached by Kimo.

Here are photos taken by Alex.

Here’s Team Shamrock.

Team Gracie.

Team Barnett.

Team Gokor.

And Team Kimo.

Here’s a photo of me (right) and Alex with Ken Shamrock taken by one of our fellow journalists covering the event.

And here’s a pic of Erika and Royce Gracie taken by Alex. And guess what? Royce said “Mahal kita” to Erika, hehe Which is why our running joke now is “Hoyce (that’s how you pronounce his name, in case you’re not a fan of MMA) hearts Herika (’coz Erika quipped that all you see in many of her photos and videos is her long hair).

Will post our video interviews once they’re online.

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