All 22 fighters including Strikeforce world middleweight championship adversaries, Frank Shamrock and “The New York Badass” Phil Baroni, made their contracted weights one day prior to the 11-bout “Shamrock vs. Baroni” world championship mixed martial arts cage fight card.  It was also announced during the official weigh-in session for the Strikeforce-EliteXC co-promotion that lightweight star, Edson Berto, will replace Charles “Krazy Horse” Bennett as the opponent of Victor “Joe Boxer” Valenzuela.

 

After being arrested earlier this week, Bennett was released from jail on bail and scheduled to fly from Florida to San Jose today as part of a last-minute effort to secure a fighter’s license for his planned rematch with Valenzuela.  He missed his scheduled flight, however, but will still attend the event as a spectator. 

 

“EliteXC, Scott Coker and Strikeforce almost pulled off a hat-trick,” said Gary Shaw, President of EliteXC’s Live Events Division, “but (Bennett) got stuck in traffic and missed his plane.  ‘Krazy Horse’ said, though, that Edson Berto deserves praise for stepping up.”

 

As many as seven bouts will be televised live on the pay per view telecast that is being produced and distributed by SHOWTIME PPV.  Tickets are on sale and can be purchased at the HP Pavilion box office (408-287-7070); by logging on to www.ticketmaster.com, or at any TicketMaster outlet.