The next New England Fights mixed martial show not only will be held in Bangor, it will feature a distinctly Queen City-area flavor.
Seven fighters from Young’s MMA in Bangor will compete on the 11-bout card announced Friday for the Aug. 5 show in the grand ballroom of the Cross Insurance Center, including two who will be battling for promotion championships and a third who already holds a title belt.
The headliner among three professional bouts will match C.J. Ewer of Young’s MMA against Mike Hansen of Rumford in a five-round battle to crown the new NEF middleweight (185-pound) champion.
Ewer (2-0) is coming off a highlight-reel knockout over Ruben Redman the last time NEF brought MMA to the Cross Center in August 2016, while Hansen will enter the bout with a 5-5 record.
Undefeated Aaron Lacey (4-0) of Brewer will face his most experienced challenge to date against Bellator MMA veteran Bryan Goldsby (17-16). Lacey, also representing Young’s MMA, is a former NEF amateur lightweight champion who has submitted three of his four opponents since turning pro a year ago.
Another Young’s MMA product, current NEF lightweight champion Ryan Sanders, will seek to score his fifth consecutive victory when he faces veteran Jay Ellis of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in a non-title fight to round out the professional portion of the card.
Sanders (14-8) has won seven of his last eight bouts overall to emerge among the top 155-pounders in the Northeast after dropping from the welterweight (170-pound) ranks.
Headlining the amateur card will be a clash for the vacant NEF amateur bantamweight (135-pound) title between Fred Lear of Bangor and Young’s MMA and Walt Shea of Jefferson.
Lear, a former John Bapst Memorial High School wrestler, is 5-2 with victories in his last two bouts, most recently a second-round stoppage of Michael Crespo in Lewiston last February.
Shea, who trains out of First Class MMA in Brunswick, is 2-0 with both of his victories coming by unanimous decision.
Others on the amateur card include Angela Young (2-2), an emergency-room nurse at Eastern Maine Medical Center and wife of Young’s MMA founder and head coach Chris Young. She’ll take on Floridian Jessica Borga (5-2), who will be fighting in the Pine Tree State for the third time in the past 12 months.
Undefeated middleweight Josh Jones, the former Husson University and professional basketball player, will go for his third victory in as many fights against the debuting Carlton Charles, a former University of Maine football player.
Jones has made short work of his first two opponents, requiring just 24 seconds to earn those victories including a four-second, one-strike knockout of Anthony Squires on June 17 in Lewiston.
Others making their debuts on Aug. 5 include Jeremiah Barkac, a former four-time state wrestling champion and 2007 Wrestling USA high school All-American from Dexter Regional High School. He’ll take on Nate Boucher (1-0) from Central Maine Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in a bantamweight bout.
Boetsch back in UFC rankings
Lincolnville native Tim Boetsch has climbed back into the UFC middleweight rankings after his recent second-round TKO victory over former welterweight world champion Johny Hendricks in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on June 25.
The win, Boetsch’s third in his last four fights, initially moved him from unranked in the 185-pound division to as high as 12th before he settled into 13th place in the deep middleweight ranks this week.
The 36-year-old Boetsch improved his record to 21-11 with the victory over Hendricks, which also earned the former four-time state wrestling champion from Camden-Rockport High School a $50,000 performance of the night bonus.
