Cedar Valley Fighting Association bringing Friday Night Fight April 9

The Cedar Valley Fighting Association is bringing another round of Friday Night Fights to Newton at 8 p.m. April 9 at the VFW.

The upcoming event will feature Newton native Preston McConnell in a light heavyweight title qualifying fight. Chris Tish is set to rematch Eric Roberts of Newton, and Wes Barton plans to return to the cage. There also will be an amateur sign-up division in which local participants may sign up to compete. Interested competitors must be at the VFW between 5 to 7 p.m. the night of the fights to register.

Advance tickets are $15 for general admission. Advance tickets are available at the VFW. Tickets at the door will be $20.

For more information, e-mail afafighting@yahoo.com or visit www.cvfa.info.

For the past year, the CVFA has hosted fights at the VFW in Newton for crowds ranging between 50 and 200 people. MMA superstars such as Travis Fulton and up-and-coming fighters who went on to compete in bigger MMA productions, such as Josh Troen, Barton, McConnell, Randy Meyer and Anton Tomash. Many UFC stars — including Krystof Soszynski, Chris Tuchsherer and Brock Larson — debuted in Cedar Valley Fighting Association events. Also, UFC stars like Dan Severn, Josh Neer and Jeremy Horn have competed for the CVFA.

The state of Iowa is in the process of passing a bill that will strictly regulate amateur fighting events in Iowa and require fighters to be licensed as well as insured. With these regulations in place, the Friday Night Fight events will be unable to generate enough revenue to continue running events at the VFW in Newton. After July 1, the bill will go into effect, making the April, May and June events at the VFW the last.