LAS VEGAS - On Saturday, May 30, 2009, 100 fighters and 1,000's of spectators arrived at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada for a massive Mixed Martial Arts extravaganza. The destination for this massive turn out, which included a fight card with 50 fights and 100 fighters, was TUFF-N-UFF Amateur Fighting Champuionships - The Future Stars of MMA. They hosted an open invitational for all aspiring mixed martial artists in a huge venue in the fight capital of the world.

People started showing up at the Orleans Arena, home to the Las Vegas Wranglers, in the early morning hours as the fights started around noon and went on throughout the day and night, finally coming to a close a little past 10 p.m. Many of MMA's biggest names showed up to show their support as well, which included Kevin Randleman, Gina Carano, Kim Couture, Amber Nichole Miller, Frank Trigg, Mark Coleman, Mike Pyle, Junie Browning, Eddie Bravo, Dean Lister, Scott Bieri, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, Robert Drysdale, Phil Baroni, Frank Mir, Gilbert Yvel, and many more.

Where this event served as a tool to see if many of the aspiring athletes would continue in their efforts at fight glory in hand-to-hand combat, it also served as a proving ground for some of the areas more proven amateur fighters, as well as some of the sport's more intriguing figures.

Three of those prospects, were youngsters hailing from Marc Laimon's local Cobra Kai academy in Las Vegas: purple belt Jerry "J-Shap" Shapiro, Muay Thai expert Coates Cobb-Adams, and brown belt Chris "Young H-Worth" Holdsworth. The 22-year-old Shapiro, who will be making his eagerly anticipated professional MMA debut at PFC in July, had a successful amateur MMA debut on Saturday night against Luis Antonio Cabriales of Monterrey, Mexico. After dominating the first stanza, "J-Shap" forced Cabriales to conduct the three-tap symphony due to an Armbar from the guard. This bout took place at 135-pounds and "J-Shap" will now drop down to 125-pounds for his professional debut in July.

Coates Cobb-Adams, the vicious 20-year-old Muay Thai expert and striking coach from Cobra Kai was also in top form Saturday night. Cobb-Adams has been an absolute wrecking-machine since debuting with TUFF-N-UFF last year. After battering his opponent Tommy Phelps of Team Severn throughout the first round with an array of leg kicks, spinning-heel kicks, head kicks, body shots, and punches, Cobb-Adams showed his well-rounded and highly-adept skill set by finishing Phelps on the ground via Rear Naked Choke to continue his impressive and undefeated amateur MMA record.

The 21-year-old jiu-jitsu whiz Holdsworth, also known as "Young H-Worth" would follow up his 2008 amateur MMA debut (also at TUFF-N-UFF) with another dominating performance. At the sound of the bell he came right at his opponent Gabe Gonzales and floored him with an overhand right. Holdsworth followed him to the ground with strikes. He quickly shifted gears and put his fluid and liquid jiu-jitsu skills on display by securing Gonzales' back and transitioning effortlessly to a belly-down Armbar, which induced the tapout submission via Armbar early in the first round. In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, this was déjà vu all over again, as it was the same winning technique "Young H-Worth" used in his TUFF-N-UFF debut last year.

The card also featured the widely publicized MMA debut of LaTasha Marzolla, who is better known as Playboy magazine's "Special Edition Model of the Year 2004". After compiling a Muay Thai kickboxing record of 6-3 on the K-1 circuit, she has been steadily training with Gina Carano and company at Randy Couture's gym Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas. On Saturday night, she finally made her long-awaited MMA debut against Christy Tada of Hawaiian Fighting Arts. In possibly the most exciting one round of action out of the 50 fights that took place, Marzolla got the better of the stand up war that ensued and caused enough damage to Tada's eye, that it prevented Tada from answering the bell at the start of Round 2. The win was well received from the crowd and gave women's MMA some welcome attention.

Also in action for the first time, was UFC interim-heavyweight champion Frank Mir's cousin Larry Mir. Training out of Ken Hahn's gym Striking Unlimited in Las Vegas, he went the distance with an equally tough lightweight fighter Samuel Varrin of L.A. Fitness. Mir's pace and aggressiveness was enough to swing the bout in his favor on the judge's score cards earning him a narrow Split Decision.

The final fight of the night was a super-heavyweight contest between one of the world's strongest men Tomislav Lorber of Conan Gym and Sammy Collinwood of Hawaiian Fighting Arts. The giant 6'8", 315 lbs. Croatian fighter Lorber, who is known for a YouTube video where he is pulling two full speed dirt bikes (simultaneously with one arm a piece) was unable to match the superior technique of Collinwood. The Hawaiian fighter was able to escape danger early on the feet to out-maneuver the behemoth on the ground, where he scored an impressive TKO victory via strikes to cap a marathon long day of fights put together by Barry Meyer and the staff at TUFF-N-UFF Amateur FC.