Hector Lombard defeated Jean-Francois Lenogue to become the CFC Middleweight Champion in November 2007, and has successfully defended the title on 4 occasions. In June 2009, Lombard also became the Bellator Middleweight Champion by winning an 8-man tournament to take the promotion's inaugural 185-pound crown. Lombard is a former Olympic Judo competitor who was born in Cuba, but is currently an Australian citizen who resides in America, where he trains at American Top Team in Florida. Lombard is unbeaten in his last 15 fights, with one draw. Lombard's last loss came over 3 years ago at PRIDE Bushido 13 to current Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Champion Gegard Mousasi. Lombard's only other career loss was to Akihiro Gono, also in PRIDE Bushido. Lombard is currently ranked #10 in the MMAmadman Middleweight Rankings.
Kalib Starnes was a participant on The Ultimate Fighter 3. Starnes lost to eventual TUF 3 winner Kendall Grove in the semi-finals of the tournament. After TUF 3, Starnes went on to fight 5 times in the UFC with wins over Danny Abbadi and Chris Leben. Starnes lost in the UFC to Yushin Okami, Alan Belcher and Nate Quarry. The Quarry loss at UFC 83 will likely haunt Starnes for the remainder of his MMA career. In one of the most lopsided decisions in UFC history, with one judge actually scoring the bout 30-24 (!), Starnes spent the majority of the 15-minute fight backpedalling, avoiding action, and sometimes even literally running away from Quarry.
It was later revealed that Starnes had broken his foot during the contest, but no excuse could justify such a ridiculously embarrassing performance, and Starnes was swiftly released from the UFC. Dana White went so far as to say Starnes should "consider a new line of work." While all of us who watched that dreadful fight will never get those 15 minutes of our lives back, one good thing did come of the nonsense, a highly entertaining MMA website -- WatchKalibRun.com.
Starnes returned to MMA action 7 months later with a submission win over Chris Cisneros for Destiny MMA in Hawaii. Starnes hasn't fought in a year, but will be returning at CFC 11 and facing the monumental task of taking on one of the hottest middleweight fighters on the planet not named Anderson Silva.
Complete Fight Card After the Break
CAGE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIPS XI
Hector Lombard (21-2) vs. Kalib Starnes (9-3) {Middleweight Title}
Lucas 'Big Daddy' Browne (3-0) vs. Willie Moon (0-0)
Matt 'Rolling Bear' Cain (7-5) vs. Jade Jordan (2-2)
Robert Lisita-Cocheci (1-1) vs. Tony Ourico (1-2)
Hugh 'the Smiling Assassin' Cameron (2-2) vs. Ashley Powell (0-0)
More Fights TBA
