Baker/Lozano, Caraballo/Castillo Jr top NAAFS card June 2nd

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Two title fights headline NAAFS: Fight Night in the FlatsVIII, Kyle Baker defending his welterweight title and Frank Caraballo defendshis featherweight title against Antonio Castillo.  NAAFS: Fight Night in the Flats VIII takesplace June 2nd and the Jacobs Pavilion in Nautica in Cleveland, OH with a maincard webstreamed as a pay-per-view on Go Fight Live (www.gfl.tv)

Kyle BakerKyle Baker is one of those fighters who is very well respected but that respectresults in the MMA Institute fighter having a hard time getting fights to moveup.  After sustaining an injury in theShine Fights 2010 Grand Prix forcing him out of the rest of that tournamentBaker lost decisions to Torrance Taylor and most recently Lucio Linhares butbetween those two defeated Nick Duell for the NAAFS title last August (seearchives) bringing him to a total of 10-6. Chris LozanoThe Duell fight was typical for Baker as he landed more powerful strikesfor a first-round TKO, his seventh KO/TKO of his career.  Former champion Lozano is the opposite ofBaker in the sense he has stayed for the most part with NAAFS and Bellatorwhere he has had several good opportunities the Cleveland fighter so far hasn’tcapitalized to full effect with defeats in Bellator’s season 4 welterweighttournament quarterfinals and season 5 semifinals, most recently losing to KarlAmoussou in the season 6 qualifier.  Bothhave enough ground skills to win a fight but prefer to strike, Baker arguablyhaving the edge on kicking.

Frank CaraballoTo give an idea of the connection between NAAFS and Bellator Frank Caraballodefended his NAAFS featherweight title at BFC 66 against UFC vet Donny Walker,a fight that ended with a Caraballo flying knee in the fourth round.  Now Caraballo defends his title again, thistime against Antonio Castillo Jr.Antonio Castillo Jr.  9-4Caraballo won his last four fights including his last two in Bellator againstDustin Kempf and the aforementioned Walker, Castillo is known as a grinder withall four of his wins in his 4-3 record being by decision including his mostrecent over Paul Compton in February.

Fight card:

MW: Phillip Taylor vs. JT Miller
MW: John Antanitis vs. Steve Burton
FW: Dominic Mazzotta vs. Mike Velasquez
BW: Shane Valko vs. Ryan Arce
HW: James Rankin vs. Jeff Hughes
WW: Gabe Garcia vs. Emmanuel Kangah
BW: Tyler Saltsman vs. Jerrell Hodge
W115: Sarah McLeod vs. Amber Ignotowski
LW: Khama Worthy vs. George Comer
LW: Dave Shepherd vs. Joe Heiland
FW title: Frank Caraballo vs. Antonio Castillo Jr.
WW title: Kyle Baker vs. Chris Lozano