Chael Sonnen's 'Submission Underground' out to find the greatest submission fighters alive

Submission Underground is a new grappling event looking to find who are the greatest grapplers alive

Chael Sonnen's Submission Underground starts this weekend (Getty)

Former UFC title contender Chael Sonnen will promote his first ever grappling event this weekend with a show entitled "Submission Underground". The event is the first in a series of three and it takes place on Sunday, July 17 at the Roseland Ballroom in Portland, Oregon.

The card will be headlined by a match between UFC, Strikeforce and WSOF veteran Jake Shields taking on another former UFC star Chris Lytle. Other matches on tap for the event include Ronny Markes vs. Vinny Magalhaes, Josh Calvo vs. Filipe Costa, Ricco Rodriguez vs. Fabiano Scherner and Mike Palladino vs. Nathan Orchard.

“The mantra is: How do we figure out who the greatest alive is?” Sonnen said in a press release. “We’re going to bring in all the smoke and mirrors and the great production. After that, we’re going to let whoever wants to be a part of this, whoever thinks they could be the greatest alive, to come out and prove it. We’re not going to lobby people to participate, and it won’t be invite only. We’re simply creating the environment.”

The event also will use a cage instead of a standard grappling mat to ensure the safety of the competitors involved by preventing them from tumbling from a raised platform or mat. There will be no weight classes for the initial event, and matches will last eight minutes before going into overtime.

According to a release, the winner of the overtime period will be determined as follows: “The winner of a coin flip can elect to start the overtime period attacking from the back or from the “spiderweb” (arm bar) position. If one competitor scores a submission and his opponent does not, he is declared the winner. But if both competitors escape from submission attempts, the match moves to the next overtime round. After three overtime rounds, the competitor who escaped the quickest is declared the winner.”

In-cage announcing duties for the event will be handled by Bruce Buffer, the legendary “Voice of the Octagon.” The broadcast team features T.J. De Santis of Invicta Fighting Championships and the Sherdog Radio Network on play-by-play, with Sonnen handling the colour commentary.

The show will start at 11pm UK time Sunday night and will be streamed exclusively live on FloCombat.

Chael Sonnen's Submission Underground - 11:00PM

Main Card

Ronny Markes vs. Vinny Magalhaes

Fabiano Scherner vs. Ricco Rodriguez

Jake Shields vs. Chris Lytle

Josh Calvo vs. Filipe Costa

Stephen Abas vs. Alex Canders

Nate Orchard vs. Guilherme "Bomba" Vasconcelos

Undercard

Joshua Bacallao (Gracie Barra Seattle; Black) vs. Nathan Wallner (10th Planet Jiu Jitsu; Black)

Kevin Dadik vs. Phill Schwartz (10th Planet Portland; Brown)

Liz Tracy vs. Amanda Diggins (Straight Blast Gym; Black)

Alex Le (Next Level Martial Arts; Brown) vs. Howie Mole (Gracie Barra; Purple)

Misty Davison (AliveMMA; Purple) vs. Hannah Sharp (Renzo Gracie; Blue/Purple)

Carsten Carlson (Renzo Gracie; Brown) vs. Billy Yi (Next Level Martial Arts; Purple)

Adam Shelton (Superhero Jiu Jitsu Academy/10th Planet Springfield; Purple) vs. Chris Martin (Impact JJ; Blue)