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Your 2008 UTBA II Bald Beavers....
The Beavers return a good number of former favorites to the new squad, including founding members HW-(8) Ike Ibeabuchi, LHW-(6) Eddie Cotton and WW-(6) Carlos Quintana. The team made an effort to also land original WW Mark Breland, and most especially, fan favorite Featherweight Bernard Taylor, but were denied.
Augmenting the roster are other former Beavers who joined in later seasons. HW-(3) Mike Schreck, LHW-(6) George Nichols, WW-(7) Johnny Bumphus, (7) Celestino Caballero and Fly-(10) Midget Wolgast all found success for the Beavers in earlier seasons, especially Caballero, Wolgast and Bumphus.
Even former minor league Beavers weren't overlooked. MW-(7) Alan Minter and LW-(6) Artur Grigorian found success in the Bush leagues while awaiting callup to the big time.
The roster is completed by 6 newcomers, 2 of which were former UTBA stars. Fly-(8) Vic Darchinyan was a virtually unstoppable force in the Flyweight division, and LW-(3) Jimmy Britt a very successful fighter in his own right. MW-(7) George LaBlanche, FW-(7) Somsak Sithchatchawal and the bookend Japanese bantams - (5) Katsutoshi Aoki and (5) Hideyasu Ishihara will, I believe, making their first appearances in the UTBA this season.
I am particularly jazzed over my Flyweight tandem, which I hope will rival the success of the original Bald Beavers Middleweights. Wolgast was very successful as a rookee in the original UTBA - indicating he could perhaps do even better starting off in the inaugural season with all of the other Flys. Darchinyan already proved himself to be a legend in UTBA I. The Beavers paid a stiff price to lock him up, but it will be well spent if he can approach his past success.
Other overachiever guys who should do well include Ibeabuchi, Caballero and Johnny Bumphus. My pair of middleweights have the potential to succeed as well, but no track record yet available.
The rest of the weight classes are fairly balanced, with the weakest probably being the Bantams. Don't really know what to expect with these two, but thought it might be fun to have two guys in the same division whose names will give Scot fits.
And, of course, how could anyone ever top Somsak Sithchatchawal?
The boys have elected Eddie Cotton the team captain. Cotton always did better than his 6 rating should have allowed, so he signifies the spunk that fills every Bald Beaver on the team.
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