KOTC: Jawbreaker (9/29/07)

This, like KOTC Eliminator before it, is held outdoors in the parking lot of Kiowa Casino out in Oklahoma. A couple interesting notes about this in advance: The event is very short on DVD; only :55, in fact. Sparse seating at this location with a lot of folks standing off to the side everywhere. Buddy Clinton is the ref for all the bouts, and there's a large contingent fighting from North Texas MMA in Wichita Falls, TX. Another momentous job of announcing done by Arum and 

1) JUSTIN WEISWEIG vs. EDWARD HERNANDEZ: Heavyweights.

BOMBZ followed by Weisweig grabbing a guillotine and pulling guard. Tap out. (0)

2) AARON YORK vs. AUNEY CASTANEDA: York I've seen before and he won in a couple seconds via guillotine.

Castaneda is a way larger guy and he pushes York back into the cage. There's some knees in here and something bothered Castaneda, who decides to look at Buddy Clinton. As he does so, he forgets the cardinal rule (Protect yourself at all times!) and gets clocked with a right uppercut. York with another win inside a minute. York's last fight on record. (0)

3) ARON LOFTON vs. BENJI NORRIS: Heavyweights again.

Lofton with a body kick, right hand, Norris turns around and falls, turns, and is in a guillotine. (0)

4) DAVE GARDNER vs. FILBERTO CLEMENTE:  Clemente was last seen at Kiowa getting his head caved in with elbows and punches.

Sloppy fight with Clemente seeming to tire but outlasting Gardner in an epic 2:24 duel that ended with Gardner taking punches to the head whilst against the cage following a couple of knees. (0)

5) JOSH HERNANDEZ vs. THOMAS BLOUNT: Hernandez is wearing a shirt.

Blount with the old takedown/mount/GnP finish inside a minute. (0)

6) JOSEPH CAMPOS vs. JAY DON WELLS: This is a middleweight bout between a couple nobodies.

Round 1 has a really cool judo throw early on by Campos and he nearly stops Wells afterwards with punches, but he proves to be a survivor. Campos delivers a ton of violence to Wells at the end of the round, mounting him and throwing a ton of punches and elbows. The announcers are as confused as I was when the round ends, assuming with the lack of a bell sounding that it is a proper first round stoppage. Instead, I'm treated to another round with more of the same as Campos just beats on Wells from mount for seemingly forever. The armbar was right there to take but I'm pretty confident in saying that almost no one on the show knew how to do one. Eventually, Buddy Clinton stops the fight before too much permanent damage can be done. (0)

7) MIGUEL GUERRA vs. JOSH BARNES: Heavyweights. Barnes trains with Matt Jaggers.

Guerra tries to stick and move with punches but he has a problem: He is not very good. Barnes catches him and gives him a urange. Then he beats him up. Then he does a head and arm choke and passes to side control for extra leverage. Guerra was hopeless. (0)

8) MIKE BUDNIK vs. JOHNNY FLORES: Lightweights. Budnik is from Team Triton. Flores is supposedly making his debut, which is odd, because I just watched him on the KOTC Eliminator show from 3 months prior.

If one was to ask me why I watched these events, this fight is why. Its a 2 round bout (3 minute rounds) with nonstop action from bell to bell both standing and on the mat. Budnik wins but it barely matters because neither man is an elite fighter or even close to it. For a crap show, this was a quality fight. (2)

9) BLAKE NORSWORTHY vs. ROBERT MCDANIEL: McDaniel is hyped up on the box and Norsworthy isn't. I have my guesses.

McDaniel with the takedown into side control. He rips some knees to the body, moves to half guard, then just throttles Norsworthy for what must have been a minute straight with shots to the head until the ref stops it, well after he should have. (0)

10) JASON MAXWELL vs. CHRISTIAN SANCHEZ: Maxwell KOed Pulver when that still meant something. 

Maxwell with the takedown immediately, side control, americana, tap. Fight over. (0) because Maxwell is well below fringe contender status in 2009.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Budnik/Flores

KO OF THE NIGHT: Norsworthy/McDaniel

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Barnes/Guerra

OVERALL FOR EVENT: 2 out of 10. Went less than an hour, almost down to 45 minutes fast forwarding past replays, the intro, and end credits.

D&R RATING: 4% (2/50 )

KOTC: River Rage (9/15/07)

Same day as the last event? Yup, checked and made sure. Its from Laughlin, NV, which is like Del Webb Does Reno. Steve Inman and Romie Arum are announcing again. Amazing! Two places at once!

1) ANDY BALMORE vs. CHRIS CULLY: 145lb weight class. Cully I saw before and he was good. 

Balmore gets this down and fast, and even gets the back early. Cully is able to get out of that bad position and tries to stand up again, but Balmore is just dragging him down. This scene repeats itself a couple times in round one. Balmore wins the first easily. 

Second is more of the same. Balmore's single minded efforts wear him down late in the round and Cully gets a couple knees that are okay along with some illegal 12-6 elbows he is warned about, but its pretty much the same as the previous round. Balmore wins with ease. (1)

2) JOSHUA GROVES vs. MATT HARVEY: Groves has a "Viking Power" shirt. Harvey looks like trailer trash.

Groves gets a takedown, passes, mount, fight over. (0)

3) TOMMY NELSON vs. PETER SABALA: More featherweights.

Sabala takes down Nelson hard and then basically beats him senseless before getting a rear naked choke. (0)

4) JEFF ESTON vs. ANTHONY GUERRA: Bantams.

Guerra with a big takedown into the cage. Oh hey, its a replay of the last fight. Eston is way overmatched. He has a couple seconds of offense about midway through the round but he ends up getting KOed with a huge right hand. (0)

5) JAE DOUGLAS vs. JOE CONDON: Lightweights. 

Joe gets a takedown, mounts, lots of punches, fight is over. (0)

6) LEVI LALONDE vs. LARS HAVEN: Last I saw Lars, he got beat by Leroy Fornoff and looked like crap.

Lalonde and Haven roll competitively for a couple minutes and then Haven is knocked unconscious by an illegal upkick that lands to the back of the head. Ergo, wins by DQ. (1) Outstandingly bizarre.

7) KACEY ROBERTS vs. ERNIE CALMA: Calma is a local guy, Roberts trains with Buckley Acosta.

Ernie does a shitty german to Roberts and just pounds the hell out of him in general on his way to a win. (0)

8) FRANK APPAH vs. JOSEPH SQUIRES: Heavyweights. Appah is a monster, Squires is a stick.

Squires is hit by a couple jabs and is shook. He shoots in, Appah applies a front headlock/one arm guillotine, and taps the skinny white guy. (0)

9) RICHARD WADE vs. DAVE CRYER: Even the announcers have no idea who these guys are. Cryer I have seen and like his style.

Good lord. Cryer really works distance well with the jab before unloading with a head kick. Wade tries running and is caught with another one dead in the face. (1)

10) TONY LOPEZ vs. KYLE KINGSBURY: Kingsbury has the purple jacket, Lopez is really lanky.

Kingsbury shoots in and Lopez is trying to throw some knees. Kingsbury is trying to make the difference in physical ability with tenacity. Kingsbury wants this fight down and Lopez is not about that. Lopez's knees and punches are battering Kingsbury relentlessly and the fight is stopped. (1) I really liked what I saw from Lopez there, even if he lost to Tony Bonello soon after.

11) REGGIE ORR vs. RICKY GUNZ: Middleweights. Reggie Orr was on TUF 7 and lost in the prelim round to Paul Bradley.

Orr with the takedown, takes back, choke. Just like that. (0)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Balmore/Cully

KO OF THE NIGHT: Wade/Cryer

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Appah/Squires

Overall for the event: 3 out of 10. Somewhat watchable, but still sleep inducing for large stretches due to the mismatches. Lopez and Cryer did fantastic jobs though.

D&R Rating: 7% (4/55)

KING OF THE CAGE: Unstoppable (9/15/07)

I'm a sucker for KOTC box sets, and here's yet another I've purchased. This time, no dates included along on the packaging to tell you when or where these shows were, but I can tell you this show was at the Apache Gold Casino in Arizona and Inman is announcing along with Romie Arum~! on color.

1) BRYAN HUGHES vs. JOSE PINERO: No idea who these guys are.

Hughes and Pinero roll around for a little while and Hughes gets the best of it. He mounts Pinero and bashes in his head against the cage. (0)

2) DONNIE MARTINEZ vs. ANDREW BELVADO: Another "who?" 

Martinez shoots, punches, takes back, RNC. (0)

3) PATRICK LOPEZ vs. SAM KOZIE: Kozie I've seen previously getting beat on. 

Lopez bloodies up Kozie early with punches in the clinch, ends up defending a takedown later and just pounds out Kozie. Lopez looks interesting but the guy who's name his matches on the fight finders is 2-2. (0)

4) JACK DAWSON vs. BERNADINO ANZAR: Whales.

Toughman style standup bout with both men gassed and clinching 20 seconds in. They eventually separate and Anzar wins throwing uppercuts in the clinch as Cecil Peoples rushes in to stop it. (0)

5) BRIAN LUCAS vs. NATHAN RANDAL: Lightweights, I think?

Interesting grappling battle, actually. Both men are rolling around going for wild positions and submissions, and they're not very clean about it. Randal gets Lucas in a bizarre banana split/crucifix position at one point and all I can think is that he wasn't really planning to do that and tried his best to make it look like he had. Standups don't last long either. Lucas clinches after ducking a spinning back fist at one point and throws Randal with a killer looking suplex. Solid first round that I give to Lucas.

Lucas wrestles down Randal to the mat and gets the mount fairly early, but Randal walks the ring off his back and flips his way to being on top. Seriously awesome. Lucas is able to inevitably reverse position as he is clearly the stronger grappler, and does his best to deplete the reserves of Randal with some strikes to the body. Lucas throws a looping right hand that lands and gets a takedown after a final standup from Peoples. Lucas with a unanimous decision.

6) RYAN BADER vs. DICKY CHAVEZ: They mess up Bader's name. Lulz.

Chavez gets the takedown early and Bader decides to buck him off, stand, take him down himself, and forces a tapout by strikes. (2)

7) VICTOR HERNANDEZ vs. SEAN DAVID: Lots of "Who?" tonight.

David gets a takedown, punches Hernandez some, Hernandez's knee gives out, fight over. (0)

8) JESSE ORTIZ vs. LEVI COMPTON: Compton I've seen fight and he was not very good. Ortiz is, I imagine, not better.

Ortiz with the clinch and he's landing some shots while trying for the trip. Compton throws hockey punches back. Eventually they separate and Ortiz is almost losing his mouthpiece from exhaustion a minute in. Ortiz does apparently have some wrestling background because he doubles Compton with ease. Ortiz wins not long after with a guillotine. (0)

9) LEWIS MCINTOSH vs. RUDY AGULIAR: McIntosh I've seen fight against Levi Compton, who he lost to after dominating him for the first round.  Here he wears a shirt.

McIntosh shoots immediately, Aguilar just holds on to try and prevent the takedown. He fails and McIntosh ends up taking his back for a little while before losing it due to him not being good. Aguilar takes McIntosh's lumpy back and starts throwing bombs of his own. McIntosh had gassed and the fight is stopped. (0)

10) JAKE COLLINS vs. FREDDY SANDOVAL: Sandoval has a lot of people with him. This means he is probably good or has a very popular Myspace.

Sandoval gets the takedown and moves to mount. He goes for a armbar and Collins defends, instead being on top. The fight is forced back to standing, and Collins pulls guard and goes for a guillotine, but Sandoval pulls his head out and is on top again. The rest of the round is Sandoval on top throwing punches. Ehhh.

Second starts and Sandoval gets on top again immediately, but Collins eventually throws a counter in the form of a triangle attempt. He fails though, and we're back to boredom. This is the longest Cecil Peoples has ever let a fight stay on the mat. Collins' willingness to stall pays off: They are stood up, and Sandoval shoots for another takedown. Collins defends, punches Sandoval after sprawling out, and begins to rain down shots that force a stoppage. Lots of dudes are bummed. (0)

11) DAVID CARRASCO vs. JEROME MARTINEZ: Martinez trains with Greg Jackson's camp. Carrasco I've seen before and he's like a little Buentello.

Carrasco gets a monster slam at the start and tries to land some punches, but Martinez is throwing sub attempts constantly. He grabs an arm and forces the tap. (0)

12) PAUL O'KEEFE vs. TRAVIS HOOKE: I think this is the main event? I'm not even sure. Heavyweights, Hooke is like this pudgy midget wearing a shirt. O'Keefe has a lot of ugly ink. 

CLUBBERIN'. O'Keefe lands a big right hand that blows up Hooke's nose and drops him a couple minutes in. (0)

13) CHANCE WILLIAMS vs. ADAM PADILLA: Super heavyweights. Ugh.

Padilla shoots in at the very start and gets guillotined in 15 seconds or so. Williams is now the Gladiator Challenge 265+ champ.  (0)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Lucas/Randal

KO OF THE NIGHT: O'Keefe/Hooke

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Carrasco/Martinez

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 2.5 out of 10. Lots of quick fights, thankfully, plus Ryan Bader, who I like more and more.

D&R Rating: 3% (2/65)

Superbrawl IV (4/9/1997)

Its over ten years since this event occurred at the Blaisdell Center. This is a two DVD set for reasons I cannot ascertain other than that they don't want to tell you who won the tournament bouts. There is a heavyweight and middleweight tournament here, with the main event being Jay R. Palmer vs. Danny "Boy" Bennett in the second of their two classics. Egan Inoue is the color commentator, by the way.

1) PAT MATSUDA vs. LEONARD CARTER: Matsuda is making his debut and was a California state greco champ. He's RIPPED. Carter is a Matt Hume trained fighter. Middleweight is defined as 198 and below, by the way

Pretty wild and entertaining fight. Clinches early on are punctuated by the knees and punches of Carter. Matsuda is able to get the fight down on occasion but does markedly little with it. When he's standing at distance, Carter is landing enormously hard shots. Highlight moment as Matsuda goes for a takedown and gets DDTed. As the fight goes on, Matsuda begins to take a horrific beating. The damage just keeps piling up as Carter lands multiple head kicks. Matsuda has occasional periods of success (this fight goes a full 15 minutes, after all), but its clear that Carter is doing way more damage. There is some ridiculous system in place here, might I add to determine the obvious. Seriously, fuck people who hate the 10 point must system when compared to this crap. (1) because it was entertaining. Matsuda's only MMA bout.

2) MAURICE TRAVIS vs. JASON PILI: Travis is 37 and apparently a kick boxer. Pili looks ridiculous.

Travis hurts Pili with some strikes early and then gets the fight down. He locks the arms up of Pili a few times and seems to have the fight wrapped up with subs, but Pili fights through them. He never really does anything to come close to winning but absorbs a lot of punishment. Eventually he gets choked out cold and takes awhile to wake up. (0) Pili's only MMA bout.

3) JOHN MATUA vs. BOB GILSTRAP: Guess what weight class this is? Matua is billed at 351.

Matua actually does okay in the opening couple of minutes before gassing out while trying to stay on top of Gilstrap. From that point on, Gilstrap takes over and ends up locking an arm for the armbar. (0) Matua's KOTC career loomed.

4) LANCE GIBSON vs. PETER MAUTAUTIA: I have no idea who these guys are. Moment of silence for Arnold Fuji?

Mauritius sprawls and throws a couple knees. That's about all he can do. Gibson ends up taking his back and choking him with no hooks in. (0) Mauritania's only MMA bout.

5) MAURICE TRAVIS vs. LEONARD CARTER: Carter is waaaaaay smaller.

Travis and Carter are both kickboxers and so the expectation is that this will be a flashy standup war. It is not. Travis is dominant standing, but much of the fight is on the mat where Carter actually gets top position and spends several minutes landing blows from within the guard. All of this is overshadowed by the end of the fight, as Travis is unceremoniously thrown over the top rope by Carter in the midst of a clinch, and in the resulting fall, Travis cuts his leg and elbow. The fight is stopped and Travis wins by technical decision or someting. (1) for a horrible fight with a bizarre ending. Carter's career went far longer in spite of only having something like 7 pro bouts, even fighting a young Kalib Starnes.

6) LANCE GIBSON vs. BOB GILSTRAP: Heavyweight finals.

Gibson surprises me and just seems to be running over Gilstrap in the early going, grinding him down on the mat with strikes, but Gilstrap shocks everyone in the crowd and myself by actually rolling for a leg lock and using it to sweep and land a ton of strikes in side control on Gibson. Gibson gives up the back and gets choked out. (1) Bob got to the UFC and lost to a debuting Carlos Newton, along with losses to other guys like Barnett and Monson.  Gibson beat Jermaine Andre, Masanori Suda, and Akihiro Gono in his career.

7) DANNY BENNETT vs. JAY R. PALMER: An all time classic the first time around. Palmer started out "16-0" before being beaten. The record may have been inflated but he was well known coming into that KO loss at Superbrawl III.

Palmer is smart enough to take this one down ASAP and try and win with a submission. Failing that because he doesn't know what he is doing, he goes for punches. He gets rolled easily and Bennett is standing again. Palmer is giving him wide berth here, clearly more afraid of the standup this time than in the first bout. Bennett throws a kick that is caught by Palmer, and Bennett is actually more effective with offense while he is on one foot. Bennett defends anything on the mat and when they're standing, Palmer gets lit up with a left high kick. Fight over. (1)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Matsuda/Carter

KO OF THE NIGHT: Bennett/Palmer

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Gilstrap/Matua

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 3.5 out of 10. You can't go saying it was a vital event in MMA history because, well, it wasn't. What was there was fun to watch, sure, but it clearly didn't matter in the grand or small scheme of things. The biggest international superstar was Jay R. Palmer. 

D&R Rating: 11% (4/35)

Superbrawl 39: Destiny (4/9/05)

Having finally wiped out the last few KOTCs in the boxed set that so troubled me, its onto the Hawaiians again. I've got a bunch of ROTR and Icon/Superbrawl shows to watch thanks to well timed trips to Big Lots, of all places. This event was one of the last ever promoted under the Superbrawl title before the switch to the ICON Sport name later in 2005. Like many of the Hawaiian shows, its from Blaisdell Arena in front of a 3/4 capacity crowd and has a lot of interesting names on the bill.

Added note: extra short descriptions because I watched this in December 2008 at the cottage and wrote my notes on a small memo pad. Just got around to typing it!

1) TYSON NAM vs. JUMAR DUMALAO: Kickboxing bout between dudes from the islands.

Nam wins by low kicks. Doesn't even count. 

2) REESE ANDY vs. KALA KOLOHE HOSE: Hose has had some bigger fights scheduled for himself that never came through, whereas Andy ended up in the IFL and eventually UFC.

The first round sees Hose doing something I didn't really expect: He hangs in there and is competitive. Mind you, this is not high level striking, but basically definitive robo-kickboxing, but whatever. Andy wins the round off a slam and guillotine attempt though. He gets another big takedown during the second and ends up spending the whole round on his back being punched in the face. Somehow, he comes out for the third and does no better. About the only thing you can give Hose for rounds 2 and 3 is that he didn't get german suplexed. Andy by a wide decision. (1)

3) ALBERT MANNERS vs. RYAN LEE: Who? Manners has a rash guard on.

Manners and Lee engage in a grappling bout for 3 rounds that is decently technical, but often resembles anything but a modern MMA match with the abject lack of striking. Manners wins the unanimous decision and, well, let's just say he's not UFC bound. (0)

4) KJ NOONS vs. MALIK WILLIAMS: Noons was the winner of PRIDE's talent search! Remember that? Oh, you don't. Okay.

Williams is overwhelmed early and ends up being KOed brutally with a series of right hands and stomps. What you expect. (3) 

5) HARVEY NAKAMURA vs. MARK OSHIRO: Oshiro's size makes it exceedingly likely he'll end up in the WEC at some point.

Dana White Special for three rounds. Oshiro is better at everything than Nakamura, landing more often with straighter, harder shots. Problem? At 135, neither has much pop. Oshiro wins 30-26 on two of the three cards. (2)

6) ALLAN ULIP vs. BRYSON KAMAKA: Kickboxing again.

Kamaka wins a UD with his abjectly better striking. A) This isn't MMA. B) Kamaka sucks in MMA. 

7) MARK MORENO vs. KEVIN BARBER: Welterweight fun! Both are from the outliers of the US, with Barber successful in the always popular Alaskan MMA circuit (seriously! There's almost monthly shows in Fairbanks) and Moreno a local to Hawaii.

Moreno outguns Barber standing: better technique, more powerful. He drops Barber with a two punch combination and makes sure there's no more fight to be fought when he kicks a downed Barber in the face. Oh, pre-commission Hawaii. (0)

8) TRISTON PREBIA vs. KAI "BOY" KAMAKA III: Children's MMA.

Absolutely beyond reviewable. Actually somewhat offensive. I didn't even bother to write down who won. (0)

9) JIM KIKUCHI vs. JUSTIN MERCADO: Hawaiian Superfight 145lb title! MMA has no problem with belts.

Kikuchi hurts his shoulder early on and so we get a boring fight of inactive standup and laying/clinching. I'm kinda glad I didn't record more about this show. (0)

10) KULTAR GILL vs. HARRIS SARMIENTO: Gill was an interesting name for, what, the better part of 5-6 minutes? Sarmiento is a career journeyman.

Gill has a big advantage in the standup, but fears Sarmiento's takedowns, so they circle with occasional leg kicks and shit. Horrid. Gill gets the fight down in the 3rd and Sarmiento basically rolls over and taps to a RNC. Gill has fought on big shows, but he's 1-5 in his last 6. Tough to reward that. (0)

11) FALANIKO VITALE vs. MASANORI SUDA: Suda was once Shooto's middleweight champ. With posted wins over Ryo Chonan, Yuki Sasaki, Ronald Jhun, Egan Inoue, and Ryuta Sakurai, Suda was certainly no push over. He was also in his 11th year as a full time pro MMA fighter. Vitale had lost once in 3 years, beating Yushin Okami, Dave Menne, Matt Lindland (by "reversing" a slam), and a bunch of nobodies over the same span. He had been successful in the UFC, but returned to Hawaii realizing that he might actually make more money there. 

Suda is hurt with a punch early in the fight and is judo thrown through the ropes of the ring. The ref obviously has to let this one continue, and Suda returns to his feet. He absorbs a superman punch to the dome, and with that, Vitale's highlight reel has its anchor. Practically everyone on the big island cheers, but Vitale's career took a pretty major turn after this bout. (2)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Oshiro/Nakamura

KO OF THE NIGHT: Vitale/Suda

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Sarmiento/Gill

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 3 out of 10. This would be higher, but watching young (I'm talking like 8) kids fight in the ring drops the event appreciably. Too many bad mismatches too. Who'd have thought the opening MMA bout would be the most competitive in retrospect?

D&R Rating: 18% (8/45)