1) Chris Lozano vs. Jason Dent: Among the more meaningful fights ever produced by this promotion, Lozano and Dent represent different sides of a rivalry among camps in the area, as well as a classic crossroads match. One man is looking to move up, the other looking to just hang on. Fake superfight title is on the line to make this a 5 round bout.
FIGHT: Lozano TKO Rnd 4. (2)
Lozano: This is a career highpoint and what got him a contract with Bellator. I'm not gonna slag his performance really because he was dominant up until the point that Dent quit. He never looked like a guy who was really putting everything together and he seemed to be a potential sucker for leg kicks, but his next opponent is not really a strong striker. There's a ton of spinning elbows and kicks thrown through this fight that are wiffs and probably not wise to do against better guys. He didn't really land a punch square until the end of the 3rd round. After that, things start to get easy fast. He drops Dent again early in the 4th but knees Dent in the head rushing after him and landing a bunch of elbows. Just a stupid rookie mistake to pull when he had the fight practically won.
The fight restarts though and Dent starts to get wild and throws a bunch of spinning kicks and stuff to land a desperation shot. Lozano doesn't move the right way which is maddening, but he responds with punches as Dent tries to come forward. This is just a mismatch of a physical nature - Lozano likes to throw fancy shit and can. I mean there is a crazy spinning elbow that Lozano lands and it busts open the side of Dent's head. Just classic thai shit. But he has nothing to worry about from Dent. Its just him trying to hit a moving heavy bag. The athletic commissioner stops the fight after the 4th and Lozano wins.
Dent: Boxing fans might remember John Brown and Carl Daniels. During the late 1990s, both men were minor contenders and faced big names (Mosley and Hopkins respectively) for world championships, though they lost at that level. After losing at the world title level, both men slowly fell into the position of being opponents. With time, they began to move up in weight to offer themselves up as losses to increasingly bigger men. Brown is still fighting today - he's a junior welterweight. He's 1-6 in his last 7. Daniels is 1-7 in his last 8, up from middleweight to light heavyweight.
Dent is going in that direction. When you are fighting guys well above your natural weight, you can only win if you have serious technical advantages. Dent is a fine journeyman who puts on a fun fight, but he is not going to outclass a serious middleweight or welterweight contender. He is not a puncher. His submission game is so-so. He's a good wrestler, but in the fight with Lozano, he didn't even clinch until late in the second. At that point he didn't seriously chase a takedown either. Instead, he engaged in a glorified kickboxing match that he had no advantage in participating in. He never controlled the action or really went to change the location of the bout. He was the opponent through and through.
OVERALL FOR THE SHOW: 4 out of 10. The announcers sold this as the greatest NAAFS fight of all time. Yikes. It was basically a one sided beatdown. Think Shad Smith vs. Duane Ludwig in slow motion.
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