KOTC: Legacy (3/26/2010)

We're hot from Reno, NV with another KOTC show review. This is like #300 or something at this point. Headlining this card is Tony Lopez/Tony Johnson and Mike Kyle/Jon Murphy. Heavyweights ahoy!

1) Quinn Mulhern vs. Koffi Adzitso: Mulhern is the rising star here.

FIGHT: Mulhern Submission Rnd 2. Generally, Mulhern runs the fight. Even when he's not in the best position, he's controlling the action from the bottom. Where his weakness is clearly still is the standup world. Adzitso cuts Mulhern with a punch in the first minute of the fight and forces Mulhern to shoot and pull guard to get the fight down. From there though, he works the active guard and nearly pulls the submission in round 1 at the end with an omaplata. Adzitso is done in round 2 and eventually gets taken down, loses the back, and is choked out in fairly short order. (2)

2) Mike Guidry vs. Nick Gaston: The magic of Afrozilla cannot be denied.

FIGHT: Gaston Submission Rnd 1. Gaston just bodies up Guidry after Guidry blows his load with a series of wild punches en route to closing the distance. He puts Guidry on his back after landing a number of uppercuts and elbows, goes to half guard, and works for a kimura. He really cranks the hammerlock and forces the tap. Gaston did dominate a guy with a gut that hung down like it was made of nothing but excess skin, but hey, a win is a win. (2)

3) Jamie Jara vs. Tim Means: This blog loves Jamie Jara and doesn't apologize. Yeah, he's old, yeah he's not great, but he has HATE tattooed on his throat. And he scraps. Always.

FIGHT: Jara Submission Rnd 1. Great win for Jara. He takes down Means early in the bout to establish control. When we get back up to the standup, he's easily way better than means, lands some strong combinations at perfect distance, and as Means stumbles around, he locks in a guillotine. (1)

4) Tony Johnson Jr. vs. Tony Lopez: Lopez is still 205lb and heavyweight champ at the same time for KOTC here. Johnson is a decorated wrestler and a former football player who is making the transition to MMA.

FIGHT: Tony Johnson Jr. Unanimous Decision. The fight in a nutshell: Tony Lopez gets taken down over and over. Tony Lopez tries for submissions from the bottom and gets none of them. Johnson lands a billion strikes and spends lots of time in half guard. When you are on top for like 24 of 25 minutes and you are responsible for every takedown? You win. Lopez makes the fight interesting with an armbar attempt with 20 seconds left but Johnson basically just does a bicep curl so forceful he breaks it. (2)

5) Jon Murphy vs. Mike Kyle: Your MAIN EVENT OF THE EVENING.

FIGHT: Kyle TKO Rnd 2. Murphy is the grappler and yet he is comprehensively outwrestled. What makes this fight mildly interesting is that Kyle sucks at defending strikes. This in spite of having a kickboxing record and that being considered his primary style. Kyle gets takedowns with trips, doubles, everything. He outlands Murphy 10-1 with strikes and end up winning this by dropping 'bows and punches in the crucifix at the end of the second. (2)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Kyle/Murphy

KO OF THE NIGHT: Kyle/Murphy

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Gaston/Guidry

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 4 out of 10. Some OK action mixed with a not that meaningful and frankly somewhat dull title fight.

D&R Rating: 36% (9/25)

ShoMMA/Strikeforce Challengers 2 (6/19/2009)

I've done a couple of these events in the past, and this is a nice timely one to do this week. From Kent, WA we have the second edition of this series, headlined with Cyborg Santos vs. Joey Villasenor.

1) Cory Devela vs. Luke Rockhold: Rockhold has been dinged up a little and that's prevented him from getting the next big step he's earned by beating Jesse Taylor, Paul Bradley, and, uhh. Not to spoil anything here.

FIGHT: Rockhold Submission Rnd 1. Rockhold drops Devela coming in with a right hand and then adds on some more punches having taken the back, then gets a rear naked choke sunk in all of 30 seconds. (2)

2) Sarah Kaufman vs. Shayna Baszler: Baszler comes out wearing a Flying V. That's the most interesting thing about them personally. This is one of the first women's bouts with 5 minute rounds.

FIGHT: Kaufman Unanimous Decision (3)

Baszler: Baszler gets the fight down early and looks like she's gonna dominate with superior grappling...but doesn't. She goes for a funny choke using the knee to close off half of the carotid that ends up getting her swept, and from that point on she never looks totally in control of the fight. As the fight goes back to the feet, it rarely ever becomes a battle of grappling, and that means Baszler is at a huge disadvantage. She eats low kicks and punches en route to losing.

Kaufman: She clearly wins the second and third, and thusly the fight, but man, I don't like her punches. Her takedown defense is actually pretty iffy too, as Baszler gets deep with a double she doesn't set up from way outside. Good thing women's MMA is pretty weak.

3) Conor Heun vs. Jorge Gurgel: Another Gurgel fight to watch. I should have a tag for him.

FIGHT: Gurgel Unanimous Decision. This is classic Gurgel as slugger contest. (1)

Gurgel: Yet again for the billionth time, Gurgel says "Hey this guy can grapple! That's an excuse to punch and kick!" And yeah, they trade and people get shook up and Gurgel is cut in multiple places and whatever, but on a personal level, I don't care to see this any more. Its just frustrating. More than that, its just dull. The guy is a BJJ black belt who never uses his skills, which makes you really wonder whether or not his skills are half as good as they are believed to be. Gurgel still makes a lot of really basic errors like pulling straight back.

Heun: Heun is young, rangier, bigger, and yet he's inexperienced and follows Gurgel around the ring. Sure, he busts up Gurgel, but he's tagged so much otherwise that he loses 30-27 on two cards. He probably should have looked for a takedown or something. In a fight where Gurgel was at a number of disadvantages, Heun did nothing to take advantage.

4) Nick Thompson vs. Tim Kennedy: Kennedy's first big comeback fight for Strikeforce from military service. Thompson meets him having moved up to 185, and honestly, he looks bigger than Kennedy.

FIGHT: Kennedy TKO Rnd 2. This is technically a submission by strikes, but one of these days people will regroup those. Watch.

Kennedy controls this fight from the get go. He has a really fast shot that Thompson is unprepared for and he's so active on the mat that once he gets his takedowns, Thompson doesn't get up. He has the back for what seems like forever in the first and in the second is consistently transitioning between positions. Unlike someone like Ben Askren, who does a lot of positional changes, Kennedy is much more effective striking during these changes. He pops Thompson pretty fiercely in the second and that forces The Goat to turn over and tap. Tim is all basics and that's why he's successful. (3)

5) Joey Villasenor vs. Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos: Who doesn't love a fight between scrappy middleweights? Santos' prefight interview makes him look hood as fuck.

FIGHT: Villasenor Split Decision. Close fight. Could have gone either way.

Villasenor: Joey seemed to be last to tire out and it was only by a minute or so, but in the 8 minutes that he was really doing good work, I think it was clearly better than Santos'. He threw some effective leg kicks, some decent straight punches, forced Santos to come to him wildly and made him pay. But then he got tired, Santos got a takedown, and started putting together strikes of his own. Villasenor didn't win the third but it didn't matter in the end.

Santos: You can see the gameplan slowly fade away as Cyborg once more retreats into slugger mode. By the middle of the second round, he has given up on straightening his punches and they're looping and wild. He is beaten to the punch by Villasenor early on while Villasenor has snap on his straighter stuff, but once he gets wild, Cyborg can bring heat. With the Diaz fight coming up in a couple nights, it'll be very very interesting to see how precisely Diaz reacts to Cyborg's pressure and to see if Cyborg can fight a full 15, much less 25 (should it get that far) minutes. I tend to think he's gonna gas but give Nick a rough opening round. (3)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Santos/Villasenor

KO OF THE NIGHT: Kennedy/Thompson

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Rockhold/Devela

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 7 out of 10. The fights were OK, and most people would probably like the Heun/Gurgel fight more than I. I've watched a few of these events recently that I haven't reviewed (at some point I'll revisit them when some more time has been put between them and now) and honestly, this is probably the best ShoMMA show I've seen. Not that it means much because so many of them are achingly mediocre, but still.

D&R Rating: 48% (12/25)

RETRO REVIEW: KOTC Oceania/Australia (2/4/2005+2/10/05+7/2/05)

I've been super busy recently and unable to finish any reviews. So in order to still have something up and slowly move the reviews I have DVDVR off of it, here's the first one I did for the KOTC of the Day series from January 2008. I'll be posting them all in time.

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Looks like a three camera shoot, all in digicam, two are camcorders at ring side and the other is a really, really cheap stationary cam. This event was done in Australia at some mystery venue. Eric Apple, shock of shocks, is doing an overdubbed commentary for it. Seems like rounds may be short. Don't know if its just a fantastic job of clipping, that they only got clearance for 3 minute rounds, or what.

1)TAMA TE HUNA vs. MAL FOKI: I have no idea who Te Huna is and Sherdog's Fight Finder says he hasn't fought in almost 3 years. He is pretty cut up though. Mal Foki of course fought in PRIDE and sucked ass. FUN MAL FOKI FACT: He had two professional boxing matches according to Boxrec, in which he went 0-1-1. His draw came to a fighter in his pro debut, and his loss to a 6-24-1 boxer who had lost to Biko Botowamungu. Biko was a Congolese boxer popular among German promoters as a tomato can in the late 90s/early 00s and lost to a young Wladimir Klitschko in 5. So he's like 3 steps from the best heavyweight boxer in the world, and of course just a couple links from Fedor. Interesting.

Anyhow, fight isn't as interesting as that. Foki throws a low kick and Te Huna comes over the top with a punch. Foki doesn't like it, circles out in retreat, Te Huna follows, and then blows him out with punches :16 in. Te Huna is the whitest looking dude with an islander name ever.

2) BRANDON BELL vs. JAMES FANSHEAR: I don't know who these dudes are. Fanshear is apparently from the US, lost to some names like Leben, Metcalf, and Villasenor, beat some names like Ritch, split series with Denny, and has flown under my radar. I've probably seen him before and will see him again. Bell is from Australia, I guess.

The fight is mildly interesting for a few seconds. Bell and Fanshear show off some kicks early on, then Bell gets thai clinch and those some decent knees inside. The problem is that he's clearly not well versed in any grappling, and Fanshear is able to get underhooks and belly to belly suplex the poor australian with the board shorts on his skullcap. Clearly having a tough time recovering, perhaps not knowing what to do, or a combination of both, Fanshear quickly gets the back, pounds him a little, flattens him out, then choke.

3) ANDREW GORTON vs. KYM ROBINSON: They are all foriegn and shit and I don't know who they are. I bet they stand and trade or one of them takes the other down and I go make some tea in the middle of it.

I was kinda right. This was actually really interesting. Gorton wasn't too skilled anything, and Robinson seemed like a guy training in a multitude of things and putting a lot of it almost altogether. He was standing like a euro amateur, throwing kicks like he was out of a Shotokan gym, rotating his hips and attempting submissions like he'd gone to BJJ classes for about 6 months, and had solid thai clinch skills. Gorton spent the first round trying to get a takedown but was beat up for his trouble. He got on the ground, but ended up in Robinson's mount and was on the recieving end of a botched armbar that almost finished him. Second round saw Gorton getting on top in Robinson's guard and escaping a pair of armbars (one that nearly swept him out and had Robinson on top) and a triangle choke to push Robinson to the cage wall for the last 20 seconds. It wasn't enough and Robinson won the decision.

4) MATT KNIGHT vs. JAMES TE HUNA: I'm gonna wager a guess and say that "Te Huna" is not the Samoan equivalent of "Smith". Te Huna almost ended up in PRIDE. Matt Knight is some dude.

This is really odd, given that everyone has it as a win for Knight by DQ. Te Huna overpowers Knight from the get go and though Knight has a moment of glory when he rolls for a leglock, Te Huna stacks and beats the shit out of his lumpy foe. Te Huna slaps Knight on the ass in a fashion that looks almost like a tapout, then KOs him with strikes while obviously holding the fence. Oh well. The lights also go on in the venue and it looks like a convention center without any elevated seating.

5) NATHAN WHITE vs. WARPATH: YESSSSSSS. Also, out of nowhere, we suddenly have a boom camera and a higher up stationary cam, both with way better video quality (4:3?). What the fuck? There's tables all around ringside, giving it the feel of a good ol' fashioned club venue. I figure it out later: The reason is that this side of the DVD is a combination of two shows run over a week, and I guess would be a "best of", if that can be believed. This is from "Gunfather" on 2/10.

The fight kinda sucks. White is fat and a wrestler and Warpath is Warpath, leading to them clinching against the cage a lot. White's lard reminds me of those McDonald's Playdoh sets where you'd shove in lots of the dough and make "fries" or something through a mold when he's pushed into the chainlink. Eventually Warpath throws an uppercut and White goes down. Warpath is confused and just looks at him a moment, as if to say, "you fall down after 4 of those, dumbass!" and then waits a few more before diving into the halfguard and finishing the fight with some halfassed hammer strikes. We all know Warpath would never be involved with a dive, no sir....

6) GORDON GRAFF vs. DYLAN SMITH: No idea who these dudes are.

They throw a lot of shots at one another and it goes the time limit. Both are squat, short guys who gassed early. In the end, Dylan Smith wins because he didn’t gas as bad as Graff, who had his hands by his sides and was doubled over breathing hard two minutes in.

7) “BIG” JIM YORK vs. BRAD MORRIS: York is some guy that I had seen on TOM’s lists for a long time, and Matt Morris is a guy with a surprisingly good record, featuring a win over Kristof Midoux.

The fight really tells me a ton about York. He’s all standup all the time, decent takedown defense against a guy who clearly doesn’t have the athleticism to change levels and bother him, slow hands, decent technique with the jab but never follows it, backs straight up, leaves his left low. In spite of the obvious flaws, he prevented being taken down and when Morris won the second off his overhand rights and clinch work, he was able to fire a uppercut while dirty boxing that dropped Morris and won him the fight in the third and tiebreaking round. He’s no worse than Eddie Sanchez.

8) JAMES TE HUNA vs. JAMES LEE: Lee is the one I’m interested most on this DVD by, particularly given that I’ve already seen Bonello fight (who comes up later, so it says). Lee’s from my future inescapable home state of Michigan and appeared on PRIDE’s second US show (beating Travis Wiuff), and I’ve already seen him before against Lister and White, though they weren’t memorable enough for me to remember particulars any of those fights. I just saw Te Huna like, a couple minutes ago.

Lee is way smaller but shoots in, gets underhooks, suplexes Te Huna, gets the back, wins by rear naked. Made Te Huna look foolish.

9) HARLEY CARILLO vs. MIKE JOHNSON: You know shit is tough when a fight doesn’t even show up in FCFightFinder or Sherdog’s database.

Johnson shoots in against Carillo, who telegraphs his capabilities with the Thai shorts. He pushes him into the cage, gets underhooks, throws him down, Carillo gets up, gives his back, Johnson pulls him back and chokes him out. Maybe 20 seconds. Maybe.

10) TAMA TE HUNA vs. JOE BRIGGS: Briggs is some dude who doesn’t show up on many databases and isn’t any good anyhow.

The fight is all sorts of trimmed for going two rounds. Te Huna throws wild punches, gets Briggs down, and then almost gets swept with the worst attempt I’ve ever seen. Te Huna gets off the ground, looks to throw some kicks to Briggs (who is in butt scoot), then attempts a somersault senton. He naturally misses this totally and Briggs is able to get top control, which he was probably in for 3 minutes that you did not see. Second round is fairly short with Te Huna throwing lousy punches, Briggs falling down, and then Te Huna throwing more lousy punches until the ref steps in.

11) BRAD MORRIS vs. HIRIWA TURANGI: MOAR MORRIS. On Sherdog, this is listed as part of Kumite 1 on 7/2/05. Also, some facts on Turangi: He’s a kickboxer and pro boxer. As a pro boxer, he’s ranked 9th in New Zealand at heavyweight, and sports an 0-10 pro record. He has two losses to Shane Cameron, a loss to THE FARKEN Bob Mirovic, David Izon’s brother Roger, one time Mike Tyson exhibition opponent candidate Lawrence Tauasa, and brother of top 10 light heavyweight Paul Briggs, Nathan.

This fight is a slaughter. Turangi gets taken down fast, Morris beats him up, he gets a head and arm choke from the full mount, game over.

12) JAMES TE HUNA vs. ADRIAN LEATUA: Another James Te Huna fight, again from 7/2/05.

This fight is all sorts of clipped up. Leatua taps out in the first round after the bell from a guillotine, Te Huna controls the action for most of the bout that’s seen, and at the end of the third (???) round, the horn goes, Eric Apple says, “that’s it!” and the show’s over folks. You don’t even know how it ends (Sherdog sez:: Te Huna by TKO???). Tony Bonello/Edwin Aguilar is advertised on the insert, and its not even on the disc. LOL.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT(S): Robinson/Gorton wasn’t too badly clipped up and what was shown was actually pretty cool. Of all the dudes here, I want to see Kym Robinson the most again.

KO OF THE NIGHT(S): James Tehuna against Matt Knight, since it apparently never happened. Also, Mal Foki getting Koed is always cool.

SUBMISSTION OF THE NIGHT(S): Mike Johnson/Harley Carillo. High school shit, so it must be rewarded.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 2.5 out of 10: This works on some level, like as a Warpath Career Set gap filler. The fights are all cut more than your typical Shooto TV program, and Mal Foki gets knocked out. The camera work is better than the video from some of the handcams Bad Breed TV would use, but you do lack the awesomeness of having like, 3 Kerry Schall fights on one disc.

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POSTSCRIPT:

James Lee has long since retired.

James Fanshear is still fighting on the local level.

James Te Huna somehow has a UFC contract, and Brad Morris got one for a second too.

Kym Robinson has losses to Perosh and James Te Huna.

Hiriwa Te Rangi lost 3 more pro boxing bouts.

Jim York went 1-3 in Sengoku, losing to Dave Herman, Bigfoot Silva, and Kiss Nakao. Since then he has defeated Brandon Cash and Peter Graham in local Aussie shows.

KOTC: Mortal Sin (5/7/2005)

Back to watching KOTC cards. Man, does it ever feel good. This event is from Stateline/Primm, NV and features a shockingly relevant and good cast of fighters in big fights. Erik Apple and Heath Herring are announcing for this event.

1) Ray Perales vs. Dave Terrell: The other Terrell; the one who doesn't get hurt all the time and had a short career in the old WEC.

FIGHT: Terrell Unanimous Decision. Not a terribly competitive fight until the very, very end. Terrell's gameplan consists of pushing Perales to the cage and getting takedowns. This works almost every time. Probably 12-13 times in total. The last time is when a problem emerges; a tired Terrell actually find himself trying to take down a Ray Perales who isn't walking forward and giving up the distance, and who actually sprawls. Perales goes for a guillotine and sits up Terrell, and actually pushes him back over and takes the mount as the bell sounds for the end of the fight. Way too little too late. (0)

2) Thomas Ramirez vs. Kendall Grove: Ramirez was the co-main event fighter against Forrest Griffin in one of the worst UFC co-mains ever. Kendall won TUF 3, of course.

FIGHT: Ramirez TKO Rnd 1. Grove gets taken down early in the fight by Ramirez but sweeps and gets up. He then starts trading blows with Ramirez, and that is not a good thing. He eats a left hook and gets into the clinch with Ramirez, but you can see that his legs had buckled. He doesn't stop wanting to trade though, and Ramirez's next big left hook lands and Grove is unconscious for quite some time and has to take a stretcher ride out. (3)

3) Richard Goodman vs. Manny Tapia: Man, Tapia is 20 lbs over where his best weight is for this fight. Goodman is a lot bigger. He's 5'11''!

FIGHT: Tapia TKO Rnd 2. Tapia is really wild with his shots but really, he's just looking to set up takedowns. That's not really surprising. Goodman is actually a much more competent striker but it comes with the caveat of his grappling not being too good. He throws a flying knee, doesn't really land it, and Tapia uses it to take him down and control the round in the first. In the second, his winging punches set up the takedown and he passes rather easily to mount. He locks the arm up by getting wrist control and wrapping it around Goodman's face, and punches him with the other arm until he force Peoples to stop it due to the lack of intelligent defense. (2)

4) Frankie Bollinger vs. Joe Frainee: Frainee has been beat up Mike Guymon prior to this. Bollinger is an old school KOTC guy.

FIGHT: Frainee TKO Rnd 1. Bollinger comes straight at him looking for the clinch and takedowns, and Frainee, who is wearing the Thai shorts tonight, shows that he's not a total can and actually brings the punches. Bollinger is dropping his head and looking at the mat (a la Allan Green circa 2008) and it just means he eats punches while trying to get a takedown. Frainee just bucks him like he's kicking out in pro wrestling and that sorta destroys Bollinger's confidence. He himself gets a takedown and pounds him out against the cage for a stoppage. Frainee loses his next two and Bollinger never fights again. (0)

5) Miguel Gutierrez vs. Fernando Gonzalez: 185lb bout. Gutierrez is a Team Oyama guy.

FIGHT: Gutierrez Submission Rnd 1. He sweeps the leg in the clinch and goes straight to mount. Gonzalez tries to buck him and gets stuck in an armbar, which Gutierrez eventually finishes. Gutierrez was more effective in the pummel too, getting separation when he wanted and throwing shots. Gutierrez lost to WEC vet Alex Serdyukov in Mexico and has fought sparingly since. (0)

6) Jason Lambert vs. Marvin Eastman: Woah! This is a good fight. Eastman and Lambert are both long term journeymen who've been around for ages.

FIGHT: Lambert Split Decision. Absolutely great, competitive fight. I had it Eastman 29-28. (3)

Eastman: Eastman, in my mind, lost this fight (it you argue he did) on cardio. He ran out of gas in the middle of round 2 after having taken down Lambert and having had dropped him in the same round. He also did a very impressive amount of work in the first, perhaps aided by an early headbutt as both men clashed heads in the opening seconds. But once the gas tank went dry, Lambert was able to get back up and push Eastman to the cage. I don't think he necessarily did a lot of great work there, but leaning on a guy often gets you points. Eastman was still effective with a takedown in the 3rd and he hurt Lambert with a head kick in the closing seconds, but it was too little, too late.

Lambert: Had a style: lumpy wrassler with looping power shots. He sticks to it here. There's never any surprises about Lambert aside from having bitch tits, he does have excellent cardio. He was never the best wrestler though. You gotta remember that Lambert didn't go to junior college or anything to wrestle - he was a high school wrestler who got referred over to Williams Combat Grappling and from there to Roy Harris. Not saying he's bad, just saying that when you see him losing underhooks to Eastman and being taken down repeatedly, there's a reason for it. So much of what he did was brute force.

8) Hiroyuki Abe vs. Urijah Faber: Don't sleep on this fight thinking its just another fight and not meaningful. Abe was a can't miss prospect once. Hell, he destroyed Alexander Franca Noguiera once upon a time. He was solidly in the middle of his slump at this point though having gone 0-5-0-1 NC in his last 6. Oh, and the other guy. So, he will probably be the 135lb UFC champ and held the WEC 145lb title and is considered one of the most important little men in MMA history. Faber is the 145lb champ and is defending, so this is a potential 5 rounder.

FIGHT: Faber TKO Rnd 3. Pretty much total domination for Faber, who comes straight forwards with punches to clinch up and gets down Abe repeatedly. Abe only is effective in the second round with a trip takedown from the clinch that goes nowhere and Faber gets up from. Faber is a lot slower in terms of trying to push the pace here than he is in recent years - I think his confidence is a big factor in that along with his overall growth in skill. (4)

9) Bobby Hoffman vs. Eric Pele: Hoffman has renamed himself "The Truth" at this point in his career. He notes that the world would like to see him dump Eric Pele on his back and beat him into a pulp. Uhhh. Hoffman's eyes look dead as he stares at the ring. Eric Pele is still basically in fat mode here and this is thusly a super heavyweight title bout. Pele lost the first bout between the two.

FIGHT: Pele TKO Rnd 2. (2)

Pele: Pele has a smart strategy: Come forward, grab, push. If you put weight on the guy, he'll get tired, and that is precisely what happened. Pele has a pretty serious beard too and that meant with his advantage in power punching, he was always more likely to hurt Hoffman badly than vice versa. While Hoffman had the skill advantage and used it in round 1 and 2 to some effect, Pele eventually clocks Hoffman, hurts him, and Pele gets him to the mat. He grinds him out Roy Nelson style, and its one of his last major fights prior to retirement to tattooing permanently.

Hoffman: Hoffman uses this being a fat man fight to justify wearing a shirt into the ring. He is forced to try and fight off a rampaging 300lb man who keeps attaining the clinch, and he has to do so while being unable to hit him hard enough to get him to stop coming forwards. He does get Pele to the mat late in the 1st and almost smashes him out, but this isn't horse shoes, and close doesn't count. Some more wild swinging in the 2nd leads to him getting tagged and hurt, and that's pretty much the end of the fight.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Lambert/Eastman

KO OF THE NIGHT: Goodman/Tapia

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Gutierrez/Gonzalez

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 7 out of 10. Reasonably good show. Aside from the crummy opener, the biggest bore was honestly the Faber fight. Lambert/Eastman was a very good fight, and there were some highlight reel stoppages too. Nothing in the show is time capsule worthy, but that's OK. Its a good, solid show.

D&R Rating: 31% (14/45)

KOTC 48: Payback (2/25/2005)

This was actually a pretty big show at the time. Lots of prospects, Butterbean's MMA debut, and football players in the headlining bout at the CSU Convocation Arena. On the mics are Tedd Williams and Erik Apple.

1) Josh Martin vs. Steve Durig: Both guys are wearing wrestling shoes, so I think I know how they fight.

FIGHT: Draw. (0)

Durig: Honestly doesn't seem like he wants to fight too much. Gets kicked in the groin a couple times and wisely takes the 5 minutes. I think he's better in the clinch too with very basic muay thai technique. However, Martin is stronger and gets him down a couple times to win the first. Durig has a better gas tank and ends up being able to outlast Martin after some desperation grappling, eventually taking his back and beating on him for the final minute of the fight. Honestly, the fight could have been stopped, but I think Herb Dean did the right thing by letting it get to the bell.

Martin: Much stronger; that means his wrestling and control is, stunningly, more effective. In the first round he is able to have a super high mount on Durig, looking sorta like an armbar setup, but instead prefers to pound him out. Durig turns over and escapes through the big, wide open back door though. That outlines a big problem with Martin. Yes, he's a wrestler first, second, and fifteenth. But everything else in the arsenal that you need to succeed on this level isn't present here.

2) Tom Murphy vs. Josh Hendricks: Hendricks was in the UFC for a very short period, and Murphy was too! Murph actually was on TUF Season 2. Weird, huh? So this is kinda a good fight.

FIGHT: Murphy TKO Rnd 1. This is why Murphy got a TUF shot. He clinches up with Johnny Hendricks' D1 wrestling brother, gets a trip takedown, postures up, stands, and throws a right hand through the guard that splats Hendricks. Murphy didn't come out wild and did the job. (2)

3) Buddy Clinton vs. Angelo Popofski: Popofski reps the thumb of Michigan. Clinton was a Travis Lutter guy who was really popular with KOTC brass. Hasn't fought since 2008 though.

FIGHT: Clinton Submission Rnd 1. Easy fight. Clinton comes out firing with a combination that lands 100% on Popofski, drops him, and then he goes to side control and seeks out the kimura. Popofski took his eyes off Clinton when the punches started coming; bad idea. (0)

4) James Lee vs. Walley Keenboom: Lee was a major figure with the MASH fight team in Detroit. Had a fight in PRIDE and the UFC. Again, both men with wrestling shoes.

FIGHT: Lee Submission Rnd 1. Easy win. KOTC special ends in RNC. (1)

5) Forrest Petz vs. Charles "Krazy Horse" Bennett: Can you ask for more than this? Bennett is jawing at the camera during the stare down/instructions. God bless him.

FIGHT: Petz Submission Rnd 1. Fun fight for what it was. Bennett and Petz swing wildly to start, and Bennett actually gets the takedown. However, it is Krazy Horse, and in an attempt to pass guard, he's swept. He gets back to his feet, to his credit, and we have swinging again, leading to a Petz takedown and eventually a side choke. Bennett goes out instead of tapping. (2)

6) Thiago Alves vs. Jeff Cox: Cox wears grappling pants, Alves is juiced. I mean, you know, he's excited. Not really.

FIGHT: Alves TKO Rnd 1. Cox comes straight out at Alves, backing him up, Alves grabs thai plumb, and BOOM. Knee to face, Cox is out cold against the cage. Alves even circles out and lands like 3 punches flush to an unconscious man. Brutal, fast stuff. (3)

7) Ruben "Warpath" Villareal vs. Dan Bobish: WOW.

FIGHT: Bobish Submission Rnd 1. Another case of a dude not tapping - this time in about 30 seconds to a forearm choke against the cage from side control. Bobish got an easy double as Villareal didn't even change levels or anything. (1)

8) Jason Ireland vs. Jorge Gurgel: Man, this is like the TUF 2 preview show. Gurgel was a hot, hot prospect once. Ireland was also a hot prospect for a time. Yes, this is post knee blowout. Terry Trebilcock joins the booth.

FIGHT: Gurgel Submission Rnd 3. This is a legendary bout among hardcore fans - I'd say its the first really public viewing of Stand And Bang Gurgel. Rather than go to the mat and use his vast knowledge of submission, Gurgel prefers to be the fan favorite and trade with Ireland. So little has changed in 6 years - Gurgel still ignores the openings for thai clinch and knees or uppercuts, and instead throws a lot of wide hooks that land, more often than not, on the arms. He presses the action, which means Ireland is on defense, and he does that by squaring up totally against the cage and not countering until Gurgel expends himself. His counter is generally to shoot for a single, but he occasionally lands blows in the early going on the backfoot. Gurgel goes for a triangle at the bell in the first, a guillotine in the second with a drop to half guard, and neither comes close to finishing it. However, a guillotine around the midpoint in the 3rd is on strong. He gets Ireland down and against the cage, sits up, and has some serious leverage, forcing the tap. Good scrap. (3)

9) Mike Buchkovich vs. Eric "Butterbean" Esch: Buchkovich is listed as 10-0 at this point. In case the name sounds familiar, he was reviewed on AOF 8 beating the hell out of David Yost. Bean is DEBUTING. Yes! Before PRIDE! Crowd is not happy for this because Esch was supposedly going to be put in to fight a local DJ.

FIGHT: Draw. Not gonna bother to review. There may have been a gentleman's agreement in place so that there are no takedowns, as Buchkovich doesn't shoot at all in the first. He lands a lot of jabs on the outside along with right hands, and when there is grappling, it primarily occurs in the second round with Buchkovich pushing Butterbean into the cage. Clearly, Buchkovich should win the decision. (1)

Instead, a draw? Crowd is BOOING. Bean says that the opponent was only chosen a couple hours prior. Oh man. Buchkovich takes the mic straight out of the woman's hand interviewing him and screams "This is BULLSHIT!" only to be yelled at by Tedd Williams immediately after. Crowd is heated. He then says "Butterbean is a good fight!" Then they hug it out. Crowd is still booing, Buchkovich then says he wants to let his 2 year old know he loves her. Amy, the girl interviewing the fighters, asks the crowd if they want a rematch only to be showered with boos.

10) Joey Villasenor vs. Brendan Seguin: Both guys could probably rematch now and it would make good sense.

FIGHT: Villasenor TKO Rnd 1. Some striking from too far away to land from both guys before Joey clinches up. Seguin is pretty tough to take down, to be fair, and they separate. Again, back to distance striking. Villasenor leaps in with a left hook and Seguin is out fold and a total mess. (2)

11) Jarrod Bunch vs. Michael Westbrook: Nothing like a freakshow to headline; two former NFL players, Westbrook being the more well known of the two.

FIGHT: Westbrook Submission Rnd 1. Sometimes, all you can ask is that two guys give it a good effort and don't embarass themselves or the sport. This is one of those occasions where they took it seriously and put forth real effort. Neither guy looked great, but if you compared them to a lot of lousy heavyweights that the sport has been subjected to over the years, hey, look - do these guys really look worse than Brian Vetell or something? Of course not. Westbrook does some nice setups for the shot with his level changes and eventually shoots the double after having defended a takedown attempt of Bunch. He lands some hellacious punches, Bunch gives the back, and we basically have a classic KOTC special with a RNC that takes way too long to finish. And really, for what this is, that's a great victory. (1)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Ireland/Gurgel

KO OF THE NIGHT: Cox/Alves

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Warpath/Bobish

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 6.5 out of 10. Honestly, this was pretty good. The Butterbean fight is atrocious, but most everything else isn't offensive. There's actually even a very good fight on here. Not a classic as some have labelled, but a very good fight and probably one of the 10 best of 2005. Some pretty brutal beatdowns came with it that entertained because it was high level carnage, and you have a night of fights that's worth buying.

D&R RATING: 29% (16/55)

JUNGLE FIGHT 13 CEARA (5/9/2009)

Shooting ahead once more: Its on to Fortaleza, Brazil in a very empty looking sort of building. Crowd is lively though - And the event itself? Features a Noguiera in the main event! Is themed to Argentina vs. Brazil! How cool is this? It is cool. It takes a half hour to get to the first fight with the opening ceremonies and angry talking by Wallid though.

1) Johil De Oliviera vs. Rodrigo Jacome: De Oliviera is well into gatekeeper mode by this point, but still loves that PRIDE music.

FIGHT: De Oliviera Submission Rnd 1. Pretty easy fight, actually. Neither guy was particularly good standing and Johil was looking for takedowns from the start. When he finally succeeded on dumping Jacome off a double, he got to side control and worked for the kimura, forcing a tapout. Good kimura too, as he stepped over the head with his left leg to get leverage. Jacome was out of his element. (0)

2) Marcos Motta vs. Arimarcel Santos: Motta is basically the Brazilian Baroni, rocking a chain and wearing the gi top. Stylewise he's a fit too.

FIGHT: Santos Submission Rnd 1. Motta puts Santos on the mat and tries to bash him out with punches, but gets caught while punching in an armbar and gets swept over. He tries to fight it for a moment or two and taps. (0)

3) Erick Silva vs. Carlos Villamor: Villamor is the first guy with an ARG next to his name on the graphic. Silva is the #3 BE prospect at welterweight.

FIGHT: Silva Submission Rnd 2. (2)

Silva: Awful standing. His grappling lacks a lot of transitions or setups, so Villamor is often able to defend what should be fight ending positions (a heel hook he takes too long to setup in round 2, a pass to mount that Villamor rolls him in during the first). Needs to start throwing combinations and low kicks. Also needs to be more instinctive on the mat - throw some shots before trying to pass. Get his mind elsewhere, then make the move.

4) Anistavo Gasparzinho vs. Alex Nacfur: No idea who either guy is, to be entirely honest. Gasparzinho looks pretty young and has a half sleeve.

FIGHT: Nacfur KO Rnd 2. Rolled on Gasparzinho, taking him down multiple times, holding him on the mat and landing shots. Not very competitive outside of an initial blast of standup from Gasparzinho. Fight comes to an end with Nacfur having transitioned back to mount after missing a RNC and punching out Gasparzinho - high high mount too, with an arm of Gasparzinho trapped by Nacfur's leg. Early stoppage IMO. (0)

5) Alexandre Pimental vs. Joao Luis Noguiera: I don't think he's family, let's put it that way. Pimental's bout at JF 11 wasn't aired.

FIGHT: Pimental Unanimous Decision. Noguiera just doesn't have a standup game and Pimental kinda does. Its not anything spectacular - basic level muay thai, but its enough to get the job done. Most excitement of the fight comes fro the few moments of success Noguiera has - a takedown at the end of Round 1, a high kick that cuts Pimental in round 3. Noguiera isn't a threat off his back either, so when Pimental dumps him with a double in the second, he spends the rest of the round absorbing short shots and moving his hips. Fights like this are more like background noise than anything. I end up thinking about what to have for lunch and if I should shave more than what's on the screen. (1) Pimental is undefeated but no fights in 13 months.

6) Edinaldo Oliviera vs. Artur Tubarao: Tubarao is overweight. Seriously, why is this guy even there? Tubarao has that lanky frame people think is the best suited for MMA. His recent results are no joke too. These are heavyweights.

FIGHT: Oliviera TKO Rnd 1. Tubarao isn't any good, so let's ignore him in the breakdown. Tall dudes in MMA often have a problem - they don't know how to judge distance. Oliviera is in that class of guys. He just walks forward and negates his height, and when he punches, he drops his hands and leaves his chin out. It wasn't a problem here, and luckily for him, it wasn't an issue against Draggo, the midget Ferreira, or with the big Geronimo Dos Santos. Or here. But it will be if he en ds up with someone who can punch back. Ben Rothwell would jack him up. Tubarao drops to some combinations that barely land, rolls to his back, and is punched a few times until the ref stops it. (1)

Big Nog comes out at this point to say things to the crowd and there is much rejoicing.

7) Ivan Iberico vs. Jamil Silviera: Flavio Alvaro beat up Iberico in Rio Heroes. Silviera is some dude. Iberico looks 10 years old and also like he has seen some real shit.

FIGHT: Iberico Submission Rnd 2. (1)

Iberico: Its easy to see what Iberico's style is right away when he shoots the double. He's a grappler, like so many Brazilians are. But he's got a mediocre gas tank and while he controls the first round in top control, he spends a good portion of the second on his back after pulling guard in the opening secons. Silviera basically puts his head in Iberico's chest and asks him to choke him out. Iberico gets a d'arce (incorrectly labelled as an anaconda on Sherdog) and put him to sleep.

Silviera: If he is at all a striker, it didn't show in this fight. I didn't see much except that he can avoid submissions while inside the guard and briefly free himself up to throw shots.

8) Pedro Santos vs. Romario Emanuel Silva: Rio Heroes legend in Santos takes on Silva, who's nicknamed "Junior Killer".

FIGHT: Santos Submission Rnd 1. Man, this is a boring and sorta lousy fight. Santos and Silva do nothing when clinched with one another but push each other around. They separate and that's OK, but see another pause when a jab busts up Santos' nose and the ref stops it to clean that up. On the restart, Santos jumps from way outside and gets the shot, the takedown, and Silva doesn't know how to shrimp without giving up the d'arce. After going for it twice before, Santos finally tightens one up and wins the fight by tapout. (1)

9) Dion Staring vs. Antonio Rogerio Noguiera: Staring lives to fight on bad European shows. This represents the rare non-European based fight for him. He's here to lose, of course.

FIGHT: Noguiera Submission Rnd 3. Nice fast triangle from Noguiera in round 3. (3)

Staring: He's really a grappler first, which is rare for a Dutch fighter from Golden Glory. But he is. And that's a problem here, because Noguiera is better at grappling than him. And better at striking. So he can't win. He is running full force from Noguiera standing when he isn't trying to land lousy overhand rights. On the mat, he occasionally reverses position while Noguiera looks for a finish in round 3 and gets on top, but that just leads to the tapout.

Noguiera: His muay thai looked OK, his top control shaky (as is the case eternally with him and his brother), and I would have like to have seen him put away Staring when the chance was there in the first and second rounds rather than let this get to a third. But he finished the fight and was generally dominant.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Pimental/Noguiera

KO OF THE NIGHT: Oliviera/Tubarao

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Noguiera/Staring

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 4 out of 10. Man, if you want to sum up the next generation of Brazilian prospects, its "Arona Clones". And they are EVERYWHERE. Paixao and Wagenney Fabiano were the tip of the ice berg, real talk. With the talent being thin, that also means that we get lots of not competitive grappling based bouts where one guy is on top and does everything. I dunno, I don't care for those more than one sided boxing beatdowns.

D&R Rating: 20% (9/45)

KOTC 21: Invasion (2/21/2003)

I can't believe I didn't already have this! I was missing a couple KOTC commercial items, so, yeah, I bought them. This is an old event that features Eddie Bravo and the debut of Erik Apple on the mic. Hell, this was before Apple had even fought professionally. And man oh man, what a card! A Heavyweight tournament! Fernando Vasconcelos! Shonie Carter! SHOWTIME! JIMMY AMBRIZ! KOTC has a THIRTY POINT MUST SYSTEM. It never worked for Superbrawl and didn't work here and now, for those who don't remember these good ol' days, you can learn how it didn't work here either.

1) Jason Godsey vs. Chris Guillen: Godsey was one of the early guys to claim catch wrestling and was in every bad promotion of the period. Chris Guillen I know nothing about.

FIGHT: Godsey Submission Rnd 1. We get a weird RNC sorta choke from side control. Just a bulldog choke. Mr. 10th Planet thinks its a funny catch wrestling neck crank. (0)

2) Bobby Hoffman vs. Sam Sotelo: Sotelo somehow has a win over Buentello, but losses to Wellisch and uhh...OK. Let's not spoil this yet. Or maybe I did. Hoffman almost killed his wife.

FIGHT: Hoffman TKO Rnd 2. Competitive fight at first with Sotelo getting a takedown and landing some good shots. Hoffman makes a comeback and lands some brutal GNP at the end of the round, stealing the 10-9 for himself. Sotelo gets taken down off the bodylock and the resulting impact obliterates his right shoulder. He taps out and screams obscenities in pain. One of the more gruesome things in MMA history. (2)

3) Seth Petruzelli vs. Brian Hawkins: Hawkins is from Michigan, and Seth is at this point a guy with no name. His sister is all lumpy and shit and screaming for him. Man he looks young.

FIGHT: Petruzelli TKO Rnd 1. Impressive show from Seth who throws a ton of low kicks that Hawkins doesn't even try to block and then gets the takedown. The announcers didn't expect that. He ends up mounting Hawkins after a failed bodylock takedown by Hawkins and pounds him out. (2)

4) Joey Villasenor vs. Tony Galindo: Oh my god. Are you kidding? Joey Villasenor is like brand new in this fight. Galindo is from LIONS DEN, is obviously juiced up as a midget with tons of muscles, and has the record for shortest KOTC KO. Trebilcock joins the booth and gives some real insight on Villasenor being a serious prospect at the time in spite of being 7-3 and generally unknown.

FIGHT: Villasenor TKO Rnd 1. Galindo quits after round 1 saying that he injured his elbow. The fight itself consisted of Villasenor throwing a leg kick, Galindo looking scared, and then a monster double leg puts Galindo on his back the entire round. What is most interesting is the aftermath - Erik Apple and Eddie Bravo jokingly say, "Hey, another winner from New Mexico! California and Iowa, look out!" To wit, Trebilcock relates that Chris Cordiero had told him about the camp from which Villasenor came from and to run some non PPV shows in the area. Trebilcock did and stated that he was super impressed with the talent level. The camp? C'mon, you and I both know its Gaidojutsu and Greg Jackson. So consider this the show where Jackson's name entered the discussion. (2)

5) Shonie Carter vs. Fernando Vasconcelos: Carter was and is a cult figure that is beloved in the sport. Vasconcelos was a BJJ artist who went into RAW and was dominating Olympic wrestlers in the dojo and everyone believed that was going to dominate the future of the sport. Eddie Bravo also says that he hung out with Carter at the strip club the night before and that he has a "full stable and I respect that" but that he's rooting for Vasconcelos. And not only that, Eddie Bravo further details a story about how Carter has a feud with Manson Gibson in which they've fought in parking lots and shit. This show is more about outside the cage than in.

FIGHT: Carter TKO Rnd 2. Note: Carter looks to have Lance Gibson in his corner! I love this show! (2)

Vasconcelos: Well, he got the takedown and worked for submissions in the first as expected. He was all over Carter like a cheap suit and looked to have back control. And then it starts to go wrong. When Carter proves able to stand up, Vasconcelos loses his mental toughness. By round two, he starts to eat punches and even gets dropped to the mat with a double leg takedown. How does he react? Oh, he can talk to his corner, walks around a bit, and just quits. Wasn't made to fight in the cage, obviously.

Carter: A great effort by Carter - looking every bit the larger man, he pushes his opposition to the cage and puts weight on them to tire them out. He is by far the better man striking and ultimately his takedown defense and submission defense combine to be more than a match for what Vasconcelos can offer over the long run of the fight. Whereas average wrestlers might be surprised by the hip toss Vasconcelos tries in round 2, Carter, a former judoka, is well prepared. He is in his dancing prime too when Vasconcelos quits. Not a bad fight - Lee Casebolt told me to expect it to be terrible.

6) Jimmy Ambriz vs. Jonathan Ivey: Ivey is a fat dude who loves to roll for kneebars because guys don't train those and Ambriz is a product of the Ultimate Pro Wrestling gym. More relevant than Chris Modest! Yes, I went there. Apparently the guy teaching him most of his MMA stuff is Todd Medina. Wow.

FIGHT: Ambriz Submission Rnd 1. Ivey rushes Ambriz and gets taken down, and that's pretty much the entire fight. Ivey sorta goes for submissions but none of them are even close and Ambriz wins with a north/south choke. (1)

7) Javier Vazquez vs. Alberto Crane: A famous fight! Among the most in KOTC history. This is for the KOTC Lightweight title.

FIGHT: Crane Unanimous Decision. This fight is famous because it was, for a long time, Vazquez's last fight. He blows his ACL 20 seconds into the fight, and rather than scream and quit, he goes the entire 15 minutes. Crane ends up winning the first two round by getting Vazquez down on the mat and controlling Vazquez and escaping his submissions (much easier to avoid with the guard game being eliminated, so most of what is thrown at him are guillotines). Vazquez, amazingly, comes back in the 3rd round and gets the take down and dominates him with top control and continues to pursue guard passes and the like. This fight, BTW, is pretty darn good and the crowd is wild for it well afterwards. Vazquez is carried out of the ring by his manager. Dramatic stuff. (4)

8) Jason Godsey vs. Bobby Hoffman: Heavyweight title at stake in the tourney finals!

FIGHT: Hoffman TKO Rnd 1. Godsey gets taken down with a sort of trip takedown and does try to sneak around back with a rear naked only to get put on his own back and beaten silly. He tries to move to N/S and escape and just gets smashed out. Easy win for Hoffman, who the announcers state has been out for a year and a half while incarcerated. (2)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Vazquez/Crane

KO OF THE NIGHT: Sotelo/Hoffman

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Ambriz/Ivey

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 7 out of 10. There's a legitimately good fight on the card, and the mediocre stuff is at least not totally horrible. Freaks! Ex-Cons! Injuries! Star prospects being exposed! This has it all.

D&R Rating: 37.5% (15/40)

WEC 22: The Hitmen (7/8/2006)

Ryan Bennett, the former announcer for WEC and the guy who started MMA Weekly, was killed in a car accident back in 2005. In turn, to celebrate the man's life, the WEC ran this show (pre-Zuffa of course) at Tachi Palace. Special rules sorta too; All fights are exhibitions and don't count on fighters records. Did they get paid? Sorta. Most gave their purses back to the family of Ryan Bennett Show opens with lots of guys talking about him. This was recorded by HDNet and distroed to help pay shit.

1) Robert Densley vs. Mike Joy: Lightweights. Densley is much less experienced than Joy.

FIGHT: Joy Submission Rnd 1. Man, really good fight actually. Well, a really good 1 round right. Joy looks like he was going to walk through Densley with a wild leg lock attempt that he rolled into out of the full guard, but Densley defends that and a subsequent triangle attempt. On the feet Joy is tagged with a right hand shooting in and then a left hook at distance that drops him - Densley rushes to finish and gets armbarred and taps with only two seconds left on the clock. Another highlight: Mike Joy goes for a flying guard pass/punch that he has named the "Jump For Joy". (0)

2) Jeff Terry vs. Doug Marshall: THE RHINO! Is he a racist? I keep wondering. So does a lot of the internet. Terry is debuting and shows sub wrestling and boxing as his style.

FIGHT: Marshall TKO Rnd 1. Doug rushes him, clinches, Terry goes for a guillotine and pulls guard, and it doesn't go well. He gets bombed out with punches from mount. (1)

3) JT Taylor vs. Drew Dimanlig: Middleweights, I think.

FIGHT: Taylor Submission Rnd 1. Dimanlig goes to the mat with Taylor and nearly gets submitted early, but escapes the armbar. Rather than step back and force Taylor to stand, he instead stands over him and kicks the legs before he jumps back into the guard. Less than 15 seconds after that, Dimanlig is swept over and tapped with an armbar. (0)

INTERVIEW WITH CHUCK LIDDELL~. This is prior to the second Babalu fight.

4) Jason Guida vs. Alex Stiebling: Its easy to forget that Stiebling was once fairly relevant. Hell, very relevant. Guida is one of the most famed TUF washouts. BTW: Want to see a crazy fight? Stiebling/Riggs was a great one.

FIGHT: Stiebling Unanimous Decision. Not much to break down - Guida is on the tail end of a lot of jabs and right hands that cut his face up and force him into desperation shots. He has some success in the second round with one, but aside from that, its all Stiebling. Odd aspect of the fight: Guida and Stiebling are stuck for about 1:30 of the final round to the bell in a weird reverse guard position where Stiebling is on top facing backwards and Guida has him wrapped up with both legs. Neither are doing much. Stiebling always had decent boxing - couldn't check or block kicks and left his chin out, but the combinations were at least pretty good. If you also pay attention, Jason Guida goes for a wedgie at one point. (1)

5) Wes Sims vs. Joel Suprenaut: I have seen this fight before. Shame we don't get the Wes Sims walkout. FACT: Wes Sims wanted so badly to be on this show he turned down fighting in the WFA against Bas Rutten.

FIGHT: Sims Submission Rnd 1. Wes Sims throws a dropkick, as promised in the interview before the event, and transitions into a triangle choke. Amazing. Wes Sims wanted to fight Tiny "Zeus" Lister apparently and also notes that he wants to train in the art of Dim Mak. (1)

This was called the "Main Event of the Evening". Except there are a lot more fights. And it becomes night at this point. HDNet must have split off this part for future airing.

6) Joel Thomas vs. Pat Murphy: Welterweight bout.

FIGHT: Murphy Unanimous Decision. Good meaningless scrap. (0)

Murphy: Big plus for Murphy - conditioning. If you don't have it, you can't win long fights, and Murphy comes to fight all 15 minutes. He's not the better wrestler in the fight I don't think, but he's definitely the better striker and his submission skills are better as well. He works well off his back, gets some sweeps, flattens out Thomas in the second and third, lands solid punches, etc. What he doesn't do is finish a guy waiting to be finished.

Thomas: Thinks shot more than anything. On top, he isn't necessarily an easy guy to shake, and he throws down Thomas with a big slam to start the fight. However, his submission defense is not very good, and that leads him to losing position that he shouldn't, and his defense to punches is middling at best.

7) Colley Bradford vs. Trevor Harris: Featherweight division before it mattered in the WEC. Harris is still taking amateur bouts. Bradford has disappeared.

FIGHT: Harris Submission Rnd 1. Bradford thinks wrestling and nothing but. He's cut shooting in in the first 9 seconds of the fight but continues to seek the blast double and control over and over and over. Harris bucks and sweeps him repeatedly, Bradford seems to start to run low on gas, and eventually he gets pushed down and taps to a RNC with no hooks in. (0)

8) JJ Mix vs. Mario Rivera: Welterweight attraction.

FIGHT: Mix Submission Rnd 3. Styles make fights - Mix has some OK BJJ and some OK striking and Rivera has neither of those two things but he's a strong wrestler. What happens as a result? Mix is taken down repeatedly but is able to stall out can cause standups. When that happens, Mix hurts Rivera very badly at least once a round with punches and head kicks. Those kicks become predictable then and Rivera gets takedowns. There's a huge slam by Rivera as he tries to take out Mix, but in the end, Mix has superior all around grappling skills, maneuvers to the back, and then locks in a RNC. (0)

9) Jack Morrison vs. Glover Teixeira: Teixeira is a strange story - he has some big wins like one over Sokoudjou circa 2006. And then he took two years off. Never fought in the big show, unless you count this or Bittetti Combat. Morrison is a former Toughman champ.

FIGHT: Teixeira Submission Rnd 1. KOTC Special in the other outdoor Cali Casino promotion - Teixeria finishes this with a RNC. (1)

10) Troy Miller vs. Poppies Martinez: Welterweight vs. a guy who is now a featherweight (or lighter, I think). Why is this a fight? Miller is a 1-2 TAE KWON DO FIGHTER.

FIGHT: Martinez Submission Rnd 1. Awesome suplex and an equally rad inside heel trip by Martinez, he follows that out by getting an armbar from back control. Poppies is so rad. (1)

11) Casey Olson vs. Alvan Cacdus: Lightweight bout. Olson moved down to featherweight since. Also noted on the program - Olson sold 500 tickets to this event. He's also trying to save Fresno State's wrestling program.

FIGHT: Olson TKO Rnd 1. Beatdown - Olson hurts Cacdus standing and then takes him down. No surprises here with Olson being a former collegiate wrestler. He squashes Cacdus into the cage and smashes him for about 2 minutes until forcing a stoppage. Not competitive. (0)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Murphy/Thomas

KO OF THE NIGHT: Olson/Cacdus

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Sims/Suprenaut

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 5 out of 10. Its a pretty slickly produced event and DVD, but as far as it being a necessity? Well, its mostly being sold through resalers and discount venues (how I got mine) but you can imagine that someone at some point got a little money out to the family. The web address for Ryan Bennett's family fund is down, and while there's an address to send a check to for him, I would guess his family hasn't received a whole lot of money in the last couple of years. In that sense, its pretty bizarre to watch and think about.

There's a bonuus disk as well that features stuff like a video montage from the Fight Network did regarding Bennett (who was their news director) and the local TV spot. That spot advertises that Jason Von Flue, Urijah Faber, Nick Thompson, Thomas Schulte, Rafael Del Real, Mikko Rupponen, Mike Whitehead and Jake O'Brien would all be fighting on the show; none of them did and Wes Sims slammed a lot of guys for no-showing or cancelling.

D&R Rating: 9% (5/55)

JUNGLE FIGHT 11 (9/18/2008)

Alright, onto another Jungle Fight event from Manaus. On this show: People fight! Mostly Brazilians!

1) Hacran Dias vs. Rodrigo Ruiz: 70KG for both guys. Dias lost to a random Korean in a bad decision in M-1 for his lone loss in 18 fights.

FIGHT: Dias Unanimous Decision. This fight ends up one place; the mat. (2)

Dias: Dias is a legitimate talent but style wise, he doesn't remind me of any of the really great artsy BJJ guys. More like a Ricardo Arona sorta of top control grappler. And like Arona, Filho, and others in that style, his standup is bad. Chunky, hands all over the place when defending, chin up high, moves straight back because he's resorting to wrestling instincts. But his grappling is very good. He takes down Ruiz at will and holds him down probably 13 of the 15 minutes.

Ruiz: Ruiz showed me precious little. He swept Dias but that's about it.

2) Erick Silva vs. Igor Fernandes: A welterweight contest with a prospect and some other guy.

FIGHT: Silva Unanimous Decision (2)

Silva: Like the last fight, Silva is a guy with a lot of wins (12), only one loss, and a style that fans in the US don't care for. Again, its takedowns off the shot and then guard passing for 15 minutes. Fernandes doesn't provide much resistance but is clearly the more aggressive striker, and Silva's striking doesn't show at all in this performance. Nor does any finishing technique. Was he looking to prove he could go 15?

3) Johil De Oliveira vs. Danilo Noronha: Oliveira has the classic story of being set on fire by PRIDE in an accident. Still, he comes out to the PRIDE music. Noronha never was, of course, and is not terrible notable.

FIGHT: De Oliveira Unanimous Decision. (1)

De Oliveira: For having been in the sport so long, the guy still strikes the same way. Hands down, robot punching, no setups to kicks, and his takedown defense honestly isn't that good. He spends the majority of rounds 1 and 3 on his back, and best I can tell, he wins because Noronha is given a yellow card for holding the fence. I would have had him losing.

Noronha: Top control grappler with better standup technique but no willingness to use it because he feared being taken down, as he was in the second and again briefly in the third.

4) Ana Maria vs. Ediane Gomes: Female MMA. Do I care? Not really, TBH.

FIGHT: Gomes Submission Rnd 1. Pretty much a submission grappling match with both women rolling actively for submissionsn and position for the period that the fight goes until Gomes lock in the armbar and forces a submission. (0)

5) Alexandre Visconte vs. Rafael "Capoeira" Freitas: Oh lord, let there be cool sweeps. Visconte comes from the CONSTRICTOR TEAM, which is pretty hardcore.

FIGHT: Freitas Unanimous Decision. The announcers love it, the crowd hates the decision, the fight was terrible. Wild swinging and ineffective takedowns from two guys who both gassed out so early in the fight it was hilarious. Seriously had all the charm of a Chance Williams fight. Freitas in my mind deserved the win because he landed way harder stuff, but who cares. No one here is going anywhere. (0)

6) Luis "Besouro" Dutra Jr. vs. Paulo Thiago: Hey, a real prospect!

FIGHT: Thiago TKO Rnd 1. This isn't much of a fight. Dutra goes for a jump kick and it looks like the leg he kicked with blew out from extending it in the air. Bizarre stuff. (1) for crazy ending and the name involved.

7) Alan Frois (I think same dude as Allan Froes) vs. Anthony Rea: Rea comes from Australia, Froes is a local talent who went 4-0 coming in. I think.

FIGHT: Rea Split Decision. Rea won 30-27 on my card - he out landed Froes with punches and kicks (landed two Mezgerlike high kicks in fact) and took him down a couple times too. Froes was highly defensive and again proved, as he did in fighting Pinto at JF 10 that he just doesn't have the gumption for this sort of sport. (0)

8) Eliene Pit vs. Ronnys Torres: Torres' UFC time was "Now you see me, now you don't."

FIGHT: Torres Submission Rnd 1. Torres with a wild right hand gets him close and deep for the double, then he passes to side control and then gets a straight armbar. Rudimentary basic BJJ for MMA. (1)

9) Assuerio Silva vs. Todd Duffee: YOUR MAIN EVENT. Enormous roid head UFC reject against smaller, not that great UFC/PRIDE reject. Rejoice!

FIGHT: Duffee TKO Rnd 2. Watching this its hard to believe that people were so convinced that this man was going to be a super star just a scant 12 months ago. The tactics employed here are Tim Sylvia like with the difference being that Duffee has enough in the gas tank to not only push, but to occasionally throw punches before pushing. He's taken down on a trip from the clinch and has his back taken, and he does nothing but power out of it. He finally hurts Silva with his single power shots and drops him, and pounds him out against the cage. Its not terrible., but man - the technique was nothing to write home about. No combinations at all. Just wind up right hands. (2)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Maria/Gomes

KO OF THE NIGHT: Dutra Jr/Thiago

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Maria/Gomes

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 3 out of 10. Man, these shows suck. Maybe Lee Casebolt would enjoy the top control grappling, but I imagine even he would be like "DO SOMETHING!"

D&R Rating: 20% (9/45)

DEEP MEGATON GP Finals (8/28/2008)/ClubDeep (8/30/2008)

The finals of one of MMA's greatest tournaments.

Before the event really gets underway, there's a tag team grappling tournament that is sorta interesting to watch and better to fast forward through.

GP TIME~

1) Ken Orihashi vs. Shinsuke Inoue: Inoue still has the terrible hair.

FIGHT: Inoue Submission Rnd 1. Complete domination from Inoue, who wins by straight armbar coming out of the mount. Orihashi's attempt at a takedown or just pushing Inoue to the corner went nowhere and he nearly got guillotined. He absorbed more shots standing than you might expect given that it was his forte (though he does suck at it). The takedown was a nice sweep where Inoue took a headlock and then stepped over Orihashi's lead foot and put him down. (0)

2) Shunji Kosaka vs. Yusuke Kawaguchi: This could be ugly.

FIGHT: Kawaguchi TKO Rnd 1. Interesting thing that I see here is that Kawaguchi gets hit with two right hands coming in with hands down. This would be a problem when he upgraded the competition. Of course, he gets a body lock takedown and rapes Kosaka with shots. All of 45 seconds, mostly of GNP. (0)

3) Mamoru Nakamura vs. Wakaarashi: Sumo takes on Nakamura, a brawler, in this alternate bout for the Megaton GP.

FIGHT: Wakaarashi TKO Rnd 1. Bad stop; after both men had been trading, Nakamura gets hit with a couple right hands and falls down. Wakaarashi goes after him and nearly gets caught in a omaplata. Of course, the ref had already jumped in, so.... (0)

At this point, we get a Oyaji Grappling Rules match between Samio Kimura and Shinchiro Eguchi. What does that mean? I guess it means they have shirts. Someone wins and I fast forwarded.

4) Sotaro Yamada vs. Ryoji Suzuki: No idea who either is. Its a welterweight contest.

FIGHT: Draw. Fight is clipped a bit, so its not 100% certain who should win in my mind. I will say that it looks like Yamada took the first and Suzuki the second round of the two round fight. Yamada's game was to get the fight down, and he pulled guard a number of times. Jump guard too. Suzuki was better standing for sure and a better wrestler, but he got suckered into that grappling stuff in round 1 and I don't think that he came away looking better from what was shown. In round two, he doesn't let Yamada get him down without staying on top and looking dominant. (0)

MIKA and some other girl are then in a submission grappling match I fast forward through.

At this point, the show flashes over to ClubDEEP Kyoto 8/30/2008.

5) Yasuaki Kishimoto vs. Tetsuya Fukunaga: Uhhh....

FIGHT: Kishimoto Submission Rnd 2. Squash. Kishimoto throws Fukunaga early and exhibits a huge gap in grappling talent. He runs shit on Fukunaga, who has some skill at defense and not much else. And that's assumed only because he wasn't instantly choked out. (0)

6) Ricardo Algusto vs. Atsushi Kondo:

FIGHT: Kondo TKO Rnd 1. The gaijin here gets taken down rather quickly and taps out to a kimura from side control. Not much of a fight. Kondo dumped him with a nice headlock sorta move. (0)

7) Makoto Kamaya vs. Hiroto Hattori: featherweight bout.

FIGHT: Kamaya Majority Decision. Again, this is clipped so you don't know with total certainty what happened. What I saw was this: Hattori is a pretty standard box-n-wrestle MMA fighter. Kamaya uses a karate stance and loves lead high kicks. And he's not easy to take down because Hattori can't figure out how to properly close the distance with him. In short: Kamaya is pretty rad. (0)

8) Marcelo Nakamura vs. Bum Chan Kang: Korean fights random pseudobrazilian?

FIGHT: Kang TKO Rnd 2. Clipped fight in which we see Nakamura, who might be 45, looking for takedowns constantly and getting thrown and or punched very often and or swept. Kang also looks huge in comparison. Eventually Nakamura gets bashed out after eating a knee and freezing up while looking for an ankle pick. (0)

9) Miya Mo vs. Yoshiyume Chodo: Japanese people who fight!

FIGHT: Chodo Submission Rnd 1. Lots of wild swinging to start. It is apparent quickly that Mo wants to be awesome at submission and goes for all sorts of wild stuff like Saku Kimuras. And it is also apparently that Chodo is stronger and can hold him down and work for stuff himself. He gets to side control after some badly planned submission attempts go awry for Mo and ends up cranking a kimura for a submission win. (0)

Seichi Ikemoto and Dokonjonosuke Mishma then perform in a exhibition for the crowd and there are lots of funny submissions and belts being waived around.

10) Ken Hamamura vs. Hyun Joo Kim: Kim is another CMA Korea product, as it seems everyone there is.

FIGHT: Hamamura TKO Rnd 1. The corner for Kim throws in the towel as Hamamura, having acquired the takedown, wrenches back an arm and punches him hard over and over and over. (0)

11) Takahiro Kajita vs. Tomoyuki Fukami: Lightweight journeymen.

FIGHT: Draw. Fukami I actually feel wins the fight because he does something in the standup game and Kajita rarely gets takedowns. When he does, they certainly don't seem to have the value Fukami's clean boxing does, but again - its clipped, its two rounds. If Kajita deserves the first, he deserves the fight. Fukami is 9-1-6 but rarely fought in ZST, which is pretty amazing. Hasn't fought in 15 months or so. Kajita, meanwhile, seems to be a basic wrestler with some really middling punching and doesn't rush to pass the guard. (0)

12) Yusuke Kawaguchi vs. Shinsuke Inoue: Inoue comes out to ridiculous video game music. The national anthem plays in this tiny ass nightclub before the fight. There's like 500 people there. Maybe. Somewhere a baby screams as the belt is displayed. I can't make this shit up.

FIGHT: Kawaguchi Split Decision. You can't ask for a lot more than this. Yeah, its sloppy pier six brawl stuff at times, but both guys throw hard, and Inoue actually lands better single shots. He almost sits down Kawaguchi early in round one and gets a throw on him. He also gets out from under him after absorbing a ton of shots late in the second to try and rally. Tons of heart. In fact, his technique is much better. But Kawaguchi is a much larger man. He's athletic, he can wrestle, he can force guys down to the mat. He pushes badly with his shots, he's easy to hit, and he's not explosive shooting or rushing to the clinch, but here, against Inoue, he's well matched and we get an entertaining contest. Inoue is in tears after losing and Kawaguchi is equally enthused as Inoue is depressed. Wonderful but terrible stuff. (2)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Kawaguchi/Inoue (8/28/08)

KO OF THE NIGHT: Hamamura/Kim (8/30/08)

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Orihashi/Inoue (8/28/08)

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT(S): 2,5 out of 10. I'm kinda glad to be done with these, because so much of it was filler from ClubDEEP and those shows suck. The Megaton stuff was all stupid but entertaining in its simplicity. The finals of the tournament was a great success and I wouldn't be upset to see them try this all again one day.

D&R Rating: 3% (2/60)

M1 Fighting Championship Episode 6 (?)

Amazingly, these programs have returned to TV, and with them, hey, it looks like a new show! Recorded off of Fox Sports South on 1/5/2011. DirecTV says this episode was originally shown 2/18/2010, which could make it #1, actually. Who knows?

1) Gerhard Ettl vs. Alexie Sitnikov: Who? Heavyweights. From 4/27/2001 (nearly 10 years ago!).

FIGHT: Sitnikov TKO Rnd 1. Ettl basically does nothing all fight effectively and Sitnikov punches and kicks and knees him. Not a huge shock that he's a striker since he's wearing Thai shorts.

2) Amar Suloev vs. Pedro Otavio: Seen this before. http://bshowassault.blogspot.com/2010/07/m1-fighting-championship-episode-5.html

3) Dave Vader vs. Sergey Kaznovsky: Also seen this before. http://bshowassault.blogspot.com/2010/07/m1-fighting-championship-episode-5.html

4) Ian Freeman vs. Stanislav Nuschik: !!!!! Freeman was young in this fight. Nuschik is a weird gatekeeper of the olden days. 4/27/2001.

FIGHT: Nuschik TKO Rnd 1. Goes maybe 10 seconds before Nischik lands a straight right/left hook and Freeman is flat on his back staring at the lights.

5) Alexi Vezelozorov vs. Dave Dalgiesh: Another strange fight to see on TV in 2011. Dalgiesh is rocking shoes. From 11/11/2001.

FIGHT: Vezelozorov Submission Rnd 1. Man, a squash. Like all the fights M1 shows. Dalgiesh is all sorts of awkward and gets hit a ton with punches, eventually getting cut and then being dropped and submitted with a RNC.

6) Patrick De Witte vs. Arslan Amatov: Who? De Witte I saw getting taken down and dominated in a fight with someone else I've never heard of. From 11/11/2001.

FIGHT: De Witte TKO Rnd 1. Bizarre brawl with De Witte throwing wild strikes and busting the nose of Amatov and cutting him over his eye. The doctor actually bandages up the eye and lets Amatov back into the ring to take more punishment before a stop eventually comes via doctor after a second stop. Highlight of the bout is De Witte following a right hand that drops Amatov by chasing him, trying to go for some sort of back control, and being hurled over the head of Amatov.

7) Denis Kang vs. Andrei Semenov: Hey now! From 12/5/2003.

FIGHT: Draw. (3)

I will save everyone the skills breakdown because, hey, this fight happened over 7 years ago. The fight plays out with both men looking to impose their superior ground control and shooting for singles and doubles throughout various portions of the bout. In my mind, the guy who does the better job is Kang. Its basically 4 takedowns to 2 by the time the one 10 minute period passes. Additionally, his straight punching is more effective standing than Semenov's more eastern european kickboxing styled standup. I think he basically gets jobbed by the hometown folk, and the rematch went similarly in PRIDE a couple years later.

What the real talking point is here is where Kang was compared to where he is now. His activity level has dropped off tremendously. Everything that he does is not the same. There are raw skills, but the motivation to win is gone. And that's a big problem. Semenov of course went on to suffer numerous losses in a row, get KOed badly, and eventually faded from memory.

OVERALL FOR THE SHOW: 5 out of 10. Lots of carnage but a good fight at the end with meaning behind it.

JUNGLE FIGHT 10 (7/12/2008)

Far into the future we go thanks to some bad burns to Jungle Fight 10. By this point Jungle Fight has accepted that they are a small time promotion and now has a cage.

1) Allan Froes vs. Sebastian Bruno Pinto: Dudes. Weight class? No idea.

FIGHT: Froes Unanimous Decision. One of the worst fights I've ever seen. Froes stands in center ring and throws bad punches and kicks. Pinto runs pretty much the whole fight but gets double leg takedowns he does NOTHING with in the first and third rounds. (0)

2) Renato Souza vs. Alexandre Pimental: More dudes.

FIGHT: Pimental Unanimous Decision. (1)

Pimental: How many ragingly positive things can I say about an undefeated prospect who I thought clearly lost? He got outworked standing by Souza, whatever control he had on the mat was fleeting in terms of time compared to what time was spent getting jabbed in the face, and he even had his back taken for awhile. Totally gassed after the second. Not the finest moment.

Souza: For a nobody who's career is already over, Souza looked skilled. Had a lot of heart and was sort of a poor man's Cyborg style wise. His leg kicks were secondary to his punching and he pushed a little bit with his shots, but still, he wasn't bad.

3) Leonardo Pecanha vs. Pedro Manoel Santos: More guys I know nothing about. Pecanha lost to Steve Cantwell in a fight I wish I could have seen but the DVD crapped out on me before I could have. Santos came out of RIO HEROES.

FIGHT: Santos Unanimous Decision. (1)

Santos: Santos doesn't really stand much with Pecanha, choosing instead to shoot for takedowns. He gets them and outworks Pecanha, earning a perfect score. However, one thing that's apparent in round one is that he is willing to leave arms and legs in range for submission attempts. He slams his way out of armbars 3 times in round one.

Pecanha: Active fighter early on who's gas tank betrays him as does his overall skill. By round 2, the constant attacking from his back ends and he just gets rode.

4) Xavier Foupa-Pokam vs. Felipe Arinelli: PROFESSOR X! He comes out dancing and wearing a Jason mask. God bless him.

FIGHT: Professor X TKO Rnd 3. (2)

Prof X: Completely dominated for the first two rounds, a foul changes the course of the fight in round 3. Arinelli clinches with Pokam, who throws a knee to the body and then another one to the head...after Arinelli is on the mat. After a period to recover, Arinelli is not entirely clear headed and ends up being shaky on his feet and is dominated by Professor X in the clinch. He absorbs a lot of punches, another knee that may have come with a knee down, and is finally dropped to his back and punched out.

Arinelli: You feel bad for the guy a little. He won the first two going away, and though he did foul Professor X badly with a knee with the opponent down and a low blow, he was way out in front. And then he gets caught cold in a round, and that's all she wrote. His standup is nothing to be impressed with, for sure.

5) Paulo Denezet vs. Leonardo "Tangerina" Carvalho: This isn't on the Sherdog fightfinder? No idea why not.

FIGHT: Tangerina Submission Rnd 1. Denezet and Carvalho feel each other out, then Carvalho shoots for a takedown. As he passes to half guard, Denezet seems to tear something like his bicep and quits.

6) Ferrid Kheder vs. Paulo Thiago: Thiago everyone should be familiar with. Kheder was the one who promoted himself into a win over Hermes Franca in Costa Rica.

FIGHT: Thiago Unanimous Decision (3)

Thiago: In a fight between a welterweight contender and a lightweight nobody, you'd expect the welterweight to win pretty much every round, and that happens. In the standup, Thiago basically controls the pace and the distance with his famed roboboxing. I gotta admit, at times, it does look OK. He does get caught with an overhand right in round 3 though that he shouldn't have.

Kheder: He's an undersized grappler, and against a much bigger guy who's a black belt in BJJ, yeah, that's possibly a problem. Held at bay or on the bottom most of the fight, Kheder doesn't really give a good account of himself in any round except possibly the third, where he comes out a little more reckless and gets in a looping overhand right over the slow right hand of Thiago. Aside from that, he can't do much more than push Thiago for short times against the fence.

7) Terrell Dees vs. Assuerio Silva: Silva is fighting some dude.

FIGHT: Silva Submission Rnd 1. Not really a fight as much as it a squash. Silva takes down Dees, works for a RNC, and then transitions to a kneebar to finish inside 2 minutes. (2)

8) Luiz Azeredo vs. Roni Torres: Pretty interesting fight here among lightweights.

FIGHT: Torres Submission Rnd 1. Torres runs shit in this fight, taking down Azeredo, passing the guard, and constantly seeking submissions before locking in the Americana. Unfortunately for MMA fans, Torres effectively disappeared from the sport after this fight. (1)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Professor X/Arinelli

KO OF THE NIGHT: Professor X/Arinelli

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Silva/Dees

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 4 out of 10. Boring show for the most part with a couple squashes at the end. Its hard to make out a top 5 welterweight from what you see in Paulo Thiago here but he got to that point, even if its passed.

KOTC: Infusion (11/13/2010)

Televised via Fight Sports MMA on MSG+, this amazingly appeared on my DVR, apparently replacing the replays of Bodogfight. Only a couple fights are to be shown on this program, I think. This is at The Cannery, which is ridiculous to be holding a show. I merged a heavyweight fight shown on the PPV with this.

1) Todd Willingham vs. John Hahn: Lightweight bout between guys I know nothing about.

FIGHT: Willingham TKO Rnd 1. Jab-right hand and Hahn is OUT COLD. It was crisp, don't get me wrong, but 30 seconds into the fight to win that easily because you catch a guy cold and moving straight back, I don't know if there's anything to really decipher. (0)

2) Jack Montgomery vs. Chidi Njoukani: You gotta imagin Chidi is the brother of Anthony.

FIGHT: Njoukani Submission Rnd 1. Not a surprise that this is one sided, but yeah. Montgomery closes the distance and tries to take down Njoukani and is rudely rebuffed. He gets his back rode, he tries to get up and goes immediately into a guillotine that ultimately finishes the fight. (1)

3) Dave Hulett vs. Danny Davis Jr.: Dudes?

FIGHT: Hulett Submission Rnd 1. Davis gets dropped immediately with a right hand, Hulett is on top, eventually there's a sequence where they scramble and he locks in a guillotine. Not very competitive.

4) Tony Johnson Jr. vs. Boban Simic: Simic says in the prefight interview that he is fighting to make enough money that he can be frozen before death and be revived one day. I am serious. Johnson Jr. fought and lost to Daniel Cormier on a really awesome KOTC card.

FIGHT: Johnson Jr. Unanimous Decision. Guess what happens here? Johnson, a wrestler, gets double leg takedown after double leg takedown. Basically no stand up in this fight, while Johnson shows that he is a darn good wrestler, though perhaps not an elite one as Cormier proved. (2)

5) Josh Watson vs. Nick Gaston: Gaston has a huge afro and is awesome, while Watson is white, bald, and has tons of mean looking tattoos that make me think he could be a racist.

FIGHT: Gaston Submission Rnd 2. (1)

Gaston: At a distance, his striking is clearly better, but Watson lands knees and punches once he gets inside and to the clinch, and that's problematic over the long run for Gaston as he moves forward and fights other big or bigger guys. Bad sign. His grappling is better than Watson, which is expected, but again, it comes with the caveat that it wasn't exceedingly better. Yes, he's not Pe De Pano, but you want more than Dan Christensen with an Afro, which is what he may actually be.

Watson: Tough brawler type with minimal takedown skills, takedown defense, or ground work. Really, there was none. He had his back rode for most of the first and once he was taken down in the second, it was a matter of time until the RNC finish.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Watson/Gaston

KO OF THE NIGHT: Willingham/Hahn

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Gaston/Watson

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 3.5 out of 10. Short show no matter how you see it, with some bad squashes and a couple mildly interesting heavyweight encounters. One interesting other prospect too.

D&R Rating: 16% (4/25)

KOTC: Excessive Damage (5/13/2010) {syndicated cut}

Another show cut to an hour for local sports affiliates, this time Comcast Sports California. BTW, Sean Kenoba (?) is the announcer

1) Dave Rivas vs. Lazar Stojadinovic: Two journeymen in a featherweight bout.

FIGHT: Stojadinovic Split Decision. (0)

Stojadinovic: When you come straight forward with punches and just march and march till you get to the cage, it tells me you don't know how to keep distance to maximize your power. Not just because you end up smothering your own shots, but because you can't generate the same sort of power with feet up in the air as you do when they are planted. This is a big issue for Lazar.

Rivas: Rivas is clearly larger and a better grappler. He counter punches about as well as an 11-9-1 guy on the regional level is going to, touching up the face of Stojadinovic with some slapping hooks and stuff like that. He also scores a big takedown in the 2nd that earns him the round. But he lets Lazar's aggression sorta control the pace of the fight, and that probably costs him the decision.

2) Adam Lynn vs. Ricky Legere Jr.: Legere had just been beaten up by Bobby Green a couple months prior. Lynn had a few fights with the IFL.

FIGHT: Lynn Unanimous Decision. (0)

Lynn: Lynn brings straight punches. That sounds like such a middling thing, but man, is it ever valuable. He hurts Legere Jr. and gets the takedown at one point and pretty much all the really effective shots are landed here by the journeyman.

Legere Jr.: When your first plan is to keep distance and strike, and that fails, you need a backup plan. When the backup plan is to close the distance and get takedowns off the clinch and that fails you lose fights. Stands too straight, hands too vertical. Chin rises up when he strikes and moves forward. Even when active he mostly lands on the arms, then in the third gets caught moving straight back and square on the chin.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 4 out of 10. Passable fights, but meaningless. Works as background noise.

D&R Rating: 0%

NAAFS Cage Fighting (12/26/2010)

More from the 11/24/2010 NAAFS show.

1) Nick Kilian vs. Chris Green: Amateur series welterweight fight. Green has some belts or something and is huge. He's 5 lbs heavier than Kilian.

FIGHT: Green Split Decision. Crap call.

Green: Green is a house afire in round one and gets a takedown and even maneuvers into a near rear naked choke finish. Good body kick too. Then he is tired and spends most of the rest of his fight on his back. Somehow, he still wins.

Kilian: Plain fighter who looks like he has some sort of wrestling background. His shot sucks but he can get the takedown out of the clinch, which is nice. Unfortunately, his striking is just OK and that means be gets tagged as much as he lands. Between all that, he can't clearly dominate someone on technique.

2) John Myers vs. Rhett Northcraft: Lightweight bout; pros.

FIGHT: Myers TKO Rnd 1. Northcraft goes straight backwards as Myers comes forward with punches, ducks low, and gets a takedown. He's got back control for about 2 minutes, Myers uses wrist control to stop the RNC, and ends up rolling over into the guard. From there, he passes the guard, prevents Northcraft from scrambling, and sorta tosses him down and beats the hell out of Northcraft in the mount, forcing a stop some 3 minutes in.

3) Marc Bennett vs. Mickey Hughes: Welterweight bout; pros. Bennett is undefeated, Hughes has fought Chris Lozano and some other guys who aren't as good.

FIGHT: Hughes Submission Rnd 1. D'arce choke, ever popular, finishes the fight. Before that comes, Bennett had gotten this to the mat out of the clinch with a sorta bodylock takedown, but Hughes regains the full guard quickly and goes for an armbar. Bennett escaped it and stayed on top, but gets caught with the D'arce trying to move around. Oops.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 4 out of 10. Lousy decision for a hometown guy with a huge weight advantage, a D'arce choke, and a KOTC special. NAAFS brings the watchable and not much beyond that.

D&R Rating: 0%