1) Curt Lemmon vs. Mark Garcher: Garcher looks all stoked and muscular and Lemmon has fancy trunks with a sorta Spiderman pattern thing going on. Amateur fight among middleweights.
FIGHT: Lemmon TKO Rnd 2. Competitive bout with Garcher being a predictable face forward bruiser and Lemmon being more of a defensive BJJ guy with straighter punches, less of a mean streak, and some cool leg sweeps in the clinch. Garcher's physical strength and gorilla style determination keep him in the fight longer than it probably should have, while Lemmon eventually lands a left hook early on in the second and then follows Garcher to the mat, landing punches until we get a stoppage. Nothing spectacular. (0)
2) Brandon Saling vs. John Fields: Fields is a big lanky black guy and Saling is doing a Chuck Liddell impression in every way imaginable. Middleweight pro bout.
FIGHT: Saling TKO Rnd 1. Both guys suffer eye pokes and there's some sloppy grappling along with lots of power punching. Saling's stuff has more behind it, I would venture to say, and Fields drops like 5 times in this fight from right hands, left hooks, and lots of short uppercuts. He just crumbles time and time again. Eventually he gives his back after one of these crumblings and the RNC is applied with just 2 seconds left. Saling is doing his alpha male thing here and that's OK. Unfortunately he has a lot of defensive liabilities to make it very far in the sport. Fields, who has a .500 record pro and amateur mixed, is clearly going nowhere fast. (0)
3) Nick Duell vs. Kevin Knabjian: Knabjian almost got on TUF. Duell was never invited. Now we have this welterweight attraction.
FIGHT: Duell TKO Rnd 2. Monster KO from a high kick in the second round as Duell times the robotic wrestleboxer Knabjian coming in with a lead right hand. Duell looks much more fluid and competent as a striker - he's going to the body, the head, throwing liver kicks, all that stuff. But he does still pull straight back too often, his chin can be left high, he doesn't have the best balance, and I'm not sure he has anything on his punches. Is he closing his fists fully or just throwing stuff out there to have the handspeed advantage? He didn't dent Knabjian with anything until the kick landed. But land it did. There's a lot of guys I'd like to see Duell in with and some of them are reasonable picks. Meanwhile, there's Knabjian, who is going to be a journeyman or retire. (1)
OVERALL FOR THE SHOW: 6 out of 10. No great fights, but there's some entertainment here, particularly with the main event and some of the sloppy openers.
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