KOTC: Stand Off (2/22/2008) & Combat Collection Vol. 2 Final Review

Alright, FINAL disc of the Combat Collection Vol. 2, which seems at this moment to be the last KOTC box set ever produced for sale and distribution. This show is coming at you from Soaring Eagle Casino in Mount Pleasant. Inman and Cordiero are announcing this show.

1) Brian Karmolinski vs. Joel Paquette: Lightweight amateurs.

FIGHT: Paquette Submission Rnd 1. Karmolinski gets deep and has the hands locked around both legs of Karmolinski and still can't get him down. He keeps pushing for the double and then the single on the outside leg and Paquette comes around to his back and chokes him out. (0)

At this point, in enters Pappa Schnake. Insert FUUUUUUUUUU jpeg here.

2) Jeremy Joles vs. Mike Sixel: More amateur lightweights. This is actually part of a one night 4 man tournament. Sixel is not new to my eyes having fought on a show I've reviewed before of KOTC that happened one month prior in Wisconsin. He also trains part time at Team Quest.

FIGHT: Sixel Unanimous Decision. Wow, this was horrible. They clinch and clinch and clinch and Joles gets pushed to the cage and he gets hit with about 10 punches during the fight that bloody Joles' nose. Crowd mostly boos after the fight when Schnake demands they make noise. Schnake also makes sure to mention the sponsors of the fighter before they're announced still. I hate hate hate that. (0)

3) Chris Henderson vs. Justin Jaynes: The other lightweight tournament bout. Jaynes I've seen before fighting as a welterweight.

FIGHT: Henderson Submission Rnd 2. Scrappy bout between a couple guys who aren't that talented or skilled right now. Henderson is a decent physical specimen and does a good job preventing Jaynes from staying in top position for very long ever in the fight. He's also got some semblance of a bottom game as is clear by him having submitted Jaynes with a triangle choke when Jaynes tried to enter the full guard in the second. (0)

4) Tyrone Holmes vs. Rodney Sleepers: Schnake takes like 30 minutes to introduce Holmes and sings part of Oh Canada doing it. Is it wrong to wish Big Papa to kill himself? That is perhaps a bit strong. Sleepers has when I've seen him, been totally boring. Middleweight division.

FIGHT: Sleepers Submission Rnd 2. Another Rodney Sleepers signature performance - flails coming in for the clinch, gets the takedown a couple times, generally works to getting the back, has enough time in round 2 to pull the choke off. He is cut when flailing coming forward in round one with a right hand. Both takedowns also didn't come off doubles or singles, but rather suplexes. Not big ones, just tight belly to bellys. (0)

5) Jordan Sullivan vs. Ben Lagman: More middleweights. This is yet another amateur tournament.

FIGHT: Lagman Submission Rnd 1. Lagman overpowers Sullivan in the ring, walking through his punches, getting the takedown, and taking the back. RNC finishes the glorified KOTC special. (0)

6) Tim Farr vs. Jorge Sarat: Couple more local boys I know nothing about.

FIGHT: Sarat Submission Rnd 1. Man, this goes bad for Farr immediately. He walks forward with his chin up punching and eats a right hand that fells him. He mounts him, punches him, and gets a bulldog choke/RNC from the side to finish it. (0)

7) Nick Turco vs. Josh Barnes: Turco once took a beating at the hands of Stipe Miocic that you can read all about here. Josh Barnes epitomizes the modern heavyweight journeyman. This bout is for the KOTC Amateur Heavyweight Title. Tyson Johnson also comes out and starts announcing again and I am so happy.

FIGHT: Barnes Unanimous Decision. Man, terrible fight. Turco tries a couple takedowns and gets stuffed huge. Otherwise the fight is all standup and Barnes lands the occasional arm punch or jab and that keeps Turco from doing much of anything en route to a decision win. (1)

8) Chad Herrick vs. Bryan Harper: Harper has come out from Temecula, CA. Herrick is the local boy.

FIGHT: Harper TKO Rnd 3. Sorta slow fight in the second that at least had some back and forth in the first. Honestly, I wasn't paying 100% attention to this because I don't care about the fighters, an the fight wasn't that important or good. Harper gets some decent takedowns and is in control outside of being rocked by what looked like a potential rabbit punch in the first. He lands a knee while Herrick windmills punches and Harper like flies backwards and lands on his back out cold. Harper has lost three straight, some of which were overseas. Herrick is just irrelevant at 7-6 on a regional level. (0)

9) Jerome Beal vs. Brad Burrick: Chad Burrick's brother was reviewed fighting on this show from 2010. Beal has two prior pro fights - one in 2000, one in 2005.

FIGHT: Burrick TKO Rnd 1. Beal is knocked out with a jab while throwing a front kick. Fight up to that was a mix of sloppy kicks and clinch work that did nothing to endear either man. (0)

10) Mike Sixel vs. Chris Henderson: FINALS! Who will win the lightweight tourney crown? Does anyone care?

FIGHT: Henderson TKO Rnd 2. Man, beatdown city. Sixel goes for the takedown and gets it in round one. Henderson though hangs on and forces a standup. Followup attempts don't go so well, Sixel gasses, and Sixel rushes Henderson at the start of round for the clinch and instead ends up thrown down, mounted, and pounded out with strikes. Henderson never fought again, Sixel made no real noise. (0)

11) Ben Lagman vs. Jorge Sarat: Finals of the middleweight tourney.

FIGHT: Sarat Unanimous Decision. Moderately interesting standup fight with Sarat throwing a lot of wild kicks - side kicks, spinning heel kicks, and the like. Lagman is much more orthodox but he gets freaked out a little and ends up standing at a distance and gets outworked. Its not like he doesn't have a plan - he's bigger and gets a big takedown in the first round. But then nothing happens with it. Lagman gets to be on Bully Beatdown. (0)

12) Joe Voisin vs. Matt Jaggers: KOTC is filling their vacant 145lb champion spot in this bout. Voisin is supposedly the big favorite here and is wearing wrestling shoes. Fight is for 5 3 minute rounds.

FIGHT: Jaggers Unanimous Decision. Jaggers is better standing, with takedowns, and on the mat. Voisin doesn't win a round outside of the 5th (thanks to a hard shot and takedown he gets), and otherwise Jaggers is stumbling Voisin almost every round by straight right hands. Voisin is simply very limited in terms of what he can do. He's a strong wrestler, but against someone stronger and better, how can he implement his gameplan? His boxing isn't good enough to terminate someone's timing or rhythm either. Jaggers rolls here and gets a call from Sengoku not that long afterwards where he does nothing. Most notable about this fight - Jaggers forces Voisin to tap out due to strikes before the bell sounds for round 3, but after the fight is stopped, it is miraculously determined that Voisin, who is the local fighter in the contest, had tapped out after the bell, in spite of it being very clear that it occurred before hand when watching. The fight is then restarted for round 4. (0)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Lagman/Sarat

KO OF THE NIGHT: Harper/Herrick

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Henderson/Jaynes

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 2 out of 10. Crap everywhere. Fighters that don't matter. Fights that aren't good. The main event features flat out corruption. Bad, bad, bad.

D&R Rating: 2% (1/60)

Combat Collection Vol. 2:

Stand Off: 2 out of 10 (2%)

Arch Rivals: 4.5 out of 10 (17.5%)

Collision Course: 5 out of 10 (11%)

Sinister: 3 out of 10 (5%)

Caged Chaos: 2 out of 10 (7%)

AVG: 3.3 (8.5%)

To compare:

Underground Soldiers: 2.55 (5.1%)

Underground Enforcers: 2.78 (8.2%)

Underground Worldwide: 2.7

Underground Warriors: 3.55

Combat Collection: 5.9

Back almost precisely 2 years ago, I stated that I was done watching KOTC shows on DVD. It was, at that point, a waste of time to me. The shows were bad, the fights awful, and they weren't getting better. Look at that comparison of the first Combat Collection to the second. There's a huge dropoff of the rating per fight. In fact, the average card on the Combat Collection Vol 1 is better than the best show the second set offers for pure entertainment value. For actual importance, its not even comparable. The sets are certainly consistent, but they are consistently bad. Its a shame, because there are good KOTC events. I've seen 'em! My favorite B-show of 2010 was a KOTC event. But these? Not so good.

ReMix World Cup (12/5/2000)

Once, long ago, there was no women's MMA. Or at least, like none other than Becky Levi beating up other ugly women on IFC cards. And then there was this: ReMix World Cup, a one night openweight women's MMA tourney. This is a really great bootleg I have, probably from some US commercial version of the DVD. There's Joshi wrestlers and all sorts of stuff. No idea on the rules, but I guess I'll find out? This was done at the Nippon Budokan, BTW. Apparently this promotion somehow became Smackgirl wikipedia says? OK.

This review was so long in the making. Tom Gentleman sent me the DVD requesting I review it over 2 years ago. I feel bad that it took this long. I hope I am rewarded.

1) Miwako Ishihara vs. Becky Levi: Ishihara does karate. That I can tell. Becky Levi I think is into women or trucking or both and trains with Dan Severn. She is also like twice the size of Ishihara.

FIGHT: Levi Split Decision: A slow motion version of Paul Varelans vs. Cal Worsham. worsham and Ishihara even punch the same way when presented with a tired version of their monstrous foe. Matter of fact, I started watching Barreto/Varelans while this was on my TV using youtube because, hey, that was an awesome thing when that happened. In case you've never seen that -

CARLOS BARRETO vs. PAUL VARELANS: From Brazil Vale Tudo Open 1997. Varelans tells us he is ready to rock and roll. Barreto just wants us to know that we're in for a great fight. They lock up in center ring almost immediately and Barreto gets a trip takedown on Varelans. The camera work is dreadful as it misses this and instead zooms in on some random dude on the crowd from through the cage before panning down to where the guys are on the mat. Barreto proceeds to mount and smash Varelans with punches until the ref stops it. Easy work for Barreto, who was awesome once.

Oh. Wait. This is a review of another fight. So anyways, back to Levi/other person. The Japanese fighter ends up being less tired than Becky Levi and actually begins to push back and put her in the corner in the end of the second round. Makes for a close but not wholly compelling fight. Levi wins a split decision as the judges apparently appreciate her Scott Ferozzoesque gameplan. (2)

2) Floor Holman vs. Junko Yagi: I have no idea who these girls are. Yagi has fancy yellow clothes with Junko across the ass. Junko in the trunk, if you will. Apparently Junko is a pro wrestler sez the internet.

FIGHT: Yagy TKO Rnd 2. Yagi punches like a girl. I know, I know. She fucking does, OK? I'm sorry. Somehow she bloodies Holman's nose with the hammerfist looking strikes, and Holman is obviously a kickboxer type given that she is dutch and can throw a body kick. In the second she does an awesome judo throw to Holman and is in side control and they stand them after like 5 seconds? Uhhh. I guess there's a limit to mat work. I think I read about that. The big issue in the fight is that Holman's wrist gets hurt punching in round 1. She like turns away and cringes and screams, but the ref allows the fight to be paused and continue. Huh? In the second it gives way again and this time he stops it. (0)

3) Erin Toughill vs. Rodina Irina: Toughill is batshit crazy and fighting some Russian Judoka that is like 50 lbs heavier than her.

FIGHT: Toughill Split Decision. Huh? Irina takes her down and works for subs THE ENTIRE FIGHT. Toughill basically doesn't do anything, but wins. Why? I have no idea. The 20 second max for ground work keeps Irina from winning. Too bad, honestly. (2)

4) Svetlana Goundarenko vs. Kyoko Inoue: Goundarenko is the easy favorite coming in because she is HUGE. Inoue is a big Joshi wrestler AND WEARING FACE PAINT, and still half the size.

FIGHT: Goundarenko Submission Rnd 1: The enormous russian MAULS Inoue, who resorts to running the ropes to get leverage but is generally tossed around and suplexed and shit. Some sort of warning is given to her for beating the shit out of this girl? Then Inoue shoots a single and gets rolled on top of because when Goundarenko lays around the house, bitch lays around the house. SHOOT URANGE from Goundarenko. She is screaming BECAUSE INOUE IS BITING HER. Yellow card given. Another takedown from Goundarenko and she wins with a side headlock/neck crank. That was absolutely the greatest thing I've seen in forever. (2)

5) Mika Harigai vs. Marloes Coenen: This is also a fight? Coenen is STILL relevant. Hell, wait, she's the SF 135lb champ, isn't she?

FIGHT: Coenen Submission Rnd 1. Complete domination. Harigai is dropped with punches early, Coenen clearly can't kick a downed foe because she wants to and stops herself, then runs around back and gets the rear naked choke. 33 seconds. (4)

6) Bambi Beroncello vs. Megumi Yabushita: Another Joshi star facing a random American.

FIGHT: Yabushita Submission Rnd 1. BACKDROP DRIVAHHHHHHH. Okay it wasn't but it was some crazy fucking slam as Beroncello goes over the head of Yabushita and then Yabushita puts her body into it to put her on the mat. After some uncomfortable standup, Yabushita goes for the double and immediately transitions into an armbar. Slick! (1)

7) Becky Levi vs. Junko Yagi: Becky Levi continues her march to assumed glory. Well, maybe not.

FIGHT: Levi Unanimous Decision. Yagi's sloppy striking isn't so effective against a much bigger foe looking to clinch and play her game. Leg trips? Not working on Becky Levi. Female Ferrozzo, meanwhile, plies her trade of dirty boxing and knees well. Levi is so arm weary at the end of this.

(2)

8) Svetlana Goundarenko vs. Erin Toughill: Oh my god. Yes. YES. YESSSSSSSS.

FIGHT: Goundarenko Submission Rnd 1. Another fight where Goundarenko wins with side head lock after throwing around Toughill and mauling her like a bear. She tries to suffocate Toughill with a standing side headlock using her fat. (3)

9) Marloes Coenen vs. Becky Levi: Weird way to do the tourney, but OK. I guess if you are bigger, you have to fight more.

FIGHT: Coenen Submission Rnd 1. Coenen is dominating the fight with kickboxing, then clinches with Levi. Why play that game, I mean HOLY SHIT SHE JUST THREW A FLYING ARMBAR AND LEVI VERBALLY SUBMITTED. (4)

10) Svetlana Goundarenko vs. Megumi Yabushita: I can't even speak.

FIGHT: Yabushita Unanimous Decision. Why break this fight down or try to do play by play? What is the point? Goundarenko often blocks takedowns with these pancake sprawls, but sometimes Yabushita like wriggles out of the rolls and then goes for heel hooks and punches and it is an incredible thing. Maybe the greatest thing. The Hackney/Yarborough of women's MMA. Maybe even better than Yarborough/Hackney. (3)

After the bout, we get lots of backstage stuff for the next fight. Apparently it is a super fight of some sort. Who is this?

11) Atsuko Sakuraba vs. Tatiana Kovochinova: No idea who either is. Tatiana says something about being Russian in the prefight hype video.

FIGHT: Kovochinova Submission Rnd 1. Sakuraba tries to outlast an armbar that Kovochinova puts on her by going the 20 seconds but cannot continue. Apparently Sakuraba is a TV personality who came to fight against a multitime Russian Judo champ. I think she still does color for stuff like K-1 Dynamite though. She looks really familiar. *INSERT RACIST STATEMENT HERE* (1)

12) Marloes Coenen vs. Megumi Yabushita: A worthy main event and final.

FIGHT: Coenen Unanimous Decision. Coenen is willing to work wherever and can. Yabushita, meanwhile, only really has one place she can do anything, which is the mat. She goes for takedowns and gets them with some frequency, but can't do anything inside of 20 seconds. Coenen also is generally more successful with submission attempts, but again; only 20 seconds means not enough time to really pull stuff off. (4)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Yabushita/Goundarenko

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Kovochinova/Sakuraba

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 7 out of 10. Look, this is all about the fat woman fights. And Coenen winning by flying armbar. Nothing else on the show is not that good. But my god, the fat woman fights. Epic.

D&R Rating: 50% (30/60)

SHINE Fights: Lightweight Grand Prix (9/10/10)

Beau Taylor and BRUCE BECK are the announcing team for this event, which was a total mess. Originally scheduled to occur in Florida, the one night 8 man tournament format was rejected at the last minute and moved to an Oklahoma indian casino. Who's in the tournament? Carlos Prater, Drew Fickett, and Krazy Horse. And other guys. And it gets better - the fights were voted on by the fans! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The fights? The quarters and semis are 2 5 minute rounds with a 3 minute OT round in case there is a draw. No elbows are allowed in those fights. In the final, its 3 5 minute rounds with elbows being allowed.

The setup here is tiny. Are there 500 people in the crowd? Entrance to the ring is maybe 6 feet?

1) Charles "Kid Khaos" Bennett vs. Drew Fickett: Voted on by most of the fans. A train wreck of personalities.

FIGHT: Fickett Submission Rnd 1. This is about what you would expect. Fickett takes this to the mat and consistently works for submissions, which Bennett is wide open for. Bennett slams his way out of an armbar and pulls out of a armbar, but Fickett is eventually successful jumping to a guillotine standing. Bennett tries some sort of Canadian Destroyer sort of flip slam and ends up on his back getting choked out cold. Some dude from Young Indiana Jones is doing the in ring interviews. LOL (2)

2) Dennis Bermudez vs. Shannon Gugerty: Strange, strange fight to be watching IMO. Bermudez is undefeated and a last second replacement, Gugerty is a UFC reject.

FIGHT: Bermudez Unanimous Decision. The magic of a ring - at the end of the first, Bermudez goes for a trip takedown and both men tumble out of the ring. Gugerty's head lands on a chair and he needs a little time to recover. (1)

Bermudez: He's a good fighter. No lie. Very acceptable striking in terms of being an MMA fighter - pushes his shots a little, but tries to keep his hands up and really uses it more to set up the shot than anything. He's a good athlete. Has some decent takedowns too. Strong. There's a problem though - he's too small for 155. He needs to go down to 145.

Gugerty: Set on the back foot from the start, he only manages to slow down takedowns and absorb jabs. This in spite of huge advances in size and experience. He really couldn't do anything off his back either except to escape and return to his feet, where he was outdone by Bermudez's superior hand and foot speed.

BEN HENDERSON INTERVIEW~

3) Kyle Baker vs. James Warfield: Who? Baker hasn't fought in 11 months. Warfield has fought in every club show ever say the announcers. Wow, that means a lot.

FIGHT: Baker Split Decision. Another fight where the ring plays a big part - Warfield goes for a flying knee in the second and goes clean over the top rope, landing on a table outside and hurting his ribs. After a break to let him recover, its back on. We also get an overtime round! Yellow cards appear for Baker? What the hell? (1)

Baker: The first round he found himself totally controlled by Warfield, who was using very unorthodox techniques to draw Warfield's hands down or keep him off guard. Baker also sustained a nasty gash over his left eye from a punch of Warfield's. That theme continued into the second round with Warfield throwing strange bolo punches and pulling cool feints and keeping Baker offguard. Then Warfield flew over the top rope and seemed to hurt his right side of his abdomen. From that point on, Baker took over, closing the distance, getting the fight on the mat with trips, and nearly choking out Warfield in the second. Somehow he loses the third on a judges score card in spite of me not understanding how. He controlled the whole round. Maybe because of the yellow card?

Warfield: A decent enough striker early on with wild shots that would probably be countered well by a skilled athletic fighter of a higher caliber. After going out of the ring, he never truly recovers. It takes a lot out of him speed and agility wise. Baker then keeps the fight close and never relents with his own offensive attack. Warfield's wrestling is not all that and a bag of chips either. That is something he could have relied on and simply didn't have in his bag.

At this point, we have a nice long pause to re-tighten the ropes. They note that Baker might not even be able to continue, but mention that there is an alternate bout that happened which we didn't even hear about.

4) Rich Crunkilton vs. Carlo Prater: Another strange fight of guys who were jettisoned from the big boy promotions. They're good fighters, but who is really excited to see this?

FIGHT: Crunkilton Split Decision. Another Overtime round, plus a pause in between the first and second for "technical difficulties". Clearly, Crunkilton won the second and Prater the first. The third though was contested between two very gassed out men and ended up super competitive. I thought Prater only landed one really decent shot and got hit a couple times himself and was taken down and should have lost, so I'm OK with the decision. (1)

5) Dennis Bermudez vs. Drew Fickett: The ting walks start almost immediately after the last quarterfinal.

FIGHT: Fickett Submission Rnd 1. Again, Fickett just dominates a smaller man. This time, Bermudez is simply less seasoned and prepared to deal with a guy who is a legit threat as a submission wrestler and gets taken down to the mat, sees his guard passed, and gives up the back trying to get away. A RNC follows in short order. (1)

6) Carlo Prater vs. Charles Brown: And the next fight is a hot mess. With both of the winners of the latter fights being out of the tournament, Prater has come back and Charlie Brown, the winner of the alternate fight against Brian Van Hoven, are in. Again in Prater's case. Also, Prater takes like ten minutes to get into the ring because he needs his gloves re-taped.

FIGHT: Prater Majority Decision. This time Prater didn't need to go to OT, and while I had it 29-29, I knew hearing the scorecards who won. The first was unbelievably close, as Brown and Prater spent most of the round at great distance throwing leg kicks and jabs. Prater actually got shook up by a Brown punch but came back to clinch and throw Brown before the end of the round. In the second, it was all Prater. He took down Brown multiple times and held dominant position. Not a great fight by any means. (1)

At this point, we get some native american drumming. Amazing.

7) Carlo Prater vs. Drew Fickett: Your SHINE GP finals. Was the winner even paid? Who knows. This is a rematch of a fight Fickett won. Of course, for that fight, Prater hadn't been in the ring for 23 minutes prior to getting in to fight him.

FIGHT: Fickett Submission Rnd 1. KOTC special - Fickett with a shot immediately, passes the guard, punches, forces Pickett into giving his back, and chokes out Prater to win the Grand Prix. BTW, fun fact - Sherdog lists the amount of time for this second RNC in a row as being the same about as the semifinal win over Bermudez. (1)

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Bennett/Fickett

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Fickett/Bennett

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 5 out of 10. In the tradition of modern day one night tournaments, the show feels roughshod. In fact, the repeated technical problems lead me to believe that someone had to go to the truck and convince the people in it to keep running.

OK, you say - production wise it was worse than YAMMA. But then this is a website that will watch anything. Shit with no production values gets reviewed. What about the fights? Well, the fights. They are fights. Part of the problem in watching them is that you have guys drilled into being sparring partner types fighting one another because technically they are good and SHINE wanted technically good fighters. I'm not saying everyone was like that. Bermudez didn't fight like a sparring partner. Bennett and Fickett threw down. So did, to a lesser extent, Baker and Warfield. So there were better fights than YAMMA. Even the mediocre fights were at least technically interesting and competitive.

Is this a bad show? From the perspective of whether or not I feel compelled to suggest it to anyone, I suppose it is. Aside from the Fickett fights, what is there to point to and be excited about? With all respect to Shannon Gugerty, he doesn't have the cache that Murilo Bustamante or Thales Leites in my mind as far as being a great fighter is concerned. Or, for that matter, as far as potential is concerned. So I know that those bouts perhaps mean about as much as Gugerty in this tournament did - an argument I admit can be made - but hardcore fans will watch Murilo Bustamante fight anyone so long as it isn't a MARS show and it isn't Tom Erikson in the opposing corner. Who is demanding Shannon Gugerty fights? Is anyone hoping to see a glimpse of the man that beat Dale Hartt? I find that hard to believe. I know I am not such a man, nor have I met a person who is either electronically via internet forum or in real life.

So what you are left with is a mess of a fight card that is poorly put on, feels incredibly minor league (makes the Gracie Fighting Championship feel like the NFL by comparison), and features a lot of fighters who've gotten their shot, never did a whole lot of memorable stuff with it, and haven't proven that they deserve another. Will SHINE run another event? Who knows.

D&R Rating: 23% (8/35)