Over a month ago, DeepdiscountDVD had their sale, and I was buyin'. I bought all the commercial US Bushido DVDs I had left and also three of those budget KOTC boxed sets. The tough part, however, is finding time to watch them, or the impetus to find said time. So this is to that end. I'll try and watch one of the 25 events I have now on DVD per day and do a match by match account. At the end of the event, I will rank it on a scale of 1-10, 10 being shockingly good and 1 being a utter unwatchable piece of crap from start to finish, as well as copy the UFC awards they give out for events (Fight of the Night/KO Of The Night/Submission Of The Night). I'll also do them in chronological order. This should take like, a solid two months to do, but why not? No one will read it, but this has always been about me first and foremost, so as long as it helps me get up to watch this shit, it sounds like a good idea.

And in case you care, which you don't, the events are coming off of KOTC's Underground Warriors, Underground Worldwide, and Combat Collections.

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#1
Oceania/Australia (2/4/2005+2/10/05+7/2/05)

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. KOTC 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.

I can't wait til you do the Singapore show, which might be the worst MMA on DVD. It's only virtue is brevity.

Those DVDs are worth every penny. Maybe. But not a penny more.

Hell, I'll definitely be reading it. I've waded through some bad KOTC shows so it will be great to have a guide for them. You are a great man for doing this.

#2
Shock and Awe (10/1/05)

This show is a massive upgrade. TSN does the production and it shows like a mothafucka. Your announcers include Mauro Ranallo (FUCK) and DICK ROUFUS.

1) JESSE LESSARD vs. DONNIE WALKER: Walker is from Jason Dent’s camp. Lessard represents JEET KUN DO and is 0-1 in MMA, having lost in a nondescript KOTC bout the last time they were in Edmonton (which I think is on another boxed set and has Brendan Seguin/Joe Doerkson as the main event or something).

Anyhow, Walker’s wins are all by submission, and I bet you can guess how this goes. Almost immediate takedown, Walker on top, guard pass, full mount, punches and elbows like WHAT, traps the left arm with the knee, and then takes the outstretched right arm for the armbar and a now bloody and regretful Lessard begs for mercy. We are all richer for it.

2) DAVID RODRIGUE vs. DEMARQUES JOHNSON: Massacre coming. Rodrique looks 45 and claims to be a disciple of JKD going on 14 years. Johnson trains with a real camp being trained and managed by Jeremy Horn, drops a bunch of names of dudes who beat him up, and its great. RAMPAGE is guesting on the announce team. I am so amped up. Rampage remarks that he thinks Bruce Lee would have done well in the cage. Luckily, no one saw this, and so there were no threads started as a result. Jeremy Horn is also briefly interviewed and says he has 10-15 years left of fighting. Whaaaa? I love Mike Naimark, but when he says that MMA fighters will never suffer the kind of encephalopathy that boxers have, I disagree to a point. The comparative safety of the sport will keep a lot of men fighting longer than they should, and punches in sparring may be lighter (16oz + headgear, after all), but still fuck up the head plenty. Keep doing it ‘till you’re fifty and shit is going down. Especially the Shooto guys. They have standing 8s!

The fight is similar to the one prior. Johnson gets the clinch, does some judo throw that probably has “ishii” and “gata” in the name and then beats the unholy shit out of him until Rodrigue verbally quits. “Would Bruce Lee turn his back like that?,” asks a philisophical Rampage Jackson. We may never know, Quinton. It will be the thing 1,000,000 posts on Sherdog are made of.

3) CHRIS PEAK vs. RON FIELDS: Before the fight starts, Joe Doerkson stops in to say hello. Joe reminds me of this chick that was pretty cool in high school, but had that same sorta scar on her lip, perhaps exascerbated. She got no love. Real shame and shit. Fields sucks, and I know nothing about Peak (other than his record blows), but they get pyro for some reason. I bet they throw shitty punches and shittier kicks!

This fight contains a few minutes of each man pawing the air before Peak shoots in and gets the takedown. Fields and Peak roll on the ground in a fashion that channels the magic ubershittiness of Laughing/Moskowitz in each other’s side control before Fields thinks it’s a good idea to shove his arm between Peak’s legs and trap himself. 30 seconds of hammerfists and elbows later, the ref pulls Peak off the defenseless Fields.

4) KEVIN MANDERSON vs. MIKE JERACE: Manderson is apparently a fighter trained by Doerkson, and Jerace is an ex-boxer (Boxrec shows him as 1-1 now, with his win in 1995 and his loss in 2006). Jerace was also responsible for the sole loss on Jesse Lessard’s ledger. Manderson is a former Canadian champion in Greco Roman or something and he doesn’t like to strike. He’s also way uncomfortable in prefight interview segments.

Here's another classic, as its the 3rd obvious lousy striker/good grappler bout. Manderson takes him down with a slam, then Jerace is actually able to recover and get up….only to suffer a pro wrestling style belly to back side suplex from Manderson. He prevents Manderson from instantly mounting after that, but gets pushed into the cage and beat up with elbows till Herb Dean steps in.

5) JIMMY BOYD vs. JOSH KYREJTO: Kyrejto is a former college football player in Canada and is a primary standup guy. Boyd trains out of Muncie and is primarily a wrestling. Boyd has several pro fights. Josh none. WHAT WILL HAPPEN.

If you're thinking, “Kyrejto gets taken down and figuratively raped”, you are pretty much on the money. The ex football player is able to tie up enough to make it through round 1 by getting stood up, taken down on multiple occasions, but a slam at the start of Round 2 and the subsequent beating ends it early there. Who says clash of styles is dead?

6) MAC DANZIG vs. FRANK KIRMSE: More pyro during the ring walks. Kirmse is a dude who has fought a bunch and isn’t all that good. Something tells me that you may be familiar with this Mac Danzig fellow. Jeremy Horn appears from the ether to co-announce.

Fight starts with Kirmse faking a front kick and Danzig, probably half in astonishment that someone would feint with THAT, throws a head kick that lands square, dropping Kirmse to a knee. Clinch up. As Roufus calls Horn “Gumby” and gets an audible groan, Danzig trips Kirmse and gets into side control. From there, its knee ride-mount-punches-Kirmse gives his back, more strikes, RNC, and Mac Danzig gets another easy paycheck. Dick Roufus goes, “That’s my favorite move in jiujitsu. I learned it first. Its great.” He followed this in depth analysis with a soliloquy about Spot and his travels.

7) “SLICK” RICK MCCORKELL vs. BILLY “THE” KIDD: Billy Kidd likes Chuck Liddell. That means he’ll probably lose. Rick McCorkell is trained by Alessio and Danzig. Dick Roufus loves wordplay about dudes being muscular also. “You need a bandaid, ‘cause this dude is cut!” Kidd is trained in Muncie at Team Wolfpack and has a superior record. They are both bantamweights and not named Beebe so no one knows who they are.

McCorkell shoots in with the takedown, gets it, Kidd scrambles back to his feet, McCorkell gets him down again, takes the back, rides him for a little while and then gets the choke. If this was my first MMA show, I’d have given up on the sport immediately. I mean, every single match is “dude gets takedown, other guy is inept, fight ends soon after”. Not only that, they throw the shitty locals in with like, good fighters rather than each other. Way to burn the town, guys.

8) DAVID MAH vs. KYLE CHEYNE: Mah did some kung fu when he was younger. Mah is apparently a grappler and Cheyne likes to stand. Another one? ANOTHER? Mah comes out dressed as Great Muta. Cheyne is 18 years old. He also outweighs Mah by 20 lbs (185lbs-166lbs). Rampage is interviewed again. He likes Edmonton because dudes say “eh”. He also says he wants to fight a couple more years and then act.

Guess what happens? Brief standup exchange, Mah takes down Cheyne, gets side control pounds on him, gets full mount, more pounding, Cheyne flips on his belly and gets choked out. Ranallo brings up Ultimo Dragon during the replays, because a dude really beating the dog shit out of another dude really makes me think of lucha trained japanese guys.

Oooh! A Terry Trebelcock interview! Just what we need now. He’s going to run Canada 40-50 times in the next 5 years so he says.

9) BRANDON GARNER vs. JASON DENT: Jason Dent is now a UFC vet well after this fight and already back on the club shows. Garner will probably get a contract from someone eventually if he’s still active.

Slight variation on the usual fomula for the night. Longer standup section where no one does anything. Garner shoots in, pulls guard, Dent follows him in with Garner using the butterfly guard and then transitioning to an open guard. Dent moves up to throw punches, gets caught in a triangle choke, elevates Garner in an attempt to escape and puts him against the fence, but Garner holds on and gets the win by tapout.

10) ELMER WHERHEN vs. MIKE NEWTON: Newton claims japanese shootwrestling, BJJ, and kickboxing. Uh-huh. The other dude is named Elmer. Who the fuck is named Elmer? I guess this dude and people who end up in my place of work with acute respiratory failure and a birthdate prior to 1930.

Brief standup battle ends with Elmer landing on Newton and Newton goes down. Then he starts the GNP and OH GOD huge hammerfist from the ceiling ends it all. I have a feeling there was no tear filled interview with Inoki afterwards where he expressed his sadness at the failure of pro wrestling.

11) JOHN ALESSIO vs. SAVANT YOUNG: I’m familiar with Young from his time in IFL, and he was pretty good, but this is two years before, so who knows what he’s like. BUT BEFORE THAT: JOHN ALESSIO vs. RONALD JHUN HIGHLIGHTS. And what an exciting package it is. I’m scared to ask…how was the UCC 12 bout with Jason Black?

I guess I should talk about this fight now. Jeremy Horn is back behind the desk. Dull as dishwater first round that is all standup. Alessio lands a nice knee and some okay jabs, Savant Young throws a bunch of low kicks and nothing else lands, much less lands effectively. Round 2 sees Young come out with a lot of punches, generally with a double jab followed by a straight right, and Alessio responds by getting the takedown and controlling Young. He almost subs Young at the end of the round, but in Round 3 he forces Young to pull guard almost immediately, beats him up, takes mount, forces Savant Young to give up his back and…well…guess.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT(S): Alessio/Young. Rarely does John Alessio get such honors, but that is the case here in the sole actually competitive bout.

KO OF THE NIGHT(S): Boyd/Kyrejto. That dude's last name was tough and so I was glad he got rolled. Plus he wasn't old like most of the other guys who got KOed.

SUBMISSTION OF THE NIGHT(S): Dent/Garner. Most challenging one to get of the submissions, and the best attempt to get out of it. Plus Dent is a pretty good midlevel talent these days.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 5 out of 10: From the perspective of it being a King Of The Cage show, maybe a 7, but I'm ranking it as an event independent of its origin. Most of these points go to Rampage's camera time and the decent production of the show.

No KOTC for today because I watched them out of order, not even looking at the list I made myself. Swift. I should have one for tommorrow and I've already watched the 4th in a row and wrote the whole thing up. Next up is Execution Day, which is actually a nice looking show featuring Ryan Healy, Warpath, Mac Danzig, Aaron Bring, and Urijah Faber.

#3
Execution Day (10/29/05)

I watched these slightly out of order, but doing so was a good thing. Helped reenergize me. Erik Apple plus Tedd Williams are the crew for this, which was apparently live originally.

1) STEPHEN THAMES vs. AARON JAMESON: Two dudes I have no familiarty with whatsoever. Jameson beats the dude up pretty bad and wins with a guillotine easily.

2) ADAM TORRES vs. PAT HEALY: Torres is some dude from a Gracie JJ dojo. Healy, of course, went on to some measure of fame being on Ken Shamrock’s Nevada Lions where he did okay. Serious ass staredown too. Healy is way taller.

Healy’s size advantage is a big factor. He slams Torres a couple times easily and uses it to gain dominant position. He eventually gets the armbar and surprises the announcers, ending before the first round passes.

3) PHIL GARCIA vs. DAN MOLINA: This is a heavyweight fight, and I’m kinda worried. Garcia is a Kerry Schall victim. Molina is from Lions Den and looks way blown up here. Like, the Baldwin brother on Celebrity Rehab blown up. Ken Shamrock is cornering him, and I’m sure this would already be Clown’s favorite bout.

Molina shoots in, Garcia is on the ground, but still sorta defending it, though he’s on his ass. Molina rolls him over, and in doing so, opens some space, enough to grab the left foot of Garcia. Garcia rolls back, essentially in a kneeling/sitting position, and when he does that, he traps his own leg in a toehold. Lions Den fighter by leglock. Sorta. Hey, a fitting tribute.

4) JOE COTA vs. JAMIE JARA: Jara is from CAL WORSHAM’S TEAM. WHAT. I didn’t know that. Worsham was a cop, right? Jara looks like a MS-13 member. How does that work? Joe Cota is a dude of a nondescript nature. This is a 185lb fight, BTW.

Good first round, really, Jara gets a takedown and a leg and gets to work submissions on it for a good minute, but never figures out what to do. Go figure that the trainer with a heavy background in TKD isn’t good teaching kneebars. Cota eventually gets his leg free and ends up in top position for awhile, though he’s not particularly effective with anything. Jara is able to force the fight to the feet and when it gets there, they throw down with a lot of looping bombs. Both men are poorly conditioned and with about :30 left in the round, they are breathing really heavy.

Second round is equally fun. Standup is brief and Jara ends up getting the takedown and controls Cota, beating him pretty heavily, attaining mount, and then getting Cota’s back. Cota, nearly being choked out, responds to the camera and perhaps Jara’s camp by giving the middle finger. Chin tucked in, Cota survives, is able to turn into Jara’s guard, and unleashes some shots of his own. Cota eventually leaves Jara’s open guard and stands up, forcing both men to their feet and a slow dance for the rest of the round as they stare at each other, both super winded. Third round is almost sleep inducing though. Cota’s all done and operating off just heart, and Jara has just fumes in the tank, but that’s more than Cota, and thus he wins a primarily slow standup final 5 and takes the decision. And now Jara has fought MMA on national television. What a world. Of course, so has Ray Steinbeiss, so it doesn’t really mean anything.

THIS IS THE MAIN CARD. A BIG VIDEO PACKAGE TELLS ME SO. The ring girls get introduced and shit and I just fast forward past it. Like I give a fuck about whatever local strippers they’re paying $300 to for the show.

5) TAKEFUMI HANAI vs. BUDDY CLINTON: Clinton shares his name with a dead ex-presidential dog, whereas Hanai fought in everyone’s favorite MMA organization with techno music and weird rules about closed guard.

Hanai attempts to channel Genki Sudo and does a weird sideways stance. Clinton takes a few seconds to analyze it, throws a solid leg kick, then takes down Hanai and beats him up. In fact, he’s pretty much totally dominant in the round. Hanai ends up on his feet and does nothing with it, at one point throwing a koppo kick looking thing.

Round 2 has Hanai faking the leaping Mongolian Chop on a standing Clinton and absorbing a right to the face. He clinches up and goes for a ride, with Clinton slamming him hard. Hanai locks up Clinton and gets the fight stood up. While there, he lands a hard right hand that so bothers Clinton that he backs up most of the rest of the round, even as Hanai turns away from him and expresses his discontent with the lack of action to the crowd. Towards the end of the round, Clinton shoots in and Hanai tries a guillotine. It doesn’t work though, and Clinton lays on him till the bell sounds.

Round 3 doesn’t last long. Takefumi lands a hard right hand and drops Clinton, and following punches cause Mazagatti as close to early as he’s ever been.

6) JASON WEISS vs. WARPATH: Warpath is the Gladiator Challenge Native American Champion of the World. Only in the world of combat sports, man. Jason Weiss is a pro boxer as well as MMA fighter, and was picked among Joe Mesi’s early comeback opponents when he got braindamaged. He’s also been knocked out by modern day Bigfoot Martin, sub .500 fighter Demetrice King.

Weiss pops the jab a little, shoots in for some reason, Warpath holds him in a front head lock and hits his back for about 2 minutes. Eventually Warpath gets him down and wins by GNP. Exciting stuff. Not really.

7) SHAWN BIAS vs. URIJAH FABER: There’s prefight segments with both men interviewed, so you know this one is extra important or something. Faber is then the KOTC Featherweight Champ.

Fight is a single round in length, chiefly controlled by (SHOCK) Faber. Bias does throw a kick right at the onset and uses it to get Faber down and take his back, but doesn’t get his hooks in and Faber ends up in his guard. From there, Bias never again puts forth any serious offense, nearly getting caught in a triangle in a weird sideways attempt by Faber and eventually submitting to a guillotine. Faber is now the WEC’s headline star and for good reason.

9) AARON BRINK vs. RICHARD MONTOYA: Montoya is some kid from Lion’s Den. Brink is a full time fighter, part time porn star who isn’t actively horrible, while one would expect Montoya to perhaps be given the place of Lion’s Den in the overall scene of MMA in 2007. Lots of prefight interview stuff for both.

Nothing fight. Montoya shoots at the very onset, gets Brink against the cage and eventually down. Brink is able to get back up but finds himself in a guillotine. Apparently unaware as to how to defend against it, he ends up tripping Montoya, putting himself in Montoya’s guard and has to tap.

10) MAC DANZIG vs. TAKUMI NAKAYAMA: Danzig is the Gladiator Challenge Lightweight champ, Nakayama the KOTC title holder. Nakayama is a fairly mediocre fighter from Japan who is an okay benchmark. Some more prefight interview blather.

I’ve seen this fight before and thus I wasn’t as intruiged by it as others. Nakayama is generally dominated by Danzig from the early going, as Danzig’s wrestling and strength is way too much for Nakayama. As the bout labors on, Danzig gets busy with a flurry on the feet, causes a massive gash on Nakayama with some knees from the thai clinch, and Herb is forced to stop it. Just another stop on the Mac Danzig Express.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Jara/Cota in a landslide. Two dudes showing a modicum of skill in the cage against each other rather than against far inferior competition. Best matchmaking of all.

KO OF THE NIGHT: Warpath/Jason Weiss: Weiss is ruined by the assault on the ground, and while its not unexpected, the violent nature of it should create some sort of visceral "oh fuck" response.

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Molina/Garcia. Toe hold FOREVER.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 6.5 out of 10: Not a bad show per se, with nothing outwardly offensive in it and some guys who are decent names in the sport competing in bouts that helped develop their reputation and career. Decent production quality and nothing outlandishly dumb being said in commentary helps out. Honestly, Apple/Williams isn't any worse than a team involving Ranallo and a pro wrestler.

#4
Final Conflict (12/2/05)

Usual KOTC stuff here. We’re back to the beloved Soboba. Should be full of the usual KOTC formula bouts: either untalented dude gets tooled on the ground (Formula A) or the fight ends 15 seconds in by KO (Formula B). Erik Apple is rocking the mic along with John Alessio.

1) PAT WHITE vs. LAWRENCE GANT: Dudes that fight. Each weighs about 170. Gant rocks the rashguard.

Pat White sucks. He is taken down immediately and mounted before 5 seconds pass. He hugs Gant for awhile, then Gant punches him a couple times. White turns over and then gets submitted with an RNC.

2) KEN CADOY vs. MIKE GUYMON: Cadoy is from 808 making his debut, Guymon is from somewhere, I wasn’t paying attention. He calls himself “The Joker” and hangs out with Tapout Crew. Guess who I want to win?

Guymon rushes the shot, gets him down, Cadoy tries to get up, and Cadoy gets caught in a guillotine. Fight over. I read later that Guymon was in the IFL for a cup of coffee. Go fig.

3) BUCKLEY ACOSTA vs. DICK DELAWARE: Aaron Brink lives the life many of DVDVR’s lesser posters dream of. Acosta is some dude who is making his pro debut.

Fight lasts 10 seconds. Brink walks forward, throws a couple punches, Acosta throws him down, they scramble up, Brink walks into a right hand, its over. Acosta beats a dude who people know well in his debut.

4) RUBIN TAGLE vs. BRIAN WARREN: No idea who these guys are.

Warren wins via Formula A. GNP stoppage after a couple takedowns and Tagle gets mounted in Rnd 1. Cecil Peoples waits until Tagle as begged for a good 10 seconds to stop it. Maybe there were no verbal submissions in those karate styled kickboxing events in the 70s?

5) SHAWN BIAS vs. THOMAS KENNY: This isn’t a bad fight on paper, really. Kenny is clearly the much larger man. He also wears a shirt.

This is a shockingly good fight. Shawn Bias and Thomas Kenny slug it out through the early part of the second and then roll a plenty for the second half of the round. Round two opens with Bias almost knocking Kenny out with a right hand, but falls into Kenny’s half guard and somehow, Kenny gets a head and arm choke to win the fight. Bias taps and Herb just looks at it. And then he taps against and Herb seems confused and goes over to look. Eventually he goes out and its kinda ugly from there.

6) ALEX ZUNNER vs. MIKE BOURKE: Holy shit. Mike Bourke sighting! What else would he fight but some fat ass? I cheated and looked ahead and I will be able to share lots of moments for Alex Zunner moments with you.

Bourke and Zunner kinda swing at each other, hug, Zunner gets a takedown and side control, Bourke rolls him over, and then chokes him out Smith/Cikatic style. Wow.

7) FERNANDO ARREOLA vs. CUB SWANSON: Hahahahahahaha.

Arreola puts up some attempts at something and fails at all of it. He ends up being dropped by a right hand and then a series of kicks to the legs follow and Cecil runs in for a verbal submission a little over 3 minutes in. Swanson was way past this guy in skill and he must have known in early on.

8) GABE RIVAS vs. ROB MCCULLOUGH: Everyone and their mom has seen a hundred Gabe Rivas fights. Rob McCullough is another future WEC talent, champion in fact, who is in a fairly interesting match here on this disc.

You know, what made KOTC 7 unique is that it was the only MMA event in the wet ever done. Not intentionally, mind you, its just that they apparently ran an open air show without thinking it was a possibility. So, years later, here I am watching a KOTC show from late in ’05 and, whaddya know, it starts raining. The fight was controlled by McCullough standing and on the ground, but in Round 2 the rain starts coming down and Rivas is tripping all over himself, taking a leg kick that knocks him to the ground because he has no traction. When Rivas is knocked down for the last time, was it the right hand that did it or the fact that he was falling everywhere on a wet wrestling mat? How fucking bush league do you have to be to have rain and then not think about preventing it as an issue in the future?

9) MANNY TAPIA vs. ED NEWALU: Krazy Horse is on the mic! YES. Too bad he doesn’t really care that he’s here or supposed to entertain me, the viewer. Tapia is their 145lb champion and now is in the WEC. He’s really quite good. Newalu I’ve seen fight Ryan Diaz awhile back. They fought before in KOTC but no mention of it is ever made.

Fight goes the distance (first in a long time) and while decent is hardly the best thing ever. Some decent standup, Newalu looks capable on the ground, Tapia is good all the way around with his wrestling and standup, Newalu guarantees a loss in Round 2 by losing a point throwing a four point knee, and Tapia retains. I started to nod off during this and had to really work hard to stay conscious, honestly.

10) THOMAS DENNY vs. JAMES FANSHIER: I first mentioned Fanshier on the first show covered, and Thomas Denny is a dude who has fought on every B show there is, and thus not really needing an introduction. There’s a little highlight package that screams “XPW” and has Fanshier in the cage talking a ton of shit.

Round 1 sees Denny channel Tim Sylvia and push Fanshier into the cage. That’s pretty much all 5 minutes. Second round Denny lands a big right hand, Fanshier goes down, Denny follows with strikes, fight over.

11) KEVIN “Q-TIP” DONNELLY vs. NAM PHAN: Donnelly is listed as being from the “streets of Hisperia, California” instead of a school. He’s a white kid making his debut and he’s dyed his hair blonde. Nam Pham is a dude who has lost to all the good fighters he’s faced and beaten all the shitty fighters he’s been in with. Since many are like Donnelly, there’s a lot more Ws than Ls.

Donnelly shoots in, Phan takes guard, he gets the armbar, Donnelly taps out. 12 seconds officially. Maybe 6 in reality. They don’t even do any play by play for this.

12) BETTO CORNITA vs. BILLY BEARMAN: Cornita is coming from martial arts academy and this is his debut. Its also Bearman’s. Its also the only fight either will ever have in their careers. Obviously we’re into swing bouts here, and I’m debating why I should even watch it. Like, this is as unimportant as any match ever held. There’s episodes of I Love Lucy that are lost to time and shit like that, but this will be committed to tape forever and ever.

Then, this is all saved. Bearman wears a rashguard and Cornita is chubby, the fight ends by triangle choke for Bearman in round 1, and it doesn’t matter because Rampage has replaced Apple to do announcing. “I told you he was going to sleep. He ‘gon dream about training.”

13) AARON WETHERSPOON vs. VAL LEEDY: Aaron Wetherspoon is a bad dude and you know who he is. Leedy is a kickboxer, and Rampage says he fought him once and said he kicks hard and shit. I think I’ve seen this fight before, actually.

Fight is short and all clinch. Wetherspoon gets in close and gets underhooks, but isn’t able to take down Leedy. After a separation because of low blows, they clinch up again and a knee to the head drops Leedy a just short of 1:30 of round 1.

14) KEITH BERRY vs. JOHNNY VASQUES: Rampage almost leaves, and then apparently decides to stay, which is good, because without him, this shit becomes totally unwatchable. This is at 205. Vasques wears a shirt. Berry is a white dude who looks like someone I went to high school with.

Retardedly low level stuff with Berry winning by KO after some standup clubberin’ in short order. Rampage talks some shit about some unnamed shitty fight, and then gets a cell phone call and has to leave. You can hear him momentarily on the phone, in fact.

15) JOEY ALVARADO vs. JASON WHEAT: Alvarado comes out, and he has a shaved head and bad tattoos on his arms. SHOCKAH. CRAZY HORSE joins the crew. Alvarado wins by armbar and I'm barely paying attention.

16) LUCAS TABER vs. ROBERT DRIMI: Drimi looks way dorky. Taber looks like a high school JV football player. Drimi throws some lame sidekicks and Taber scissors the leg and gets an ankle lock. Crazy Horse and Rampage are commentating and there’s no way I can communicate how good it is.

17) ROBERT ZUNNER vs. ANTHONY MENDEZ: This fight is so awesome, its not even listed on the match list included with the DVD. Rampage regarding Zunner: “He so big, his weight isn’t even listed. He look like Bam Bam Bigelow!…If people gonna be wearing rashguards, he shoulda been one of them. He so fat, he got stretchmarks on his nipples!” Mendez wins by KO in a fight in which no talent is shown. Rampage and Crazy Horse continue talking shit about how fat Zunner is.

After the match, they continue to talk for like 3 minutes and its all gold. They’re still talking when the screen fades out and goes to credits. Rampage: “Join us next time at King Of The Cage. You get like, 20-30 fights, and from that, like, 18 good ones.”

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Rivas/McCullough - Decent midlevel stuff here with a developing McCullough and a vet in Rivas, plus weird circumstances and displays of skill from both.

KO OF THE NIGHT: Acosta/Brink - Sudden and surprising. I was taken aback.

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Zunner/Bourke - You don't see "forearm to throat" everyday.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: pre Rampage/Bennett announcing: 6, during Rampage/Bennett announcing: 10. If I were a money mark running an MMA show, my crew is now lined up.

#5
Raging Bull (12/16/2005)

I started this last night and fell asleep during the second round of the Sean Salmon fight. Oops.

Production values go WAY downhill here with a two camera Handicam shoot in a nightclub. Erik Apple is announcing via overdub, the lighting sucks, Pappa Schanke or whatever that annoying dude's name is does ring announcing (GEE THANKS I NEED THE TWO MINUTES TO GO SIGN) and shit. Your refs are Rich Franklin and Matt Hughes.

1) LEREMY JOHNSON vs. ROB KERWIN: Not listed on the insert card. No background about the fighters given. No weightclass given. 4 minute rounds because we are in the Ohio of many moons ago, in fact in the Agora Ballroom, which is like where Motorhead would play in Cleveland.

Decent back and forth action as Johnson gets the takedown, Kerwin reverses it and gets in his guard, then Johnson locks up a triangle and holds on through a few attempted power bombs out of it to get the chokeout.

2) JOSH SHOCKMAN vs. KEITH MCINTOSH: This isn't listed either. No history on either. McIntosh is a fat kid and Shockman has a bad haircut.

As is a general standard for MMA, the white dude with the worst hair wins. McIntosh absorbs a ton of well placed wide arcing, unorthodox shots from what must be a top level kickboxer (with a Naseem Hamed fetish) in the midwest in about 20 seconds and falls down. Shockman ended up in the UFC not long after and lost to Jake O'Brien. Interestingly, I've heard nothing really about either one since. Does it matter?

3) LOREN BRADLEY vs. DOMINIC QURAZZO: Another super special bonus fight not listed! Bradley has a lame tribal tattoo across his shoulder blades. Not to be outdone, Qurazzo has a bootleg Punisher skull on his back and American flag trunks. I bet he drives a pickup truck.

This goes two rounds, is primarily standup, and what happens there is with all the grace of Rosier/Frazier. Eventually the sloppy punching downs Bradley and Dominic wins for AMERICA.

4) JOSH MARTIN vs. SESSHOURMARU TAMASHII: That is an outstanding name for that one dude. I bet he loses though.

Martin gets a clinch, lands a knee, and then a bunch of elbows and bunches and the fight is done within 20 seconds. Perhaps it was "OCTAGON SHOCK" or something.

5) SEAN SALMON vs. JERRY SPIEGEL: Salmon is now the losing part of two classic MMA knockouts. Spiegel isn't any good. He's 1-10-1 in his previous 12 coming in.

If you had shown me this prior to Salmon/Rashad and told me you thought he was gonna have a legit chance to win, as many here did, I would have laughed a lot. Salmon gets his takedowns and some decent ground and pound, but shows no ability whatsoever to take advantage of what is essentially a willing loser right in front of him. Two attempts to set up the armbar and kimura go wasted in side control. He can't finish twice having Spiegel's back. In all this, he even lets Spiegel gain confidence, sweep him, and take his back with both hooks in and so they go to round 2.

Round 2 is more of the same. Salmon gets the takedown from the start, gets mount almost immediately, doesn't throw much leather from the top position because he's already gassed, switches to side mount and spends a minute and a half going for a kimura and not even coming close. Then he gets back on top, rides Spiegel till he gets his back, and Spiegel defends the RNC until time runs out. Round 3 is 4 minutes more of Salmon in side control trying to hook up the kimura and failing. Salmon wins by decision and its way less than impressive.

6) TERRY MARTIN vs. RON FIELDS: Martin is now a UFC vet, but he's actually in better shape here than he was with Irvan. Fields is a journeyman who's fought a bunch of dudes and lost to pretty much all the good ones. Apparently its a rematch too.

Fields needs distance to strike with Martin and never gets it because he doesn't know how to move in the ring. Martin forces him back, throws right hands in close when he's smothered Fields' range, takes him down, punishes him, and so on. Not a particularly incredible fight but you can see some talent in Martin here. Martin ends up getting thai clinch and then instead of throwing knees is able to get Fields in a guillotine.

7) MIKE RUSSO vs. JIMMY BOYD: I was hoping this would be a misprint and really be Mike Russow, because then it would be sorta meaningful, what with Russow just beating a top 50 heavyweight a couple weeks back. It is not. Decent fight on the ground with Russo almost getting an armbar from the bottom on Boyd, and Boyd elevating him and somehow holding him in the air for about 10 seconds until Russo was forced to let go. Boyd was eventually able to get him against the cage following that and put enough strikes on his dome to end it in round 1 via GnP.

8) TREVOR GARRETT vs. BRENDAN SEGUIN: I've seen Seguin many times over the years, and this is my first exposure to Garrett, who is essentially a nobody. Garrett is wearing thai boxing shorts, which kinda telegraphs his background.

Seguin rushes in and gets the clinch immediately, and much of the round is spent there against the fence, with a couple takedowns by Seguin that Garrett is able to worm his way back to his feet following. A third takedown proves more difficult, and the final minute is pretty much Seguin laying in side control doing a whole lot of nothing. The second round falls into the same path, with Seguin shooting immediately and getting Garrett against the cage. Garrett is able to spin him and back him up, but falls into a guillotine attempt. He survives that, then gets swept. Somewhere in this, Seguin is cut. He continues to control the fight, but Hughes has the doctor take a look at it. When the fight is restarted, Seguin gets a double leg takedown and is in top control once more. In fact, this time he's punishing Garrett with strikes against the cage. Hughes decides that as Seguin is clearly in control and perhaps a minute from a stoppage win to end the fight due to the cut, and Garrett goes from being pounded to winning instantly. Either Hughes was on the take or is enormously inept. Your choice here.

9) DERECK KEASLEY vs. JEFF COX: Cox is wearing Aoki style pants and Keasley is some dude.

They trade sloppy punching early and Keasley falls down. Cox follows him there and ends up in a triangle choke. Thing is, Keasley can't quite lock it up and so this position stays the same for about 3 and a half minutes until Cox finally pulls his head up enough that Keasley can get his foot slotted behind his knee and complete it.

10) DAN BOBISH vs. JOEY SMITH: Bobish's second career in MMA will never cease to amaze me. Smith is some dude who sucks. Fight has Smith throwing punches, falling down on his belly for no real reason, and Bobish throwing strikes until its stopped 20 seconds in. The DVD then states: "Winner: Emerson Bobish". THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Terry Martin/Ron Fields: Pretty damn one sided because of Fields' various liabilites as a fighter, but as competitive as anything on the card and displayed some real skill

KO OF THE NIGHT: Shockman/McIntosh, I guess? No KO was really astounding or unexpected.

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Leremy Johnson/Rob Kerwin - Easily wins. The only submission that went down that didn't seem to take an hour to materialize and which had serious resistance.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 4 Horrible camera work, lots of ghosting on the long shot from the poor digital handcam being used, but some name fighters and it was thankfully short at 1:30. Brevity sometimes trumps sheer volume.

#6
Outlaws 1/21/06

We have moved closer to the future and into the wild and crazy world of 2006(!!!). Unfortunately for me, this is one of those 10,000,000 fights on one card deals and I must battle through, knowing that at the end of this disc, I will arrive at the promised land of Kyacey Uscola and Edwin Dewees beating up shitty fighters. It eminates from a casino in Arizona and Erik Apple is announcing.

1) BRYAN PARDOE vs. RYAN PRAY: Oh shit. This is gonna be bad. Pray is an lumpy independent fighter making his debut, and he sports some racist ink that some of the National Socialist sympathizers that gave that one Aryan Nations dude that fought in KOTC props would adore. Pardoe fought Frank Shamrock. He sucks, but not this bad. KOTC: getting the incredible mismatches started RIGHT AWAY.

The beating is swift. A trading of punches not unlike a junior high fist fight starts it off, and big shock, Pardoe causes Pray to be unsteady. Pardoe takes him down straight into mount, tries a weird toe hold, and eventually pounds him out. Maybe this would have been of value had a public service message been brought with it.

2) DAVID CARRASCO vs. KEITH DIXON: Carrasco is some lumpy looking kid that's like a 170lb version of Paul Buentello. Dixon knows he's not in a commission area so he has a rash guard AND shoes.

This is one of the first fights among no names that really interested me. Carrasco is able to grab takedowns twice off a single leg and an ankle pick and navigates Dixon's guard pretty well. Dixon at one point is able to scramble to his feet after an attempted slam and Carrasco gets the belly to belly and ends up in side control. He eventually takes the mount and rains down elbows until a missed swing actually gets him back in half guard. However, in the shift back, Dixon essentially gives up his right arm and Carrasco transitions into a kimura for the tap out win. He looks like a kid with some potential.

3) JOE CASTILLO vs. LEROY FORNOFF: Castillo supposedly had a previous MMA fight....in 1996, sez Mr. Apple. Fornof looks all of 17, but has apparently fought before. In fact, I've apparently seen him fight before. Damn.

Castillo's Kempo Karate hoodie doesn't fully express what he is. He's really more of a wrestler and goes for multiple takedowns on Fornoff. Fornoff responds with a multitude of submission attempts, all of which he just misses on (he slides off the side with hooks in on an RNC, Castillo pushes the legs off in a triangle choke, so on). Round 2 starts with more prodigious striking from Fornoff that leads to Castillo going down, Fornof getting on top in mount and raining down blows to win. Fornoff is a young kid who's clearly learning all the aspects at once, which is somewhat refreshing, but has come nowhere near close to mastering any of them.

4) JESSE MORENG vs. VICTOR HERNANDEZ: Hernandez' record is a joke. Moreng is a dude that's been on a bunch of KOTC cards.

Moreng basically beats him up, takes his back and chokes him out. Pretty pointless stuff.

5) TRAVIS HOOKE vs. JUSTIN SCOTT: Hooke is really fat and this is his debut. Justin Scott has two first names and thus can never be trusted.

Ghetto Fights level shit. Two totally untrained, untalented dudes throwing punches wildly and then stuff happens. Hooke wins via submission, in fact, with something approximating a rear naked choke. If I could give star ratings to legit contests, -***** here.

6) LUKE HODGES vs. JACOB CHAGOLLA: I think I heard of Hodges before, but who knows. Both guys come into the bout in good shape and that's always a positive thing. Perhaps an interesting bout is about to occur?

One thing I've not really needed to mention until here is the refereeing. Some dude with a slicked back cut is playing referee and he's abyssmal. The first round of this fight was great. Chagolla is a strong wrestler looking for GNP. Hodges is a good thai boxer with surprising submission skills. Chagolla gets a takedown right at the start and is nearly triangled. Lots of transitions and action in the fight, and with about 30 seconds left, Hodges secures an armbar from guard. Chagolla is in the midst of defending it when the referee inexplicably separates them for a standup. I was aghast. Chagolla is tired out now but had he prevented the armbar, he could have gotten Hodges back. Instead, Hodges takes his head and begins bashing knees into it up until the round ends.

The second round is marred by more horrible calls. Hodges again acquires the thai clinch and unloads shots, but in getting close is taken down by Chagolla. Chagolla ends up on top, Hodges against the cage, elevating himself and arm up to punch and then pass to side mount, when the ref again steps in to separate and stand the fighters up. Chagolla should have erased this dude's face with a right hand and gone out in infamy but instead he and Hodges continue to have a bout in which Hodges can ride his back for a minute and accomplish nothing but he gets on top and has about 5 seconds to throw a billion shots or be stood up. Hodges wins the decision in a fight that pissed me off in spite of actual skill being exhibited. I've wished harm in the form of decades of wheelchair bound gruel eating to many competitors in combat sports, however horrible that might be, and I think I've found a new candidate for such strong dislike.

7) GILBERT VELEZ vs. DANIEL MADRID: Dudes making their debut. I think Madrid is still fighting.

Fairly lame fight with Madrid constantly getting takedowns because he's way better on the ground and both guys are worthless standing. Madrid ultimately wins by RNC.

8) ESTEVEZ JONES vs. RYAN POTTER: Jones is some sort of standup fighter dude with a style that, uh, looks straight out of the SAFTA handbook. Potter is a wrestler who trains with Joe Riggs.

Imagine my surprise with this fight, which spent the first 7 minutes or so being an affront to everything I enjoy about MMA. Potter constantly takes down Jones, who is pretty chubby and not at all very good. Oddly, Jones will throw a strike once in awhile that catches the offguard Potter. Potter slams him hard, and Jones somehow hangs on through a ton of punches to get back to his feet and be slammed again. This repeats for the entire first round and most of the second. Until, miraculously, Jones bucks Potter off and stands up, landing a right hand as he does. Potter is badly dazed and a couple punches later, Jones somehow wins.

9) JON KESSLER vs. TONY ROYBAL: Kessler comes out with a black gi and Roybal is backed by David Carrasco.

Short fight. Bad standup at first, Kessler then grabs and gets a takedown, and from there he controls the rest of the fight. Eventually this leads to him getting mount and an armbar to win early in round 1.

10) CHANCE WILLIAMS vs. RON RUMPF: Rumpf is tomato can personified. Williams is the guy tomato cans beat so that they can keep getting fights.

The power of lard causes Williams to land looping shots on Rump and drop him for an early win. Somewhat surprising. At least it was brief.

11) EMANUEL NEWTON vs. JOHN LANSING: Newton has moved on to bigger and better things and Lansing is some dude you've likely not heard of.

Newton and Lansing clinch and Newton picks him up like a ragdoll and throws him to the mat. Lansing, who is clearly a naturally smaller fighter, is rolled on, eventually being stopped by strikes on the ground.

12) JONATHAN WESSON vs. PAUL O'KEEFE: Both men are making their debut. I have no idea on backgrounds of either, but Wesson is a teammate of Estevez Jones so I bet he sucks.

I was right. O'Keefe picks him up and slams the dude, then pounds him. Wesson eventually rolls a little and starts to stand up, but O'Keefe causes him to tap with what looked more like the Million Dollar Dream than an actual RNC. No hooks and both standing. Sad.

13) MATT DELL vs. SEAN CANOVA: Dell is ANOTHER pro debut. Canova is a conditioning coach from SoCal who works with Todd Medina. This bout is so important, the grave nature of the outcome demands it be the 155 POUND SUPERFIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD.

First round is dominated by Canova on the ground. Dell tried defending the takedowns well but Canova was just too good for him. Odd choice by Herb Dean, who is now the ref, to stand the fighters up while Canova had two hooks in on Dell. Canova is slightly winded (Apple talks about breathing problems he's had) and Dell is unable to capitalize because his standup is way behind technically. Second round has Dell shoot early, grab the take down, and he stays there. Eventually Herb Dean comes in to stand them up, but Canova is too tired to stand and the fight ends. Lame.

14) DEL HAWKINS vs. GABE BROCKMIER: Apple is even shocked that he's saying that a guy making his pro debut gets to fight Hawkins for the Gladiator Challenge Super Lightweight title. Yeah, MMA doesn't have a belt problem....

Hawkins laced him up with kicks to start, then picks Brockmier up, hoists around the ring, slams him, gets mount, beats him up. Brockmier is KTFO with elbows to the head from side mount.

15) KYACEY USCOLA vs. ROBERT SARKOZI: Ice Cold, a Bodogfight vet, takes on the relative of the French prime minister? Okay, maybe not. More interesting tag line though, right? Sarkozi's actually from Hungary and has been around awhile and lost to guys people have heard of like Phil Baroni. He also beat Uscola prior to this at a Gladiator Challenge show. REVENGE?

First round is almost all Uscola. Both guys are well rounded guys but Uscola is clearly the better wrestler in pedigree and in the ring and proves it by taking down Sarkozi twice and being almost unshakeable in mount. Second round is a reversal of fortune with a tired Uscola getting taken down, mounted, and beaten on until an unthinkable standup from Herb Dean breaks the action. Sarkozi responds by knocking down Uscola hard with a series of knees that nearly finishes the fight. The second round is all Sarkozi until about 20 seconds remain, when Uscola is able to hip throw Sarkozi and cuts him with an elbow just before the end of the fight. Judges decision goes to Uscola other than the obvious draw that it should have been. Blah.

16) EDWIN DEWEES vs. BUCKLEY ACOSTA: Dewees is a TUF alumni now, which is sorta weird to say. He also bled more than anyone ever on that show, probably. Acosta's bout that got him here with Aaron Brink is reviewed in detail just a couple posts ago in the look at Final Conflict (Show #4).

Acosta rocks Dewees early and drops him against the cage. Dewees is mutifaceted though and locks up an arm. Acosta is able to get out of the armbar attempt by spiking Dewees on his head, but then promptly runs into another submission attempts. This time, Dewees locks up the triangle choke and Acosta taps before the first minute is over.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Hodges/Chagolla - It was marred by awful an awful ref, but so was everything else. Good fight though.

KO OF THE NIGHT: Hawkins/Brockmier - Expected in such a mismatch, but really brutal stuff.

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Dewees/Acosta - Really slick armbar attempt gets beaten with a slam, so he follows it with the triangle choke and goes home a winner.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 4.5 out ot 10. The fights were all covered in shitty reffing and there was so much crap I barely remember the good.

#7
Redemption On The River (2/17/06)

After another stinker, back to a PPV card. This time it eminates from the Mark Of The Quad Cities in Moline, where the IFL has run twice and is in a pretty serious MMA lovin' area. Lots of stupendous talent on this card to get excited for also and some realy intruiging matchups. Announcers are Eric Apple and JENS. Oh, and Terry Treblecock. Rounds are 3 minutes because we're in Illinois and it is February 2006.

1) BILLY AYASH vs. DENNIS REED: Ayash has a couple bullshit belts and trains with Franklin. Dennis Reed is cited as "growing all sorts of stuff in the background."

Reed gets the takedown and Pulver and Treblecock note that he's really good at getting takedowns and then gassing out after 45 seconds. This is exactly what happens. As he gasses, Ayash is able to get out from underneath, and as they scramble, Reed is plunked out with a right hand to the jaw.

2) MATT JAGGERS vs. JUSTIN ROBBINS: Robbins is 5-0 but naturally the smaller man in this 145lb bout to Jaggers, who is making his pro debut and looks about 12.

This is another short but glorious bout. Jaggers gets the take down and gets in side control. His attempt to move to mount is easily nullified and Robbins gets guard. Not long after comes a triangle attempt, and Jaggers fully elevates Robbins for a power bomb escape. It breaks the hold momentarily but he's so far in it Robbins is able to reapply the triangle before Jaggers can reassess his position and escape.

3) WAYNE WEEMS vs. BART PALASZEWSKI: Its hard to believe that of the two, Weems is the dude who was in UFC. Bartimus will eventually. Or the UFC will collapse like a house of cards. Who knows?

Weems lands a single right hand that breaks Palaszewski's nose. After that, Bartimus turns it up, takes down Weems and beats the living shit out of him as Weems gives up his back and does nothing to defend himself. Short, but its something.

4) JASON REINHARDT vs. MIKE LINDQUIST: Reinhardt was tooled badly in his UFC debut recently and is pretty old. Lindquist is said to be 10-4 coming in.

Reinhardt throws a knee to the nuts early in the fight and is pissed that Lindquist complained and got time, so he takes him down, beats on him a little, and then gets the choke out. Reinhardt is an intense competitor but ridiculously limited strategically. Lindquist has gone 2-11-1 since this fight.

5) CLAY GUIDA vs. TRISTEN YUNKER: Yunker is huge at 6'3'' and Guida is a dude you should damn well know already. Yunker has had a mixed bag of success since being on one of the IFO's shows (though I don't remember his bout with Rob Kimmons) and recently on HDNet Fights losing to Pete Spratt.

Another short fight, but not at all as expected for me, having not looked up the results ahead of time. Yunker goes for the single leg and gets it, picking up Guida and slamming him (though Guida almost pushes off the cage to get a reversal tornado DDT style). Yunker quickly gets the back and both hooks, and though Guida struggles with him for a few seconds, Yunker eventually gets under the chin and wins the fight. Wow.

6) JOHN STRAWN vs. JOE JORDAN: Both men have fought basically all over the place. They don't usually win when they're far from their hometowns though in the midwest.

Mediocre fight for the first two round with Jordan dominant in top position. Round three is a significant change of pace as Jordan decides, for whatever reason, not to engage Strawn for takedowns and control but rather in a Dana White favorite: the pier six standup brawl. Jordan eventually gets the win with a highlight reel KO via looping overhand right. Decent fight though, automatically FOTN thus far because it went past 1 minute.

7) JOEY CLARK vs. BRIAN GASSAWAY: Clark is a pretty experienced local fighter and Brian Gassaway has been in MMA since the dawn of time, initally appearing on awful IFC shows and shit like that.

First round is short but interesting with Joey Clark getting a Sashimi Ippon Mothra (or something) early on and then tries to get a north/south choke. Failing that, he lets it back up to the feet where they clinch up. Gassaway tries to suplex him but doesn't have enough strength and Clark lands back in side control. He holds on there until Gassaway somehow pulls around him and nearly gets a rear naked choke. Round ends pretty soon after.

Rounds 2 and 3 fall into a pattern in which Clark gets the takedown, gets mount, gets bucked off or moves to side control, and then back to mount, and then cycles again. Dull stuff. The crowd boos the end of the fight and Clark gets a unanimous decision. Andrei Arlovski is in the crowd.

8) GIDEON RAY vs. BRENDAN SEGUIN: Ray’s been in pretty much all the big shows and Seguin is making another appearance on these reviews.

First round sees Seguin get the takedown and take top position with Ray against the cage. Not a lot of offense gets put in by Seguin in the dominant position, and with the round winding down, Ray scissors the leg of Seguin and rolls for a kneebar. Seguin defends and Ray does it again, this time going for a heel hook and succeeding.

9) TREVOR BARRETT vs. TERRY MARTIN: Barrett is a career loser and Martin worships Mike Tyson in copying his nickname, towel, and black trunks.

Martin wins by KO in the first round. I’m shocked. He also does get a nice takedown/slam in also.

10) VICTOR MORENO vs. LAVERNE CLARK: Victor Moreno is a mediocre fighter and Laverne Clark is a name those watching for eons should know from the olden days of UFC as a “professional boxer” turned MMA fighter. FUN NOTE: Clark faced 5 future or past world champions as a boxer. He lost to all of them. In fact, he never went the distance with any.

This is actually a pretty fun fight that Clark largely controls. The first round is almost all standup but subsequent ground fighting is primarily consistent with Clark in control on top and Moreno largely ineffective with the guard. Clark also lands some wild shots at times. No worse than most of the UFC’s recent major fights, as Clark wins a 3 round decision.

11) CHARLES “CRAZY HORSE” BENNETT vs. JEFF CURRAN: Intros not necessary.

Short but immensely entertaining. Some decent standup with Bennett throwing body punches that surprised Curran and the two trading slams early with Bennett throwing a SHOOT BACKDROP DRIVER~! No real shock that Bennett gets tapped with an armbar in the first round but it was great while it lasted.

12) SHONIE CARTER vs. JASON BLACK: Another fight where no real introduction is necessary. That always rules.

Another short but unsatisfying fight. Carter and Black tussle in the clinch early, and Carter gets the takedown. In doing so, Black is injured and Carter gets a W. I have to admit in thinking about it that I’m shocked Carter isn’t in the UFC still. He could provide decent tests for young 170lb fighters and he’s someone the crowd can get into.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Bennett/Curran - Fun fight, though short. Lots of great action throughout.

KO OF THE NIGHT: Jordan/Strawn - Brutal KO.

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Ray/Seguin - I'm a sucker for leg locks when they actually happen.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 7 out of 10. Probably the high water mark for these shows. Unfortunately there's 18 to go. Fuuuuuuuck.

There won't be a new one till middle of next week because I leave for FL tommorrow evening.

#8
Battle at Ute Mountain (3/4/06)

After a delay, I’m back. Long story short, my girlfriend and I went on another trip and we had a blast. Staying on property at Universal is totally and completely worth it. Never did have enough energy to run over to I-Drive or Ripley’s but its not like either of those are going anywhere. Back to DV camcorders for video acquisition and Erik Apple is by himself. We’re in COLORADO SOMEWHERE.

1) BRYSON KRATZ vs. ISAIS MARTINEZ: Martinez gets a big pop and Kratz looks old as fuck. He’s got grey hair and everything.

Sometimes a fight meets expectations and its good. Sometimes it exceeds it and that’s great. This did that in a sense. It looked like a candidate, at least during the intros, to be the worst fight yet. It likely was the worst ever. Ever. Martinez and Kratz scrap with less technical prowess than your average Kimbo Slice backyard fight and then gas 30 seconds in. The rest of the first round consists of each man throwing single right hands at each other. Kratz is so tired at the end of 1 that he quits. Martinez by KO.

2) JACOB CHAGOLLA vs. JEREMY MADRID: Very interesting bout actually, given that I’ve just seen Chagolla and he looked halfway decent.

Chagolla looks super limited standing here in that all he does is throw an overhand right at Madrid, who has no defense and really no offense. Chagolla shoots in and gets a takedown at the bell and just pounds Madrid. Chagolla clearly doesn’t have much submission skill or back control in his arsenal and when Madrid rolls to his belly, he’s able to get up with not much problem. Unfortunately the telegraphed rights of Chagolla land and crack his nose on the bridge, causing it to bleed everywhere. Madrid gets dumped on his back with another takedown that hurts him, rolls to his side and sticks his left arm in the air to defend. Chagolla takes the arm for the most obvious submission win perhaps ever. Chagolla looks like he has at least one aspect down, but he needs to trim weight from this performance and work his cardio intensely.

3) JOHN KESSLER vs. STEVE MARQUEZ: Kessler is from a BJJ school and has a blue belt. I WONDER WHAT HE WILL DO. Marquez gets a big reaction and he’s rocking everything Sprawl Inc. from head to toe.

Insane short. Kessler lands a right hand that drops Marquez early, lands a knee while Marquez has a knee down (foul?) and then spins around him while he’s stunned to get his hooks and the choke.

4) CHRIS STRANGER vs. RON PAUP: Stranger has a cool name and wears a bunch of random shit, including native american bead vest and a witch hat. Paup is wearing a Vikings jersey. Also, this venue is a tea cup. They’re entering from just in front of the concession stand. 60lb weight difference with Stranger weighing 190 and Paup 250.

Horrible stuff. Paup is just some fat white guy and Stranger looks like a nerdy Pedro Rizzo. They throw some punches at each other all sloppy like and Paup falls down. He taps due to strikes but the ref never steps in. Great. It only goes 2-3 more seconds before Stranger just gets off him and walks away with Paup laying there uselessly.

5) GABE BROCKMIER vs. ERIC SWATKIN: Brockmeir has a name that sounds like he should be good. But he’s 0-1 and I saw him get rolled on. Swatkin looks like a redneck Joachim Hansen.

Short. Brockmeir goes for a takedown and gets thrown to the ground by Swatkin instead. They scramble a ton like dudes with no experience who are way too excited…which they are. So they gas in half a minute. Swatkin goes for antother takedown and this time Brockmier sinks a guillotine. Swatkin doesn’t know how to get out of it, spends about 10 seconds kinda thinking about stuff and not defending it really, and then ends up tapping.

6) JOE PADILLA vs. JOSH PETERSON: Padilla gets a decent pop. I think there may be a connection here. Peterson gets an even bigger pop. I know nothing about either. The ref is wearing a baseball cap.

Padilla squares up and starts throwing chambered punches. I am not shitting you. Even better: THEY ARE LANDING. His kicks are garbage too. Eventually, he lands a right hand to Peterson’s face and Peterson goes down. He follows him there with strikes and the fight is over in less than a minute. Wow.

Joey Villasenor randomly shows up. He is minus his lame 1999 nu metal haircut with the two strands down his forehead. He says some stuff and I guess people are stoked.

7) RON RUMPF vs. JASON KIETH: What. What? WHAT? This? I have to watch Ron Rumpf after Villari’s Karate dude? Kieth is some indian kid with no training.

Kieth beats up Rumpf in what was probably a work or something to remind the people watching this on a indian reservation that one sloppy fight at a time, the native will come back and crush the white man. At least, I imagine that’s what this was about.

8) DAVID CARRASCO vs. JEFF RUTHERFORD: I saw Carrasco in his previous fight to this in the review of Outlaws, and he wasn’t awful. I kinda thought highly of Lil’ Headhunter. Rutherford has a mohawk and is from American Whu-Hitu in the SLC. Really. I’m serious.

Best fight of the night by far. Rutherford is the better athlete by leaps and bounds but Carrasco is the better skilled. This featured the unthinkable combination of spinning back fist/DDT by Carrasco that was marvelous. Rutherford bloodied Carrasco with some punches whtn he had him against the cage, but Carrasco used superior technique to beat superior athleticism and won with a guillotine in round 1.

9) ABRAHAM VINING vs. VICTOR VALIA: Both men are in decent shape. Valia trains with Villasenor.

Short bout, as all the others were. Valia gets the takedown, mount, and then the hooks and oy, the choke. Pretty pointless stuff.

10) GABE RIVAS vs. LEROY FORNOFF: Rivas is a solid, albiet unspectacular fighter and Fornoff is totally unprepared for someone at his level.

As was expected, Fornoff, though very tall and lanky, is a beginner and Rivas is an experienced vet with decent standup. Rivas cracks him with punches and drops him twice, the second time leading to a barrage of right hands while Fornoff is on his back that ends the fight. Shame. Fornoff needs better matchmaking.

11) FLOYD SWORD vs. BRYAN PARDOE: That’s right, Bryan Pardoe has gone from opening the curtain in these reviews to being in the main event. Sword never beat anyone good but got in the UFC fighting Thales Leites in a TUF finale last year and got beat. You can probably guess who wins this off that.

Sword gets the clinch, underhooks, takedown, and mount in the opening 20 seconds. He follows that by getting bucked off by Pardoe, which was kinda disheartening. Sword locks up a Brad Imes speed triangle and wins by choke out as Pardoe doesn’t bother to tap.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Carrasco/Rutherford. By far. Not even close. Still not that good.

KO OF THE NIGHT: Padilla/Peterson. Oh my god, yes.

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: A really tough pick, but I go with Kessler/Marquez. It was the only thing that was done at a speed that wasn't embarassing.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 1.5 out of 10. Holy shit this was bad. Not a single valuable fight on the whole thing. The production value was pretty crap, and while it had full fights unlike Oceania, at least Oceania featured some name talent. There was none here. None at all.

Wow, I had completely forgotten the stuporous horror of this show. Your review brought it all rushing back. Damn you. Damn you.

#9
Drop Zone (3/18/2006)

This time KOTC eminates from the lovely Soaring Eagle Casino in Mount Pleasant, MI. I’ve been there, actually, and if you want to dig up my live fight report from the Hasim Rahman/Dicky Ryan card last September, feel free. It’s a lot like the boxing version of KOTC, really, with a bunch of prospects and names on the card against dudes you have never heard of. Apple and Treblecock are talking over the fights.

1) KEVIN BRENT vs. BRYAN HARPER: Brent is making his pro debut. Harper happens to be James Lee’s BJJ coach. Hmmm.

Harper throws bad punches, clinches, trip takedown, gets a guillotine. Pretty loose with Brent’s arm in but its enough to get a tapout.

2) TONY FORGLONE vs. COUNT BLACKULA: Forglone is some white dude from Indiana who has no body hair, and that’s sorta odd. Count Blackula is a black dude from Flint who comes out with a wrestling singlet and a cape. Apparently Blackula is a pure karate fighter, and there is a gentleman’s agreement before the fight that it is standup only. Oh, and he’s named COUNT FUCKING BLACKULA.

The fight is a throwback to the good ol days of 1995, right down to video quality. Blackula is throwing side kicks and pays for it every time with bombs and knees. His spinning heel kick gets some oohs and aahs but does nothing to deter Forglone. In the end, punches against the cage less than two minutes into the first round end it for Forglone.

3) ROB KERWIN vs. JEREMIAH COMBS: So important, it doesn’t make the list of fights on the DVD insert.

Kerwin takes him down, beats him up some, lays on him, beats him up more, stand up, repeat. Eventually Kerwin wins in round 2 with elbows. He never fought again.

4) ALLAN WEIKART (Weickert?) vs. DON RICHARD: Richard has a big size advantage and gets a decent pop.

Richard gets a takedown immediately, Weikart doesn’t really do anything, in an attempt to get up he gets caught in an armbar and ends up shredding his arm because he waits to tap. Crap.

5) JOSH MARTIN vs. JOSHUA TAIBL: Martin has a decent record and Taibl is from Luddington, MI, which is the middle of nowhere. I know. I’ve been. Martin in fact already showed up in a prior review of Raging Bull from Cleveland in a fight he won by KO in less than 30 seconds.

Martin gets the takedown immediately and gets the mount and throws some hard shots. My expectation immediately becomes that Taibl is fucked and I’m still wasting my time. BUT~! As Martin takes an arm for an armbar, Taibl is able to worm his way out of it. Martin goes for a kneebar but the cage keeps him from being able to roll into it, and he starts taking hammerfists for it. Taibl in fact forces Martin to roll over, takes his back and both men stand. A failed attempt at the german for Taibl doesn’t cause him to lose control of Martin, and he pins him on his back against the cage once more in knee on belly, and shots are coming down as he moves to mount. Herb Dean steps in and Taibl represents the Western Shore of MI well.

6) JASON DENT vs. JOE VOLSIN: Dent comes out with an Ohio State jersey and there is hate. Volsin has a Michigan jersey on and there are cheers.

Volsin is wearing wrestling shoes and that tells you his background. Dent was standup oriented and Volsin regularly got takedowns, but the terrible reffing in this fight constantly stood the two up, even when Volsin was fairly active. Dent’s kicks slowed down Volsin enough that a third shot in ended the bout as Dent got the guillotine and the tapout quickly followed. Not an embarassing show of skill, but horrible reffing. Makes Morgan/Daley look amazing.

7) MATT SHAW vs. DEREK KEASLEY: Keasley wrestled for Western Michigan for 4 years. Shaw is some dude. Also, virtually every bout on the show has had a representative of the MASH Fight Team. Keasley plays that here.

This looked like….GASP….a real MMA bout! Keasley throws some lousy punches to set up his shot, but gets it, and the rest of the round (probably around 4 minutes) is on the mat. I’m STUNNED. Keasley gets some good GnP in but almost gets armbarred. He spins out and reclaims top position in Shaws guard with lots of elbows to the head and body. Good stuff as the first round ends. Round 2 kicks in with Keasley constantly switching stance and unloading some punches from orthodox, knocking Shaw down. Shaw take guard after being punched tons in side mount, and after defending some punches, is able to isolate the left arm and get it armbarred, this time for the tap.

8) BRENDAN SEGUIN vs. THOMAS RUSSELL: Russell looks like Michael McDonald, says Apple. Apart from the obvious (that he is BLACK) there’s not really a giant resemblance. Seguin makes his third appearance.

Good mid level stuff from these guys. Russell is a young fighter still putting things together, and so his ability to stuff the takedown and strike haven’t really come together. Seguin is all takedowns, all the time, but Russell is pretty good at being able to get back to his feet without ref assistance. Seguin takes his back (one of Russell’s typical escapes in the fight is to roll on his knees and then stand up while Seguin has a body lock from behind) and prevents Russell from standing, instead nearly getting a RNC before the end of round 1. Round 2 sees more action with Seguin feinting the shot and throwing a right that almost KO’s Russell, and Russell comes back to get the fight on the feet and stuff multiple takedowns. He goes for a double leg himself only to get caught in a guilotine. He keeps Seguin elevated and throws him off to stay in the game, but isn’t able to really mount any solid offense. Seguin wins the two round decision. Russell looked promising but lost 6 of his next 7 before apparently retiring in 2006.

9) BUDDY CLINTON vs. CHARLES “CRAZY HORSE” BENNETT: Clinton is making his second appearance in the reviews. He fought on the already reviewed Execution Day PPV against an also ran from ZST and lost. Bennett welcomes the fans at home with a “WASSUP BIOTCH” and a pair of middle fingers.

Clinton throws a right hand that drops Bennett and gets his back for the choke. Over. Done. Maybe 15 seconds? Kinda a shame. Bennett is out cold, by the way.

10) BRIAN HAWKINS vs. JAMES LEE: Lee is the 205 lb champ and this is for the belt over 3 rounds. Apparently Lee won the belt in that fight with Te Huna reviewed on the first disc I did. Much to my surprise, it was said to be with elbow strikes. That’s like, the total opposite of what I wrote.

This almost looks thrown. Lee lands a straight left at the onset that hurts Hawkins. Then about 5 seconds later, a really slow knee. Then Hawkins falls down, and Lee just grabs a leg, figure fours it, and gets a tapout by heel hook. Lee seemed pretty taken aback by how easy it was. Hawkins put up no resistance whatsoever.

11) JASON IRELAND vs. MAC DANZIG: Both men got calls from PRIDE and Danzig now has a nice fat contract in the UFC to squander.

Good first round of action from the two. Ireland really goes after the takedown more than anything and Danzig is wise to defend it. Ireland sets up his shot inside with the leg kick but usually gets stuffed anyhow. His best effort comes as he drops Danzig with a right hand and Danzig recovers with a takedown, though he is almost guillotined in the attempt. Danzig escapes it and ends up in mount and then back control throwing punches until the round ends.

Round 2 is all Danzig. He misses a flying knee attempt early that lets Ireland sweep him and put him on the mat for another guillotine attempt, but that’s pretty much all of Ireland’s offense. Danzig is able to get up and then take him down and pass all the way into mount and back control. Eventually the fight is stood up and Ireland goes for a takedown, but the round ends with both men against the cage in the clinch. Ireland is telegraphing his shot by switching to southpaw before going for the takedown.

Round 3 is another clear cut Danzig round. He is able to beat Ireland both standing with punches and on the ground, where he centerline passes on Ireland, gets mount, then the back again, this time with a body triangle, where he ends up for most of the round. Ireland is able to get out of the back control to attempt a kimura from inside Danzig’s half guard, but Danzig rolls out of that to try a knee bar (which transitions to a modified heel hook) as time runs out. Danzig retains his lightweight title.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Tough pick, actually. I go with Ireland/Danzig. Most important bout, best fighters, most skill exhibited in every facet of the sport.

KO OF THE NIGHT: Forglone/Count Blackula. Not many to pick from and who can't enjoy Karate dude getting fucked up by part time stand up fighter?

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Shaw/Keasley. Shaw was moving his hips around but Keasley looked in control before the slick armbar ended the fight.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 5.5 out of 10. The opening 4 fights were just horrible. Horrible. From Dent/Volsin on, there were several decent fights, however, though with the occasional interjection of something like Lee/Hawkins. I ended up not hating it, and I think given the good with the bad, mediocre overall is a pretty good score.

This goes for every Michigan KOTC show.

#10
The Return I & II (3/19/06 & 3/25/06)

So here’s this show, which I noticed early on Sherdog Fight Finder had been split in two, with the main event and chief support bout coming a week later. I wondered why. Mere seconds in, the answer is evident. It is pouring at Soboba Casino (where else?) and the squeeges are out to clear the mess. Sometimes, I really hate this promotion. This is one of those moments. Here is at least the third MMA event KOTC’s run in the rain with a slick ring and second for this set of reviews.

1) BOBBY LEE vs. EFRAIN DE LEON: No idea who they are. I know they’re gonna fall all over the place and this will suck.

Square cage is in use tonight. Two dudes scrap as much as they can for the round and then there is cleanup. De Leon probably won because he tripped Lee and pounded him on his back. Everyone will likely wear shoes this card. Lee gets a couple takedowns in round 2 and it’s a mess. De Leon wins by Split Decision. Both guys are soaked. Herb Dean is wearing a hooded jacket. This is far worse than Wet And Wild, believe it or not.

2) JACOB CHAGOLLA vs. BUCKLEY ACOSTA: Acosta beat Brink and then lost to Dewees, and so he’s in with another rising force in Chagolla.

First round is pretty mediocre, though there’s a lot of changes in momentum. Chagolla goes for the shot to start and Acosta sprawls out. The inability for either man to gain traction actually helps Acosta here who is able to get on top of Chagolla and throw leather. The situation eventually reverses itself after a Herb Dean standup and Chagolla spends much of the round on top and the last minute with Acosta face down and Chagolla throwing shots.

Second round sees Chagolla shoot in again and another stuff for Acosta. Chagolla is getting killed by the weather, because he can’t push off for his shots and Acosta can see it coming a mile away. Acosta somehow gives up his back in the ensuing grappling and Chagolla jumps on him, putting in hooks. Acosta somersaults forward, pitching Chagolla off and then gets inside Chagolla’s guard. TITE. The two then change positions a lot afterwards and Acosta is just flat tired, but no other real damage is done. Chagolla wins the unanimous decision.

3) JOHN INCORVAIA vs. CHRIS LEAR: Lear is making his debut. Incorvaia is 0-1.
Incorvaia is rocking a black ninja gi, Lear is wearing Tapout shorts and socks. Just socks.

First round, Incorvaia is using a karate stance, slap fights with Lear in an exchange, then gets taken down. If you guessed “Lear passes guard, side control, mount, fighter rolls, RNC,” you are WRONG. Instead, Lear passes guard to side control, then Incorvaia almost scrambles back to standing before being locked in a guillotine and then promptly choked out with Lear in mount.

4) ALAN ZUNNER vs. WES COMBS: Dudes named Wes typically do well in KOTC. Zucker is a fat mess.

Wes almost slips while trying to throw a punch, because, remember, its RAINING. Oh, and then Zunner goes for a takedown, slips and falls, and Combs immediately spins to his back and gets the choke. Fight over by submission in like 15 seconds.

5) SHANNON RITCH vs. SAM MORGAN: Ritch is sure to lose because he’s Ritch and that’s what he does. I wonder how many tattoos he has on his body now of defunct MMA organizations? Morgan was on TUF and recently appeared in EXC.

Both throw bad strikes and Ritch gets the takedown. Just like Formula 1, apparently the wet is a great equalizer. While there, Ritch is able to get in side control for a short time until Morgan regains guard. Ritch stands up and goes for a heel hook, which he comes close to. Just one problem: He fails at it and is wearing shoes. Morgan pretty much shakes it off because he isn’t wearing them and with Ritch against the cage and unable to really roll into it anymore, Morgan takes one of Ritch’s feet and applies a toehold. Shoes & leglocks never mix, as we all know, and Ritch taps. Might not have been a work.

6) RUBIN TAGLE vs. ROCKY WILLIAMS: Hilarity: I originally wrote “No idea who these guys are.” Then Apple says that Tagle is 0-1 and fought in December. I happened to see that bout in reviewing show #4. I wrote before that fight those exact same words. So Tagle sucks. Williams is an unknown.

Imagine a boxing match performed by two novice ice skaters, on a pond, during a blizzard. That is what this is. Everything is wrong here. The ref I can’t figure out because he’s wearing a poncho from Six Flags and some Blublockers. Williams’ ass is hanging out of his shorts 30 seconds in and is flashed across my screen for far too long. They throw punches at each other, fall down on the slick mat (A TEDD WILLIAMS INNOVATION) and then get up and repeat. One of them almost wins by guillotine but that didn’t really work and then they stand again. Epic in awfulness. The first round was beyond description.

Second round sees more of the same, except now they are tired, so they don’t really swing as much as stand and stare. Eventually, Williams gets Tagle in a 5 finger choke and drags him to the mat, where they splash a ton because there is a monsoon in the desert of California. Tagle quits more than he taps out to the submission. Mercifully, its over.

7) PAKI vs. WILLIAM ROBERTSON: Oh shit, more? Wait, there’s like 5-6 more fights? Oh god. Oh god.

Paki is some heavy set dude using racial slang as a name. I think that may be humorous but I am not sure. KOTC Graphics show Robertson as “Big Will”. Oh boy. I sense CLOBBERIN’ may be coming soon.

This doesn’t even seem like MMA anymore. Its like a strange manly beyond my wildest expectations fetish video where you watch men roll around on a wet mat incoherently. The previous fight had a pair of twinks and now we’ve moved onto the bears or something. Its pretty much unwatchable. They just fall a bunch and then they do horrid ground work and then stand up and stuff. Robertson eventually wins standing in round 2 as Paki is hunched over taking blows and then the ref stands in to stop it, only to have Paki complain a ton. Crap.

8) DALE BREESE vs. SHANE RYDELL: Breese is the DYNAMITE KID. Rydell is making his pro debut. I wonder who’s supposed to win? Breese also wears the wrestling singlet.

Rydell was smart and wore boxers under his fight shorts. I know this because his fight shorts were dropping down after repeated takedowns. Breese by RNC midway through round 2. Ehhhh.

9) SAAD AWAD vs. ART RUIZ: Art Ruiz is a funny name to me for some reason. Both guys are in decent shape.

Worth noting also is that the sound on this card does not match what happens in the ring at all. I’m pretty sure it’s the same loop, and when fights end, they just lower the volume. Awad and Ruiz go back and forth in an okay fight for what this all is, generally more grappling than striking due to the conditions (which have gotten moderately better) but Ruiz throws a knee to Awad’s head while his knees are down and Awad is out cold. Except now that’s illegal, so Awad wins by DQ.

10) GEORGE FULLWOOD vs. MARSHALL RODRIGUEZ: Rodriguez is a pretty big kid. Fullwood is an average size heavyweight. Size vs…..whatever it is Fullwood possesses!

Rodriguez falls over immediately from a takedown attempt, Fullwood almost has mount, but is bucked off as Rodriguez just throws him with his hands. Fullwood gets a guillotine with the arm in but acquires guard in doing so and Rodriguez is hopeless. About 30 seconds tops and a winnar iz Fullwood.

11) BRANDON MAGANA vs. SANTOS GONZALEZ: Two dudes. Magana is 1-0.

Magana gets a take down and beats on Gonzalez a bunch from the mount until the fight is stopped. Maybe a minute?

12) VICTOR VALENZUELA vs. TIM CREE: Everyone comes out and announces before this fight to come back next week for a free show with the two main events, since the headliners want nothing to do with it. That’s kinda a decent deal. Too bad, you know, these dudes paid for those fights and could have just come next week for free. But ehhh, whatever. Thomas Denny says some stuff about training hard and not wanting to lose because of weather. I wonder if the previous 22 fighters on the card had those objections?

Anyhow, this fight does happen. Cree is holding his hands like Royce in 1993 and Valenzuela is Joe Boxer. 10 seconds in Valenzuela lands a combination that ANNHILATES Cree. An overhand right at the end of the comination was the punch that put Cree out hard.

And now, with the magic of video editing, we SHOOT FORWARD ONE WEEK!

13) MATT STANSELL vs. THOMAS DENNY: Denny is your CHAMPEEN at welterweight. Stansell is a guy with a less than incredible record but he’s not bad.

Fight is but a round in what are now sunny California skies, and Stansell and Denny are in a pretty competitive bout standing and on the ground. The turning point is a throw by Stansell that leads into a near armbar attempt. Denny is able to prevent the armbar but ends up in a triangle choke, and has to tap out. The crowd of hundreds GOES WILD for the title switch. Zach Arnold would compare it to Tuesday in Texas.

14) CHARLIE VALENCIA vs. DEL HAWKINS: Hawkins is given credit for 100 wins. Valencia is really good and I enjoy watching him fight. The first WEC level bout of the disc.

Valencia gets a takedown early, goes for an armbar, that’s defended and so he moves to mount. Hawkins turns over and Valencia flattens him out. Eventually, a choke out and Valencia defends his KOTC Featherweight title. He thanks everyone for coming out, promotes his shit, and that’s all folks.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Chagolla/Acosta, I guess.

KO OF THE NIGHT: Joe Boxer/Cree. Wow.

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Stansell/Denny. Had the benefit of not being in POURING RAIN.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 1 out of 10.: Most of the fights were complete shit. I can’t say it was good because there was a nasty KO or Denny got subbed. So much of it was terrible, what good (and there was almost none) is thrown out the window. The worst MMA on disc ever. And there could be worse?

#11
Heavy Hitters (4/2/2006)

Just one week after the free show at Soboba, another KOTC show (or GC or whatever) from Chukchansi Gold Casino. I’ve never fucking heard of it. Guess who’s announcing. Go ahead.

1) STEVE DENNISON vs. BEN DAVIS: Fat dudes. They both have tribal tattoos, shaved heads, and like Tapout logos. Davis ups the EXTREME ante by having block letters stating “FEAR THIS” on the ass of his trunks. Well, I for one, am intimidated.

Dennison gets thrown to the ground early after bad standup. Davis sucks though, and so even though he’s in side position, and Dennison is ignorant to any defensive posture, he does nothing and the fight is stood up by Cecil Peoples (SHOCK!). Then Dennison shoots in poorly and gets stuck in a guillotine. This fight ends by submission (SHOCK x2!).

2) DAVE GRANADOS vs. BENNY FLORES: This is at 135, and its not a great testament to the weight’s depth of talent stateside. Flores is some little guy with natty dreads who is 0-1 and apparently blesses the fact that he’s not fighting in athletic commissions that would put him under suspension for being TKOed less than 30 days prior. Granados is 2-2-1, with losses to Faber and Bias. Not bad, honestly.

Big shock, the guy with experience outclasses his active but wild and pretty untrained brawler opponent, eventually getting an (early) stoppage with a knee that puts Flores down and then a punch afterwards.

3) SHANE STEWART vs. FRANK MAGNELLON: This is at welter. Magnellon looks like a fighter but trains with no one really. Stewart looks like a dork but trains with a team. Guess what happens.

If you guessed “Dork who trains for the sport wins”, you guessed right. He gets the takedown and pounds the dude from mount. Not much of a fight.

4) DARREN CRISP vs. JUSTIN TRUESDALE: Crisp is with some camp, Truesdale is with dudes you’ve never heard of and is making his debut. I think this is at 160.

Truesdale is horrible but has crazy heart. He looks like a TKD fighter with some judo and he gets some takedowns during this fight, but isn’t able to do a lot with them. Part of this is Crisp’s superior ground game. Part of this is the obviously partial reffing, since the ref stands up both men when Truesdale scores a takedown and gets side position almost immediately after it happens in an all important round 2. Stuff like that makes me hate fights. Crisp wins the fight but who cares? When the ref starts helping the fighter dress after the fight, its obvious what the deal is.

5) ELI JOSLIN vs. AARON BRINK: No fighter in TUF history is more forgotten than Eli Joslin. None. Brink appears for the 300th time on these DVDs, I believe.

First of all, Joslin is taken down and mounted in the first 20 seconds. Somehow, this fight got the guy on TUF. He does get out of it, back to his feet, and is taken down again, but Joslin gets a guillotine that time and gets the win over Brink. Well ain’t that special. Joslin then never fought again.

6) TOSH COOK vs. EDDIE CALANTAS: Calantas is a very heavyset Filipino guy. By heavyset, think Tank. Cook has a t-shirt with his name on it and has a temporary tattoo imploring the viewer to buy cycle gear at some place in central California.

Pretty lousy fight. Cook throws a lot of kicks, almost like he has a sport karate background. Calantas is taken down by Cook, but blatantly grabs and holds the fence for about a minute to get himself on Cook’s back. Cook isn’t total crap though and reverses that into being on top in Calantas’ guard, then passes that and gets to mount before pounding him out.

7) ANTHONY RUIZ vs. SHANNON KILGORE: Kilgore comes to the ring FOCUSED. He also shares his name with a shitty band from Australia and is making his pro debut. Ruiz is a guy from a real camp and is sponsored by Rockstar.

Kilgore starts in kung fu stance and you know how this ends immediately. After a minute of sloppy standup in which Ruiz probably could have finished Kilgore easily if he wanted to slow down and set up stuff, Ruiz lands a looping right hand that decimates the poor white trash dude put in front of him. Record Padding 101.

8) KYACEY USCOLA vs. STEVE RAMIREZ: Uscola is the guy I’m most interested in after Joslin for this card. Ramirez is 4-2 and his losses are to Gil Castillo and Gabe Ruediger. This means he is a tomato can, and that he will lose.

Uscola takes him down immediately and gets to half guard and starts an onslaught of punches and elbows. One barrage of elbows is basically not defended and Cecil Peoples runs in to stop it. Maybe 40 seconds?

9) ANDY MACCARONE vs. SHANNON RITCH: As high class a fight yet on the card. Maccarone is someone who trains somewhere and has a soul patch. He looks ready to kick ass at the local Starbucks.

Ritch and Maccarone don’t last long standing, as Ritch secures a takedown. Once in guard, Ritch stands out of it and goes for a leglock. Maccarone attempts to roll out of it and does so across the length of the cage. At this point, there’s a variety of badly attempted leg locks, all of which fail, and eventually Ritch becomes winded before 3 minutes have passed. This gives Maccarone the chance to get on top, pass guard, and rain down punches from mount. Maccarone wins via Round 1 stoppage.

10) BO CANTRELL vs. BRIAN SESMA: I have no words to describe my emotions coming in. This is for a supposed world title (Gladiator’s Challenge), BTW. Cantrell. Sesma. World Championship. And boxing has problems….

Cantrell and Sesma throw punches at each other. Given that Cantrell hasn’t been asked to throw the fight, he looks almost fast in the ring, and lands a nice right hand on Sesma’s chin, dropping him. Peoples lets it go a little longer as Cantrell assumes a kneeling position above Sesma and attempts to cave in his skull with punches while he does nothing, and after observing several more punches, Cecil Peoples decides it may be a good time to act in the interest of fighter safety.

11) SHAWN BIAS vs. JOSH GARDNER: No idea who the latter is. Bias has been reviewed in this series before. He also almost died about a month ago when cops tazered him a whole bunch after a party. Ended up in a coma with a 50/50 shot at survival, but pulled through. Fight is at 155.

From the get go, it is obvious that Gardner is way too undersized. He’s capable on his back but doing anything else he’s outgunned. Bias is able to get him down regularly and work inside his guard to land a number of punches and elbows. Really, all Gardner can do is use his ability to survive and make it to a wide unanimous decision loss.

12) EMMANUEL NETWON vs. RICHARD MONTOYA: The main event of the show. Montoya reps Lion’s Den and has recently beaten Aaron Brink. Newton hasn’t beaten anyone notable quite yet.

Horrible first round to watch. Newton and Montoya largely negate each other in the clinch and they’re not separated, so you get the KOTC version of Sataake/Yasuda. Newton remembers at times that knees are legal and throws some, at one point stunning Montoya and at another backing him off. Second round sees more of the same. Newton remembers in this round that he can change levels and do stuff like grab the legs, so he gets Montoya down doing that once. That’s the offense in round 2. Swick/Burkman looked like an alltime classic in comparison. Newton wins a decision.


FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Crisp/Truesdale sucked and was unfair to one of the competitiors, but the rest of the fights were so awful….

KO OF THE NIGHT: Cantrell/Sesma. It looked pretty good, seeing Sesma fall over limp in slow motion.

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Joslin/Brink. They were all guillotines, and Brink was the best fighter submitted.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 1.5 out of 10. Montoya/Newton was better than Ambien. Best fighter on the show was Kyacey Uscola. No really interesting fights in terms of skill. No interesting prospects. 3 camera setup was all MiniDVs through the cage, so not even a stationary. Ugh ugh ugh.

I think Denny was the champ, so he may have had some say that way. I was laughing through most of this show. Guys slipping all over the place trying in vain to fight. Forget about fighting on the feet. Try one strike & they were slipping all over the cage. It's just speculation but I'd bet that if they didn't fight, they wouldn't get paid & wouldn't be back to fight for KOTC again.

I believe that fight was actually after TUF. The date of the fight is 4/2/06. Eli was on TUF 2 which aired in the fall of 2005.

That's just amazing then that he got on TUF. What the hell were his qualifications?

#12
Predator Returns (5/13/06)

I'm going to push hard and watch all of these before the end of March, damnit. Just 13 to go after this. I can do that no sweat. This is from the Apache Gold on some reservation in Arizona, and its Erik Apple, Del Hawkins, Tedd Williams, and James Lee. 4 IS NOT ENOUGH. This is indeed the legendary Warpath/Don Frye potentially worked fight. Also on the card is Kyacey Uscola/Jacob Chagolla, Charlie Valencia/Urijah Faber, and special appearances by Bobby Hoffman, Ron Rumpf, and Bryan Pardoe.

1) JUSTIN BAILEY vs. DJ HOLLINGSWORTH: Sound is pure crap right now. Bailey is 1-0. Neither guy really rings any bells. Then again, they’re young in their careers and this is two years ago. Who knows now?

KOTC by numbers. Bailey takes down Hollingsworth, gets his back after awhile, then the RNC.

2) DANIEL MADRID vs. LEROY FORNOFF: Both have been reviewed before. Fornoff is a student at everything, master of nothing, and it shows. Madrid seems to be a grappler primarily and perhaps only. Could be okay.

Ends up being as good as a one round KOTC bout can be. Madrid and Fornoff trade submission attempts like baseball cards. Madrid takes the mount twice and is bucked off quickly both times. Fornoff has a triangle attempt and is slammed hard but holds on, only to see Madrid get out of the triangle anyhow and sweep using an arm triangle 20 seconds later. Madrid eventually wins by armbar.

3) BOB CALNIN vs. DAVID CARRASCO: Carrasco is making his third appearance and Calnin is a new face.

Calnin absorbs a bunch of punches and a high kick at the onset, using the high kick to get a takedown and lay on Carrasco. Carrasco is gassed by the time the inept ref stands them up far too early maybe 1:00 later, right after Calnin passes to half guard. Calnin controls the rest of the the round. Another couple of fine examples of KOTC reffing: Calnin gets the back with a minute left with hooks in, but is stood up soon after. That, by the way, is not shown on tape, as they instead pan to the crowd and show a static shot of them for about 15 seconds. The fight is also stopped while Carrasco is mounted and being punched, though he’s attempting to buck Calnin off at the time. Uhhh, okay.

4) CHAD DEITMEYER vs. VINCENT PEREZ: Never heard of either. Perez has shoes. Oh yeah, Arizona sez: NO ELBOWS TO THE HEAD.

Perez with the shot, tries some G&P, gets caught in a triangle. Deitmeyer hasn’t fought since.

5) RON RUMPF vs. SHANE FRENCH: Oh boy. French is a mere 6’0’’, 270, making him more in shape than most Rumpf oppositon.

Rumpf walks over, throws a right, it lands, French is out cold and his arm is sticking in the air frozen. Rumpf keeps on throwing anyhow. French wakes up and starts swinging. Worth the price of admission.

6) MATT DELL vs. MATT VERHALEN: Dell won the 155 lb SUPERFIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD in his debut against a cardio kickboxing instructor (n. Dana White). Verhalen is a dude. Some chick sings the national anthem first, and I fast forward past this, making patriots everywhere cry. I do note lots of fat women in Wal-Mart blouses and a dude who looks sorta like Ox Baker in a Eddie Guerrero T-shirt mouthing along in the crowd. I am also corrected: Dell comes to the ring with his belt, which is for the Superfight Championship of Arizona which I can believe. Also, LOL AT THE SUPERFIGHT CHAMPION OF ARIZONA BEING A REAL TITLE.

First round is action packed. Dell’s nose is broken very early, but he’s able to recover and there’s a Pier 1 braw/slobberknock/Joe Silva Special on, with both men hurting the other, jumping on them ineffectively, losing their opportunity to finish, and the reverse happening a couple times. More of this follows in Round 2, but Dell seems to take control due to a natural size difference (Verhalen moved up from 145 for this bout) and is able to stun his opponent enough times that he takes the decision. Solid, entertaining fight.

7) KYACEY USCOLA vs. JACOB CHAGOLLA: Is it wrong that this is the fight I most look forward to looking at these listings? Seriously. Chagolla impressed me in his fights and I like watching Uscola anyhow.

Uscola is just totally focused and isn’t using any energy in there. Chagolla still looks soft in the midsection. Early in the fight Chagolla shoots, but Uscola is a far superior wrestler and fends it off, pushing Chagolla into the cage. Chagolla eats a right to the head while there that opens a massive gash on his eye. Another attempt to shoot later lands Uscola in half guard landing shots. Uscola also hurts Chagolla badly with about 30 seconds remaining and Chagolla just runs to the end of the round. He still loses by KO though because he tells Herb Dean he can’t see a bunch of times. It only works if there was a headbutt, Jacob.

8) BRETT SLONE vs. BRYAN PARDOE: One of the Tapout dudes is obscuring my screen during Slone’s entrance. Slone also comes out with Warpath. Pardoe gets a hype video. BRYAN PARDOE GETS A HYPE VIDEO. Did I mention Slone is making his debut?

Sloan grabs Pardoe by the head and just twists him to the ground and starts pounding. Some sort of aborted armbar attempt from Pardoe is defended by more punches, which cut Pardoe and eventually stop the fight soon after. Slone in under a minute, and he would go on to lose in his second bout and not fight again.

9) BOBBY HOFFMAN vs. PAUL O’KEEFE: Hoffman has taken many forms: from Crazy Bald Dude to Giant Tanner, he’s embodied the look of many and had a fighting style equally generic in its subpar mix of boxing and wrestling. Hoff’s hair today is a ridiculous blonde curly afro cut, which goes well with his gut. O’Keefe has lots of bad tats and apparently is a Army dude of some sort.

O’Keefe displays an impressive vertical leap at the start of the bout that accomplishes nothing. Hoffman shoots in and eventually gets a single to take down O’Keefe. Hoffman moves to mount then directly back to side control because he has a head and arm choke O’Keefe wasn’t prepared to defend. Hoffman gets a tap soon after.

10) URIJAH FABER vs. CHARLIE VALENCIA: Prefight video for this, which actually deserves it.

Faber and Valencia fight high speed, full contact, technical MMA and it is very good. Valencia is rolling for heel hooks and Faber going for suplexes and Valencia hurts Faber standing, and Faber is throwing axe kicks and it is grand. However Valencia throws a kick from his back in the butt scoot position and when he comes down, his head hits the cage. He catches a link in the head or something and recoils in pain, and Faber immediately takes advantage and gets a rear naked choke for a round 1 win. Boooo. Lots of hope dashed immediately.

11) WARPATH vs. DON FRYE: Prefight videos! Warpath has been in knife fights and has a bullet wound. But this is what matters, so he says. Being shot would seem to me to be more important than a fight with Don Frye. But maybe that’s just my personality. Warpath’s vid is an extra special kind of crappy as it cuts between a casual interview, training and past fight footage, and him in front of a green sheet giving the least intense WWF Superstars interview ever. Don Frye has lost some noticable muscle prior to this bout and his voice is more gravely than ever. He’s not quite “Freddie Mercury with AIDS” or anything but he’s not looking that fantastic either. I can’t imagine he looks any better after that fight with Thompson.

The dude in the shirt that I thought looked like Ox Baker was actually Superstar Billy Graham. Big fucking deal. Its not like either really fought in a ring and so I don’t care. Boring first round where most guys are in the clinch throwing nothing punches. Everything effective was thrown by Warpath and Frye is already winded. Frye is cut by a punch in Round 2 and then both me don’t throw anything meaningful for the rest of the round. Frye tosses Warpath down with a “judo throw” and flails uselessly at his face. Pretty boring, much like round 1. Also, least number of standups per minute of nonexistent action for any KOTC yet. Round 3 sees both men end up in the clinch the entire time and throwing lazy punches and I almost fall asleep, instead focusing in on some cornermans voice as I drift off to la la land. With a minute left, I spring back into action, having really only missed a few seconds, and not that nothing has happened. The round ends with both men in the same clinch they entered 4:50 earlier. The decision hits the cards, and with scores of 89-88, 88-83, and 88-88, it’s a draw. I have no idea what the fuck they’re scoring on the basis of or how, but we don’t even get judge names. Warpath starts an interview afterwards and looks worm the fuck out like some old queen. I think sleep is a better option than hearing Don “COPD” Frye or this dude talk.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Dell/Verhalen would get my bonus money, no doubt about it

KO OF THE NIGHT: Rumpf/French.

SUBMISSTION OF THE NIGHT(S): Madrid/Fornoff. Nothing to really see but given the criteria….

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 6 out of 10: Not actively bad, the fights that sorta interested me most petered out except the Valencia/Faber bout.

Qualifications:

Warm Body (1)

#13
The Mangler (6/9/06)

Almost at the halfway point! Sounds like Williams and Treblecock are announcing this event. Interesting note: Opening bout is listed as Pat Nannery vs. Mark Barelo. BZZZZZ. No.

1) RANDY PALMER vs. CLARK BEVANS: Bevans is married to Erin Toughhill. Palmer is some guy lucky to be here. Not listed on the insert card, either.

Sloppy fight. Bevans is acosted for throwing an illegal knee on the ground that breaks Palmer’s nose, and then later he blatantly headbutts him. Palmer is decent enough to survive but not good enough not to be slammed repeatedly and beat up. The last three minutes are spent with Bevans laying on top of Palmer and Palmer with a headlock. Seriously. Oh, and Palmer just bleeds all over the shitty tattoos on Bevans’ back. Horrid fight for the second round. Bevans wins, but he looks like a really poor man’s version of Eddie Alvarez in doing so.

2) RON CUSHEN vs. RUBIN TAGLE: Cushen has grey hair, yells on the way down, and in general, I cannot take him seriously. He looks like some stupid goober walking in there. Tagle has the Scott Ian goatee. Erik Apple and Buddy Clinton take over in the long pause between fights. Apparently Clinton was to fight Mac Danzig on this card but was unable to, due to injury to Danzig.

Epic fail. Tagle gets Cushen down with a sloppy right hand, eventually passes guard, and is in mount for like, 3 minutes throwing shots until he gets the stoppage. He doesn’t throw elbows because he is dumb or punches down the middle, so he made it tougher for himself than he had to by having Cushen block shots continuously by parrying them with his arms. Apple is honest about this one though: “I’d say that Cushen should try and get guard, but he probably doesn’t know how to.”

3) SAMBO BLANKENSHIP vs. ERNIE PEREA: Sambo has one hell of a name. Perea wears a shirt in the ring, but these are actually not obese heavyweights! Instead, it is 145lbs.

Perea and Blankenship sorta circle one another, grapple a little, Perea lands a knee in the clinch and that’s all she wrote. Very quick fight.

4) AIKI CAVANAUGH vs. KEITH BERRY: The ring announcer can’t pronounce “Cavanaugh”, oddly.

Berry by KO in maybe 4 seconds? They just walk to center and Berry lands a one-two and ITS ALLLL OVER, in Goldberg terminology.

5) KEITH MCDANIEL vs. CHRIS RUYLE: McDaniel is an independent fighter, and as Apple reminds us all, “that independent team is pretty big.”

Decent match of positional grappling, as Ruyle and McDaniel trade takedowns (McDaniel breaks out a judo throw: unexpected for an “independent”) each other’s backs, mount, choke defense, and all the rest. McDaniel catches Ruyle with an illegal knee in north south that the ref does nothing about because he sucks. He uses this to transition to a Dragon Sleeper, but time runs out in round 1. Ruyle is shook up by the knee, and since the ref totally missed it and did nothing about it, McDaniel wins because Ruyle is too much of a mess to make round 2. Ruyle will watch Frank Shamrock lose by DQ a few months later and probably throws a plate against the wall and beats up his girlfriend or something.

6) MIKE MIRALES vs. JASON ALLSMAN: Mirales is a Erik Paulson student and wears a rashguard. Allsman has Joe Stevenson in his corner and wears wrestling shoes. I bet I can guess each man’s base….

Mirales basically ruins Allsman in a two rounder that he finishes by guillotine. Referee has two horrible standups in this fight with Allsman in mount. Younger dude who has fucked up repeatedly and missed a ton of stuff. Someone get me a name for him so I can write an editorial about it elsewhere and I’ll send you something in the mail for free. Don’t know what it is, but I will do that. But back to the fight. Allsman is game but Mirales is far superior standing and on the ground. At one point, he goes to knee on the belly and basically spins around on top of Allsman to the other side with the other knee and keeps pounding him. I give Allsman credit for staying in there, but not much else.

7) BRANDON BECKERING vs. BRIAN SAVOIA: Savioa looks like he has Orange County Chopper stickers on his Ford Ranger. Beckering is average white dude. HOT MIDDLEWEIGHT ACTION.

Shitty kickboxing imitating an MMA fight. Beckering wins by KO, but its pretty irrelevant to the sport. Made Rosier/Frazier look like a technical classic.

8) SHAD SMITH vs. RICHARD MONTANO: Speaking of shitty kickboxing, Shad Smith. He is accompanied by the Tapout dudes, probably because he is so STREEEET, what with having 1,000,000 street fights or whatever in addition to the massive asswhuppin’ by Duane Ludwig. Montano has a nice looking record, but does he secretly suck?

Basic answer: Kinda sorta. Montano keeps spending time on the guillotine in positions he cannot get it, and does so for way too long. When striking with Smith, his hands are way down and while he’s faster than Smith, he still gets hit way too much to make it easy. Add to that a second round that saw Smith slam him repeatedly and get the mount over and over, and you get a majority draw.

9) MANNY RODRIGUEZ vs. ADRIAN PEREZ: Perez is easy to spot because he has tattoos all over his face. His most memorable clash was with Eddie Sanchez, in which he got blitzed and KOed really fast. Rodriguez is a fat dude with the biggest dome ever.

Sumo w/strikes leads to Rodriguez going down briefly, but he recovers and eventually knocks out Perez with a thai knee, which along with his overhand rights seemed to be the limit of his capabilities.

10) MOISES CASTILLO vs. BRIAN SESMA: Matt Stansell joins Buddy Clinton on the microphone. Sesma, remember, is a man that made Bo Cantrell look phenomenal. Castillo is a fat dude with a shirt.

Sesma shows mediocre boxing skills, which are better than Castillo’s nonexistent ones. He tags Castillo a few times with jabs, but during a clinch, knees him in the nuts. After Castillo recovers, back to the same with Castillo being dropped with the jab and then eventually finished on the ground after some very minor and pathetic back and forth action there.

11) ELIJAH YOUNG vs. AARON CRUZ: Matt Stansell spends the entire opening walkout of the bout talking with Clinton about the fight at Return 2 and the decision about the rain. Essentially, he chalks it up to Denny, who came to him and asked him how he felt about it. He gave Denny carte blanche and the end result was a second show a week later. Stansell also retires to pursue training fighters.

Young and Cruz are both young talented kids, and as such, they are afraid of each other most of the fight. Young is superior on the ground to Cruz, and once there he is able to dominate position, pass guard, and eventually end up on Cruz’s back with a choke in the first round. Holds on a bit long but ehhh.

12) JERRY DAVIS vs. RICHARD NEWELL: More bad heavyweights.

I barely stayed awake through this. Davis is GOD’S GLADIATOR. I wasn’t aware an omnipotent being needed such a thing. Newell is a fat dude with bad tattoos and whatnot. Davis is barely better and so he hits Newell a lot and Newell keeps getting hurt, but NEWELL IS A BORN FIGHTAR~! and so he returns punches that occasionally land. Newell gasses before a minute is up and submits to strikes before round 1 is over.

13) WILLIAM SYRAPAI vs. CHARLES BENWAY: Benway is some really white trash looking dude and Syrapai is a long time fighter in KOTC with some classics against Crazy Horse.

Syrapai is easily able to control distance with hard leg kicks while Benway tries jumping in a lot. Confused, Benway occasionally stops moving to set up his attack and Syrapai takes advantage of it. Halfway through the first round comes a head kick that lands square on Benway’s head and sleeps him immediately. He doesn’t even brace his face first fall down and it’s the guaranteed KO of the night, and thus far, of the DVDs.

14) CHANCE WILLIAMS vs. BIG WILLIAM ROBINSON: Williams and Robinson have both been looked at before. Williams in his debut got a KO win over Ron Rumpf in like .2 seconds, and Big Will was in a craptacular contest with Paki.

Chance Williams shoots almost immediately and they wrestle around a little, with Chance actually getting something that looked like a belly to belly, only to keep rolling after the throw. Wow. This is followed by some bad standup, in which an unintentional headbutt basically wins the fight for Williams, hurting Big Will and letting him drag Will to the ground and GnP him from the mount. At least it was short.

15) SHAWN BIAS vs. AL GARZA: MOAR BIAS. Al Garza is some other tiny dude. Apple shares some info about Bias: He was able to beat John De La O, a long time fixture in KOTC and Gladiator Challenge with zero striking or submission training, just pure wrestling. Plus he was licking his own blood when fighting Thomas Kenny, which was not on camera. Bias has been nothing but entertaing thus far, and I really hope he’s able to fully recover from his incident a month ago.

Anyhow, the fight. Bias slams Garza to start and then pounds on him, but lets him up. He then slams him again (almost guillotining himself) but is able to get mount and rain punches until the fight is stopped in round 1. Impressive showing for Bias.

I decided on a whim to do a quick search on Shawn Bias in Google News, and found this item. I’d be a dick not to post it:

Donations are being accept for Shawn Bias. You may send contributions to: Jon Brennan in care for Shawn Bias, P.O. Box 1941, Oroville, CA 95965 or Tri Counties Bank, 1180 Oro Dam Blvd., Oroville, CA 95965

Pay to the order of: Jon M Brennan. Account Number: 190015178 -For Shawn Bias.

16) JEREMIAH METCALF vs. AARON WITHERSPOON: Metcalf is a decent enough fighter and Witherspoon will end up somewhere better soon.

Very close decision fight, and somewhat controversial. Neither man was able to do much offensively, as both engaged in the clinch almost immediately in both rounds and stayed there, trading shots. Metcalf usually pressed Witherspoon into the cage and broke his nose, though during exchanges between clinching Witherspoon usually got the better of it. I would have been fine with a draw here. Witherspoon looked really small though.

17) THOMAS KENNY vs. BRYSON KAMAKA: Finally, after 16 bouts, the main event, and me clearing the first of 3 boxed sets. Kamaka is fresh from Hawaii, and Kenny is a long time stalwart in Cali.

Kamaka and Kenny disappoints after what looked to become a solid bout. Both men traded punches, takedown attempts, and showed good all around skills. Kamaka looked to take control at the end of round one, cutting Kenny with an uppercut standing, then downing him with a throw and hitting him with 3 hard punches from inside Kenny’s guard as the bell rang. Unfortunately, one of the punches broke his hand, and Kamaka was unable to continue the fight, giving Kenny a TKO win. Oh well.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Metcalf/Witherspoon. Probably the natural pick since it went more than 5 minutes and wasn’t bad enough to justify being fast forwarded.

KO OF THE NIGHT: Syrapai/Benway. Wow. About as bad as Antonio McKee’s brutal KO loss.

SUBMISSTION OF THE NIGHT(S): Young/Cruz. Basically the only submission on the card.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 4.5 out of 10. Some really awful moments in the middle and very beginning, but there was some pretty decent showcase/squash fights in here that made it watchable. Plus, plenty of fast knockouts when it mattered. Length was epic but I guess that’s a positive or something. Like Rampage says, there’s like 25 fights on each disc and about 7 good ones.

So to review the Underground Warriors Boxed Set from King of the Cage:

KOTC Shock And Awe: 5
KOTC Final Conflict: 6 w/normal commentary, 10 w/Rampage and Horse
KOTC Raging Bull: 4
KOTC Outlaws: 4.5
KOTC Oceania: 2.5
KOTC Battle At Ute. Mountain: 1.5
KOTC Drop Zone: 5.5
KOTC The Return: 1
KOTC Heavy Hitters: 1.5
KOTC The Mangler: 4

Average: 3.55

OVERALL: On one hand, they’re for completists, and most people watching MMA aren’t completists. On the other hand, they are very very cheap, and so its not like you can hate them that much. I paid something like $12 for this, and that’s less than one UFC event. For that, I got about as many quality bouts as a UFC event, mind you, but I got a lot of other stuff too in my 131 bout boxed set. I wouldn’t necessarily slog through it if I was anyone other than myself, but just to have laying around, primarily for a good copy of the Ireland/Danzig fight and some of the other stuff, I guess I would suggest it at the price. But no more than $17 at max. The majority of living beings won’t need this.

#14
Shootout (7/8/06)

And onto the Underground Worldwide boxed set we roam. Erik Apple is on the microphone tonight from Ute Mountain Casino in Colorado someplace.

1) GILBERT CLARK vs. COREY JAGGER: Two dudes making debuts.

Jagger gets a takedown, mount, punches, over. Ugh.

2) WES WILLIAMS vs. STEVE ROUTT: Both are no names. Routt is cited as having a grappling background.

Routt gets the takedown immediately, gets to mount, Wes rolls on his stomach, choke out. Routt’s submissions aren’t all that good. A total novice on the ground was able to stop 2 RNC attempts by….uh….I have no idea how he did it. Probably by mistake.

3) EDDIE ARMENDARIZ vs. KAAN CLARK: Again, more of the “I know nothing about these guys”.

Clark wins as both men roll around a lot and sweep each other in and out of mount for the entire fight. Clark is penalized for holding the cage repeatedly but gets to keep the mount he was about to bucked out of and then pulls an armbar almost immediately after.

4) EDDIE BORTOT vs. COREY SANFORD: Sanford is some tall lanky guy with a bad mustache and Bortot is a muscled up dude who is nicknamed the “Tasmanian Devil”. Since pro wrestling can go fuck itself, no ECW humor will be present in the following review. I will admit that I thought ECW was the shit when I was 12 and I watched it on MSG. Of course, I was 12.

Bortot gets a takedown immediately, gets to mount, rains punches, ref stops it. Horrid.

5) JEREMY MADRID vs. TERRY ALCON: I have seen Madrid before and he was pitiful. Alcon looks like a 45 year old ex cop and wears a rashguard in.

This show is really bad. Madrid and Alcon lock up, Alcon goes to throw Madrid, fucks up, and has Madrid on top of him instead. Madrid pounds him out from side control.

6) DARRELL HACKETT vs. JEREMY FERGUSON: No real trainers for these guys as far as I can tell, wrestling backgrounds because the shoes tell me so. They look young enough to be wrestlers who don’t like each other in high school.

Back and forth poorly fought but fun fight. Hackett loves the front kick, perhaps because it’s the only thing he knows. Ferguson throws a lot of pushing jabs, but they’re effective because Hackett is garbage standing. In the clinch, he’s far better, able to get down Ferguson seemingly at will in round 1. At one point, Hackett throws a headbutt straight into Ferguson’s face and loses a point because unlike the guys fighting, the vet is a ref and one that doesn’t suck (Herb Dean). Hackett drops Ferguson in another sequence of the fight as they scrap, Ferguson recovers and is able to jump on the back of Hackett. Hackett finishes round 1 strong on top. The second round is a far shorter contest. With Ferguson controlling the exchanges with the jab, Hackett pushes him into the cage and tries to get a takedown. Too tired to do so, he releases and tries throwing, but Ferguson is able to take a choke from behind and drag down Hackett, albiet sideways. Ferguson refuses to give up the Million Dollar Dream he’s applied, and ends up switching it into a front choke variation and chokes him out with a sleeper from mount. As Apple says, “that’s very rare”.

7) ISAQUE MARTINEZ vs. EFREM ATENE: There’s an Isais Martinez on the first Colorado KOTC reviewed in this series, and I’ll have to check at some point to see if it’s the same guy, just fucked up somewhere. Atene is all chubby and shit.

Martinez gets a takedown immediately, gets to mount, rains strikes, ref stops it. Bortot/Sanford but with different looking people.

8) JOSH PETERSON vs. DARRELL EULER: Euler trains with some submission grappling camp or something and Peterson has to be the 12th independent fighter of the night.

Peterson gets the takedown and tries pounding, but the much smaller Euler is able to prevent anything from really hitting, and Peterson is gassed 90 seconds in. Euler is thus able to take the back, try applying a rear naked choke with Peterson’s arm in, and then takes mount and throws punches till the fight is stopped. Along with the usual headshots, Euler threw punches behind him to Peterson’s belly. Apple says it’s the first time he’s ever seen that. Same here.

9) CHRIS STRANGER vs. STEVE BERLANGA: Stranger I’ve seen before and he SUCKED. Berlanga I don’t know and probably won’t care about soon.

Fight actually wasn’t that bad, considering my expectations coming in. First round went to Berlanga for getting some big takedowns and controlling the majority of the time. Stranger won a dull round 2 in which he was able to get a pair of key takedowns and usually was the one doing the pushing in the clinch. The judges agreed and it was a draw.

10) JASON KEITH vs. GABRIEL MUNOZ: Keith’s name was misspelled in an earlier show. I think. But he sucks, albiet slighly less than Ron Rumpf.

Pretty lousy fight, Keith eventually wins with strikes on the ground and ehhh, half paid attention half daydreamed during this.

11) JOSE LUJAN vs. JERICHO VALLE: Apparently the space between the U and J is so pronounced that the dude making up the booklet fucked up the name. No idea who either are, but Valle wears a gi to the ring. Small guys, missed their weight.

Best fight thus far. Valle is game and has some skills, but Lujan is a better wrestler, has excellent submission defense, and really crisp striking. He is able to reverse every position Valle puts him in very quickly, shows great balance trying to counter a single leg attempt, senses Valle closing the guard and slams him, throws a spinning heel kick in an attempt to get a huge KO, but closes it out anyways in round 2 with a beautiful Roy Jones style leaping right hand that catches Valle perfect. He doesn’t see it coming at all and is out cold.

Looking up info on Lujan, he hasn’t fought since August 2006 but is now 4-0.

12) ALBERT HILL vs. RYLAN SANDOVAL: Hill has spiky hair and lots of tattoos and he is very excited to be here, hopping his way to the ring and giving people high fives. Sandoval is much more morose, enjoying the comfort of his towel and slow paced ring entrance.

Hill throws a lot of punches early, tries to stop Sandoval standing, fails, goes to pull guard with a guillotine, but apparently doesn’t notice that Sandoval is wearing a rashguard. Rashguards are a good sign in entry level MMA that the dude is proficent at submissions, and Hill fails to push Sandoval off and lets him pass guard instead. Oops. He counters by turning his back, and shock of shocks, inexperienced fighter loses by RNC.

13) KEOKI ZWICKER vs. MIKE TERRAZAS: No name guys.

The problem with a lot of training in MMA is that it focuses too much on the “one punch KO”. You hear a lot of guys talk about how jabs, head movement, and parrying aren’t that important, for no other reason than that a single blow can end the fight, and so you should throw as hard as you can to do so. This is stupid, of course, and even Chuck Liddell, who would KO or stun fighters usually with a single strike did so as a counterpuncher primarily, letting the poor striking talent of others open them up for a giant blow. Not everyone is going to be a powerful one shot guy off the back foot though. Big surprise when guys like Anderson Silva, George St. Pierre, Rampage Jackson, Kid Yamamoto, and pretty much everyone else you can name at the top of the sport right now aren’t throwing punches or kicks like that. Setting up for single shots gets you knocked out way more than it gets you wins.

In Terrazas and Zwicker you have two wrestlers who do nothing but throw horrible looping shots all day, and embody the opposite of what level of striking is now necessary to compete at the highest level in the sport. Their skills in grappling are far better than their ability to throw punches, but neither is particularly great there. Zwicker is the smaller man but elevates and slams Terrazas early, however its Zwicker who gasses out totally before the round is out and ends up being put on his back for much of the late portion of the round and into round 2. Terrazas is not in very good shape, but he’s in better cardiovascular shape than Zwicker, who taps after some lame punches to exhaustion.

14) ROBERT KELLEY vs. JOE PADILLA: Padilla’s name is familiar. Maybe it’s the terrorism connection? Kelley’s doesn’t.

Padilla lands a right hand, Kelley is wobbly, Padilla wrestles him down and punches him till the ref stops it. Maybe 20 seconds? This is not interesting, but I did realize something during the fight. The area where the fights are taking place looked to have a combination of pavement and the occasional carpet down like where the “ramp” would be or around the ring. Then I realized that there were markings on the pavement, not just wires. The event is taking place outdoors on an asphalt parking lot. Padilla, BTW, is now 3-0, but his last fight was 3/2007.

15) JAKE PAUL vs. FLOYD SWORD: Sword beat Bryan Pardoe last time we saw him. Never seen Paul before, but I guess I know what happens.

Paul is a live fighter here, but his refusal to commit to strikes except his poorly thrown 1-2 combinations kills him. He catches Sword really early with a high kick that, had he turned over on it, would have won it for him in 20 seconds. Since that wasn’t the case, Sword is able to use superior wrestling to take down Paul a number of times, each time landing shots and eventually busting him open. To be fair, Paul did get a takedown early, but ended up being swept and beat on. Eventually the strikes on the ground merit a stoppage in round 2.

16) JOHN CRONK vs. JOEY VILLASENOR: At least this one has Joey fighting instead of just getting in front of the crowd and talking.

Shitty main. Villasenor’s offense standing are two belly to belly suplexes and a single overhand right. On the ground he’s in side control, mount, or back control almost constantly throwing punches. Cronk taps from said strikes. I nearly fell asleep.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Lujan/Valle.

KO OF THE NIGHT: Lujan/Valle again. That punch was wicked. Short jumping hook. Perfect.

SUBMISSTION OF THE NIGHT(S): Hackett/Ferguson. It was strange and thus lovely.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 2 out of 10 Some oddities and one really brilliant performance, plus appearances by two talents who made it to the big show, albiet briefly for either.

I'm a completist, so I've been getting these, I went through Underground Warriors, Underground Worldwide, & I've just picked up the first set, simply "Underground". It's basically as you say, you get a lot of fights for cheap & there is some good fights on here but there's also a lot of crap. Soooooooooo many fights of guys making there fight debuts & probably never being in the cage again. Although going over the matches in the Underground set, there's quite a few early matches from TUF alumni (Sanchez, Jardine, Griffin, etc.)

#15
Rapid Fire (8/4/06)

Just when you thought I had abandoned it. No sir, I’m coming back with MOAR. I’ve just been busy, that’s all. Hey, listen, if your friends are like “dude, that idea of going to Mexico in August on some crazy convoluted trip you’ve concieved is awesome, keep planning it!” that’s what you’re gonna do. I’m not dying in the streets of DF, damnit.

Eric Apple and someone else are calling the event. Probably John Alessio. (Find out later its Tedd Williams). This is a PPV, BTW.

1) JOHN COLLEY vs. CODY BOLLINGER: Colley looks about 12. So does Cody. And yes, Cody is the son of Frankie Bollinger.

Colley goes for a guillotine and gets slammed with a crazy suplex. Then Bollinger gets mount and pounds away.

2) NEMETH GABOR vs. SHANE DELROSARIO: Gabor is fat and Hungarian. Delrosario is cut and trains with Team Oyama.

Delrosario throws a lot of kicks, and he may impress people because they are really nice looking kicks. The problem is that he’s leading with high kicks, which is to say he has no idea how to throw a proper combination or work the body along with the head. No jab either. These allow Gabor, who is outgunned in every single physical attribute, to counter punch Delrosario and rock him several times in the one round this fight goes on. Eventually Delrosario lands a straight right that hurts Gabor, and he’s able to put him against the cage, land knees and punches, then finish with punches on the ground, but he did nothing to impress me. He looked like he had trained all of 4 months.

3) BRIAN SESMA vs. MANNY RODRIGUEZ: Sesma usually looks good phyisically and gets Koed fast. Rodriguez looked like Juggernaut with skin stretched over the helmeted head and only knows to throw right hand leads and thai knees last time, but this time he’s lost some serious weight.

Okay brawl with Sesma eventually falling down due to Rodriguez’s wide punches and taking a pretty bad beating until Cecil Peoples finally stops it with maybe :30 left in round 1.

4) ALBERT HILL vs. WILLIAM SYRAPAI: Hill is totally stoked and jumping all over the place coming in. Syrapai will probably decapitate him.

Hill generally bum rushes Syrapai, which isn’t a bad idea in round 1 because Syrapai apparently can’t fight backwards at all. Hill ties to go for two guillotines and gets slammed hard both times. His strike attempts are totally stifled by Syrapai’s head movement and defense. The same continues in round 2 until Hill stays stationary for a few seconds. Syrapai then throws a jab/spinning back fist combo that shakes Hill up, clinches with him, drops him hard with a thai knee, and then follows as Doc Hamilton rushes in with a soccer kick. Nothing happens about the illegal strike as its ruled that it doesn’t matter, given that the fight was essentially over and that it was the refs fault for not getting their fast enough. At least, that’s my interpretation.

5) RICHARD MONTANO vs. CUB SWANSON: Not difficult to figure out in advance.

Swanson dominates Montano in round 1 after taking his back early and just strikes anything he can, leaving nasty abrasions on Montano’s back from elbows. The second round is more of the same, with Cub again getting the back, again throwing strikes, again going for submissions, except this time the ref intercedes on the part of Montano several times to let him up. Swanson at the end of the fight has the back of a turtled up Montano and stands above him and throws some crazy sideways knees that cause Montano to spin around to try to somehow avoid them. Swanson with an easy unanimous decision.

6) KENNY KIZAMA vs. CHARLIE KOHLER: Kizama is an unknown…sorta. Apple says he knows nothing about him, and Tedd Williams says, “To be honest, I think its Kenny Tenorio under a different name.” And indeed he was correct. You know you’re watching low rent shit when fighters are using pseudonyms. That’s Kansas club boxing level stuff.

Kohler takes him down with a slam, mounts, Kizama, errr, Tenorio turns over, and Kohler chokes him out. Tenorio is now 0-8 professionally, Kohler racks up another W. You do feel bad for Tenorio though, since he only seems to get tough dudes in his carrer (Trevor Lally, Bao Quach, Tony DeSouza).

7) BRIAN WARREN vs. JAMES FANSHEAR: Another quality James Fanshear fight. Warren and Fanshear have both been seen before winning by overwhelming ground skills in round 1. Will they offset each other and produce a standup war?

I pretty much guessed it. Good first round with Fanshear winning it, controlling Warren standing and on the ground. Round 2 was a wild affair with Fanshear being knocked down by a punch and Warren nearly finishing it in mount. However Fanshear survives, causes horrible swelling that closes Warren’s left eye, and then lands a head kick as Warren gets up from the ground about 2 minutes in that slices his forehead deeply. Warren looks like the Elephant Man and is covered in blood, and the referee demands the fight be stopped. Dana White Special.

8) RYAN DIAZ vs. NAM PHAN: Diaz I’ve seen in Superbrawl and he’s a pretty fun dude. Phan is pretty good. Matt Stansell joins on commentary.

Good thai boxing match that looked nothing like your average MMA bout. Virtually no ground whatsoever and lots of combination punching from both, with great emphasis on body punching by Phan. Phan cuts Diaz late in the fight between the eyes and knees Diaz as he falls to his knees, but Peoples fucks up the call and gives Diaz time to recover in spite of having no knees on the ground when the shot lands. Phan wins a decision in the second Dana White Special in a row.

9) BUDDY CLINTON vs. MAC DANZIG: I hear this Danzig fellow is one to watch! This is also the main event? Really? Whaaaa?

Round 1 is a tactical grappling battle that Buddy Clinton wins. He scores two big takedowns and is able to pull Danzig into his guard. I’m sure the judges gave him no credit for putting himself in a tactically better position than the clinch (where the stronger Danzig could dominate), but that’s why MMA judging is a mess. Danzig gets Clinton down near the end of the round but was unable to get from half guard to side control and instead is put back into Clinton’s full guard as the round ends.

Round 2 is close but, IMO, clearly a Mac Danzig round. He controls the action on the ground moreso than Clinton, is more often in dominant position, gets more takedowns, etc. Clinton has a few moments of glory in this round with a wild looking sweep that got him from Danzig having his back to being in the mount in about a second. Very little striking on the ground though, and honestly, its more a fight of positioning than submission attempts. Clinton has only clearly gone after two submissions: A knee bar in round 2 that he rolled for and a omaplata in round 1.

Round 3 is more of the same. Clinton is willing moreso in this round to be taken down and attempt submissions with the rubber guard, but he doesn’t come close to getting anything and when Danzig breaks free, he lands punches. Danzig clearly wins the round and with it gets the fight.

10) THOMAS KENNY vs. AARON WITHERSPOON: So, I have no idea what this is. A title match as swing bout or something? Witherspoon and Kenny have both been seen before. Witherspoon is primarily a slugger and wrestler, Kenny is a wrestler who trains out of De La O JJ in LA, which means I bet he gets slammed and then wins by submission. Also worth noting: Kenny is wearing shoes, probably because he knows Witherspoon doesn’t know a heel hook from a fish hook.

Round 1 is all Witherspoon. He lands a sloppy right hand early on and stuns Kenny, who then clinches. A good chunk of the round is spent with Kenny pushing Witherspoon against the fence, with Witherspoon eventually powering forward and landing some knees, then letting himself be pushed again. Witherspoon lets Kenny use up a ton of energy, and then is able to start pushing him around the cage, get underhooks, and then pick up and slam Kenny. Oddly, he chooses after getting top control to go into Kenny’s guard rather than try passing, and takes Kenny to his own corner. While there, Witherspoon starts the G&P and cuts Kenny real badly on the forehead. The fight is briefly stopped, but restarts in the same position, and ultimately the round ends there also.

In Round 2, Kenny gets a takedown off his striking and goes for a kimura in side control. Naturally, this leads Cecil Peoples to stop the fight while he’s actively pursing a fight ending submission to check the cut. The position is held for Kenny, but he promptly loses it as Witherspoon powers out on the restart. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone did an article about refereeing in MMA? I know I’d read it. Anyhow, Witherspoon and Kenny are in a battle of the clinch again, and it goes exactly like it does in round 1, except with a lot more blood. Comparisons promptly end with an elbow that shakes up Kenny, and he backpedals to the far corner of the cage. Witherspoon follows, corners him, throws some punches and then a knee that drops Kenny hard and ends the fight. NEW CHAMPEEN, Aaron Witherspoon. He promptly thanks Gawd for letting him beat the shit out of a white dude with a lousy haircut.

Highlights are then shown of the whole night, including fights not seen. Things of note are Manny Tapia/Shad Smith and Akira Shoji/Todd Medina, which must be judged off of 10 seconds of clips. Lame. Medina/Shoji was for some sort of belt too.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Pham/Diaz is the obvious pick, however limited it was.

KO OF THE NIGHT: Witherspoon/Kenny. Pretty sick stoppage.

SUBMISSTION OF THE NIGHT(S): Tim Cree/Daniel Williams. Only seen in highlights and listed as an armbar, looks more like a kneebar to me.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 5 out of 10 Worst of the PPV cards on paper, especially when there were fights with some name dudes not even shown in favor of Fanshear/Warren. This is DVD, you can go long and its okay.

#16
Meltdown (10/7/06)

I was in Detroit this past weekend. Do you know how dead Detroit is? Dead. Really dead. I was driving through the hood, and there was no one on any corner. I could run the block because no one lives there anymore. Was I Am Legend shot on location there? I also would like to save up several hundred thousand, buy up a whole block, then drive dirt bikes on ramps that utilize the homes as supports. How sick would that be?

Oh yes. KOTC Meltdown. Yeah, so finishing by March didn’t happen. Life goes down and plans change. I promise to eventually finish though. I’m putting off the WEC from 2/13 until I finish this. 2/13! I still don’t know who won. I get committed to not seeing spoilers.Treblecock and Williams are calling the fights. Rounds are 3 minutes long, each fight consisting of 3 rounds.

1) BRIAN HARPER vs. RICH WEEKS: Harper’s debut came on disc 9 of the series at KOTC Drop Zone. Weeks is a nobody. To further review, Harper is James Lee’s BJJ coach.

Harper gets takedown, side control, channels Lee Casebolt’s mind and throws Randlemanesque knees to the body, mounts, Weeks panicks, oh, you know. Tapout by RNC, Harper is a winnah.

2) CORY GARNER vs. JIMMY BOYD: Boyd is showing up for the third time. Garner is some dude who is 1-0. Both are wrestlers, it seems.

The two trade slams, and in the midst of their little clinch war, Bord somehow gets cut in a ghastly way. The ref stops it after Garner’s back body droppish thing and the doctor refuses to let it continue. Garner wins, probably by accidental headbutt/making shit up as everyone goes along.

3) ELTON CHAVEZ vs. JUSTIN ROBBINS: Robbins is really pretty good, but generally outsized in fights. Chavez has no real pro experience but is about the same size. The trunks don’t tell me anything with his camp of “Team Wally” and sponsorship by American Pancake House either.

It would be a crime for me to try and do play by play for this fight. Wildly technical fight that is the epitome of what MMA should be rather than Toughman level brawling. The standup was generally nothing special, but the ground work by both was something to admire, with Chavez and Robbins both changing positions repeatedly with crazy guard passes, north south armbar attempts, rolling kneebars, and everything else under the sun. Chavez gassed in round 2 and Robbins totally swept up round 3, but while I felt Robbins won, the judges instead went with a draw. Highly impressed with both.

4) JOE KIELUR vs. JEREMY CARVER: Speaking of Toughman level competition, we’ve got lard, bald heads, bad tattoos, and a guy wearing a shirt. Heavyweights~!

Carver throws a ton of stuff at the start and Kielur is almost stopped without having done anything. Kielur basically Homer Simpson’s Carver and just drags him to the ground, where he punches a turtling Carver till the ref stops it. Kielur is a future Kimbo opponent IMO. FUN FACT: Joe Kielur is 1-1 as a pro boxer, with both fights in 2005. His win and loss are both by KO.

5) ANTHONY LAPSLEY vs. CURT BEE: Never seen either. Lapsley is a natural athlete sporting the cornrows and Bee is some white dude.

Lapsley goes for the shot immediately and gets it, then he and Bee basically roll for awhile and then the round ends. Both men are able to get the other’s back at varying portions of the first round. Second round is a bit more exciting with Lapsley getting Bee down with a side headlock tossy thing that lands Bee on his dome piece. While buzzed, Lapsley cranks up some bombs to Bee’s head and the ref stops it.

6) TYLER ADAM COMBS vs. MATT JAGGERS: Jaggers is young and strong and Combs is some dude.

Jaggers spends most of rounds 1 and 2 in full mount raining shots. However, its also very clear that he doesn’t want to land too many shots, lest he get bucked off. Combs does just that with a big sweep in round 2 that puts Jaggers on his back, and he’s clearly never trained to be there. Combs lands a massive flurry of shots that ends the fight.

7) RON FIELDS vs. DAN SANDMAN(N): Fields was half of one of the lousiest fights of the reviews. Sandman has a cool name and is probably shit. As a heavyweight boxer, Sandman went 3-1-1 in his career, losing by first round KO to Tommy Washington Jr. His best win was against midwestern journeyman Mike Jones.

Interesting fight, actually. Having two substandard strikers fight whom are in decent shape made for an entertaining fight. Mind you, the ground games of both were about as embarassing as you’d expect, but Sandman did show a somewhat acceptable sprawl. Fields had a reach advantage and straighter shots, and that hurt Sandman repeatedly in this contest. The fight went to a decision and Ron Fields won on two of the three scorecards, with the third showing draw.

8) DARRELL SMITH vs. JASON GILLIAM: No idea who these guys are, really. Smith is sorta known for having lost to guys better than him on small shows all over.

Gilliam rushes Smith and then gets JUDOED to the ground with a throw but recovers quickly and is basically dominant for most of the fight, eventually stopping Smith with strikes in mount. Not very good, and Gilliam looks nothing special.

9) GARY MYERS vs. BILL CLIFFORD: Gary Myers is headlining an MMA show in 2006 somewhere in the midwest, and all is well. Mind you, Miles Jury, Sean McCorkle, Billy Ayash, and Julie Kedzie all fought on this show, but none of them are on the DVD. Gary Myers? He is.

Gary Myers shoots in, gets a takedown, gets to side control, pounds out Clifford.


Now here’s the problem with this DVD: After this fight, there’s replays of prior, better fights. If you don’t already have Joe Stevenson/Kiko, Diego Sanchez/Jorge Santiago, and Jeremy Horn/Dean Lister on DVD from them, great. I do. With that, I refuse to rewatch things when trying to review these DVDs. I will rate the show as if they were not randomly thrown on because this was intended for a PPV audience and didn’t get there.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Chavez/Robbins. Good bout that shows why MMA is one of the more entertaining sports around when done correctly.

KO OF THE NIGHT: Combs/Jaggers. Comes out of nowhere.

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT(S): Harper/Weeks. Only submission win on the disc.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 4.5 out of 10 Sucks that all the fights weren’t included to add in fights they’ve already sold, one of which in a prior “Underground” box set, but whatever. Jaggers/Combs, Chavez/Robbins, and yes, Fields/Sandmann are worth it. If you haven’t see the above listed fights, it rises to a 8 out of 10, because two of those fights have ended up being pretty fucking important since.

Well, I finally finished watching all the shows from the KOTC "Underground" set & WOW is all I can say. Quantity over quality is the rule of the day. I believe the box said over 125 fights. I could probably count the # of fights that I thought were very good on one hand. Definately the worst of the Underground sets I've seen (Underground, Underground Warriors, & Underground Worldwide). A UFC DVD would be about the same price, buy one of those. It's better then this junk.

I bought the newest box set and its just plain awful.

#17
BOOYAA (10/13/06)

No matter how bad a potential UFC 154: Green Eggs And Ham may be, this is the worst name for an MMA show in history, by far. Its back to Soboba just one week after their event in Indy. Steve “Asian Pursuasian” Inman and Brian Warren are on the mics.

1) KEITH MCDANIEL vs. DAVE KELLEY: No idea who they are, and they’re 135lbers.

McDaniel shoots immediately, gets side control, holds Kelley against the mat, eventually Kelley tries to spin out by pushing off the cage with his feet and gives up his back. After a prolongued struggle, McDaniel is finally able to get a rear naked choke. Kelly was just clueless apart from knowing to control one of the arms to prevent the choke.

2) ROBERT DUPONT vs. JOHN DELACOLE: Delacole is a fat 280lb guy and Dupont is 175. If this fight had happened a decade and a half earlier, Dupont might still be getting bookings with K-1.

Delacole actually handles Dupont a little in the grappling until he tires, and that’s not very long. Dupont by eventual RNC in a fight I can’t even begin to give a shit about.

3) BILL MONSOOR vs. RICKY CANTRELL: Monsoor has a horrible mohawk and Cantrell is from Team Wildman. I don’t know who to root for. I will instead be neutral, like Switzerland.

Monsoor shuffles out fast to throw a right hand, Cantrell slams him, Cantrell keeps putting his head into Monsoor’s armpit in an attempt to apparently be guillotined, and Monsoor takes it. Fast fight. Cantrell needs to learn submission defense from everywhere.

4) RUBEN TAIGLE vs. BRIAN SAVOIA: I have no idea how to actually spell Taigle/Tagle’s name, but he fought Ron Cushen and that fight sucked. Brian Savoia is scared as hell, trips getting in, and basically it looks like he’s gonna get run over.

Taigle throws a bunch of shitty punches, Savoia runs a little, half asses a shot in, gets caught with a knee, and he slumps over all slow like.

5) MARK KEMPTHORNE vs. DONALD SANCHEZ: Kempthorne is an Air Force guy, which means he got better SAT scores than other military dudes and probably won’t be killed in combat. Sanchez is rocking bad tattoos and is unremarkable in appearance or team affiliation.

Fight is chiefly fought on the ground where Sanchez answers Kempthorne’s round 1 takedowns with sloppy guard work that sorta kinda looks like submission attempts and fails regularly. While Sanchez loses round 1 to a more active and controlling Kempthrone, Sanchez was able to tire Kempthorne out and controls round 2 right from the get go. The entire final minute of the fight is Sanchez in back control throwing punches to Kempthorne while he rolls on the ground. Eventually Herb Dean stops it due to Kempthorne having done nothing offensive in forever. Also of note: Inman makes a joke about Kempthorne potentially “seeing Al Qaeda.” Nothing makes me laugh like the comedy of post traumatic stress disorder.

6) CHRIS REEDY vs. CONRAD MILES: Miles is from out in the desert and Reedy used to live in Brian Warren’s gym.

Miles starts out by putting his head down, grabbing Reedy, and slamming him. Reedy is able to scramble to his feet but Miles gets a trip takedown to bring it back to the floor. Reedy scrambles again, a short standup exchange ensues, and DOWN GOES MILES. DOWN GOES MILES. THE CROWD IS…well, apathetic, basically. Reedy takes mount and rains down shots, till he notices his opponent is unconscious. Rather than batter him more, he points out his opponent’s state to Cecil Peoples, and the fight is over.

7) ADRIAN PEREZ vs. JOSH LEWIS: Lewis is from the middle of nowhere, CA. Perez is the dude with all the tats on his face.

Perez and Lewis rush each other, Perez grabs him in a side headlock and drags him down. Perez then keeps cranking it until Lewis taps. FROM A SIDE HEADLOCK.

8) ALAN ZUNNER vs. JOE PHEBUS: Zunner admits to never training. Zunner also lost to a forearm choke against Mike Bourke. Eddie Sanchez is walking around behind Phebus, so he may train in a real camp.

YAMMAesque start with a finale of Phebus beating up Zunner on the ground after he gasses. The fight lasts about a minute, BTW.

9) KASEY DONOVAN vs. FRANK GUERRERO: 135lb dudes be fighting.

Total domination. Donovan is taken down immediately into side control and Guerrero just rolls on him from there to a RNC win.

10) GEORGI KARAKHANYAN vs.BRENT WOOTEN: Karawhatever is from a BJJ academy and Wooten is apparently a striker. A striker with wrestling shoes.

Wooten ends up in guard almost immediately as Karadude throws a couple crappy kicks and then falls down on his own accord. Nothing happens. Then Wooten goes for the worst leg lock ever and Karawhatever gets mount for 5 seconds before we end up with Wooten bucking him and getting inside the guard again.

Second round follows this exact formula. The bonus is that Karasomethingsomething gets mount, just sorta scoots off it, and then Wooten, in the midst of driving to take a dominant position, puts his head right into a guillotine. A half assed guillotine with the arm in, but it was enough to get Wooten to tap and end the madness.

11) OMAR LUV vs. CASIUS AURELIUS: Luv is a tall dude who looks supremely conditioned. Aurelius looks like he’s going up a weight class and is probably really named “Mike Johnson” or something and is doing this to get around a suspension.

I’m actually really impressed with Luv here. Great kickboxing skills that basically tear Aurelius apart in short order.

12) ALBERT HILL vs. ERNIE PEREA: I’ve seen both before. Hill was garbage, Perea won in like 10 seconds or something. Additionally this is being promoted as “CON VS. COP” with Hill being a criminal or something and Perea being a police officer in what’s probably some crazy racist desert California town.

Hill rushes and pushed Perea into the fence, doesn’t really do anything. They stand back up, Hill repeats this, and ends up with his head in a guillotine.

13) KYLE OLSEN vs. GERRY NOCHE: Olsen comes out dressed like bootleg Spiderman with a couple dudes dressed as bootleg Jason and random executioner. Noche is a purple belt from John De La O JJ academy.

Goes to ground almost immediately and they scramble back and forth showing some decent game from each. Eventually the fight settles into both men in position to go for leg locks and just sorta punching each other instead. Eventually Olsen sees an opening and turns over into a foot lock. Olsen then jumps around a little.

14) KENNY TENORIO vs. WILLIAM SYRAPAI: Tenorio is pretty much garbage and has been seen previously using a pseudonym. Syrapai rules so hard.

Tenorio ends up totally dominating Syrapai in top position virtually the entire fight. At one point in round 1 he is apparently favoring a knee but then gets a takedown immediately after. Then in round 2, after getting stood up for inactivity, Tenorio just basically flops down and gets hit by a knee while on the ground by Syrapai. He lays out on his stomach and Syrapai starts striking, essentially to the back of the head. Cecil Peoples stops the fight, but then lets Syrapai punch him again, essentially instructing him to do so. I have no idea what the fuck that was. Honestly, it looked 100% like a dive.

15) BEN BEEBE vs. MIKE BOURKE: As is stated, “To be a legend, you must beat a legend”, and that is Ben Beebe’s goal tonight. Odd, because I’m not sure a guy who isn’t among the top 200 heavyweights in the MMA world is a legend, but whatever.

Beebe is taken down and Bourke pounds sorta. Then he gasses out. Half a minute has passed in the fight. Bourke weakly attempts a keylock but Beebe just shrugs it off. The ref goes to stand this one up and Bourke cannot get up because he’s a fat mess. Beebe wins after losing the entire fight with a exhaustion TKO.

16) BUCKLEY ACOSTA vs. EDGAR CRUZ: Buckley Acosta isn’t that bad and Cruz is.

Acosta throws a couple punches, bulldogs Cruz down, and gets an RNC with no hooks in. Brian Warren is announcing and trains Cruz, and boy, that’s not a ringing endorsement. To be fair to Cruz, he had taken the fight while in the dressing room just hanging out that afternoon.

17) ISMAEL GONZALEZ vs. GABE RIVAS: Gonzalez apparently just came back from a kickboxing show in China. Rivas is a pretty well known guy.

Decent little fight with Rivas constantly getting takedowns, constantly going for submissions, and Gonzalez almost always defending them. I say always because finally, late in round 2, Gonzalez gave up his arm for a kimura while Rivas was in mount. Not a horrible effort from Gonzalez, who was only in his second MMA bout against a well respected vet.

18) CUB SWANSON vs. CHARLIE VALENCIA:

Valencia is clearly a much smaller man, and yet he gets the takedown and is controlling in the clinch early on. Swanson ends up with a cut mouth, so he is bleeding early on. After some early Valencia control, Swanson is able to get away and start striking, and from that point on its all Cub. A really impressive part of the fight featured Valencia shooting a double, Swanson sprawling out and reversing to try and get top position, and Valencia pushing off the cage with his feet to bring it back to almost being even. Swanson is able from this to stand up and soccer kicks Valencia to the midsection. Valencia is clearly hurt at this point and turtles up, allowing Swanson to rain blows and win by first round KO.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Swanson/Valencia: Really the only fight of consequence. Watching it, I imagine Swanson fighting Faber right now and being obliterated. He had trouble with Valencia, a much smaller man, whenever he got close to him and wanted to grapple.
KO OF THE NIGHT: Luv/Aurelius: Most technique displayed.
SUBMISSTION OF THE NIGHT(S): Perez/Lewis: SIDE HEADLOCK
OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 2.5 out of 10: Lots of bouts, but none of them are particularly meaningful except one, which was short. Rivas/Gonzalez wasn’t too awful, to its credit.

#18
ALL STARS (10/28/06)

This is the last show on the Combat Collection box set, and I’m not all that excited about viewing it. The two main events pop out as being interesting: Kyacey Uscola vs. Akira Shoji and Bibiano Fernandes vs. Urijah Faber. Everything else looks shitty initially. Announcing is Apple, Inman, and Hansell.

1) BEN SATTLER vs. CODY CANTERBURY: Sattler is generic white dude with Gameness trunks and EXTREME tattoos. Canterbury has tribals and looks like he’s the kind of guy who’s always looking for a cigarette in the parking lot at the mall.

Sattler and Canterbury clinch up and throw some stuff at each other until Canterbury pushes Sattler back. In doing so, they hit the door, and the door falls apart. Sattler tumbles down the stairs and no one is sure what to do because we’re actually in a city with an athletic commission this time (Reno Events Center). Sattler takes a few minutes to recover and heads back in. The fight restarts and Sattler fakes a shot with the punch and takes down Canterbury, almost getting himself guillotined in the process. Satter is very effective with the GnP and forces Canterbury on his stomach, eventually earning the 1st round submission win.

2) JEFF MORRIS vs. STEVEN RIVENBARK: Rivenbark looks mad old and has a massive back piece advertising Sinister Ink. Morris is some guy.

Morris hurts Rivenbark immediately with a right hand, drags him by the foot all over the ring, pounds him with punches, etc. Rivenbark is butt scooting backwards in desparation at points. He “ran”, backwards, laying on his back. Naturally, Mazzigatti is the ref, who allows it to continue way, way too long. Morris with the win.

3) JUSTIN SAMPSON vs. BRAD SANDOVAL: Sandoval trains with Faber. Both are making pro debuts.

MMA striking is supposed to be squared up, so I hear, because otherwise you’ll be taken down all the time. The problem with squaring up is that you open up more of yourself to be hit. Its why wrestlers end up throwing tons of looping shots at each other while Dana White and Gary Shaw fap in the corner.

Justin Sampson, however, disregards this totally, and is going in with a stance far more kyokushin/western boxing than it is MMA. Sandoval is also totally unprepared for it and gets annhilated. Sampson does so many cool things its tough to count. First, he throws sidekicks. Sidekicks will never work if you’re square because your balance to fire the kick off isn’t gonna be right. He throws them with some serious speed and mixes up the point of attack, knocking down Sandoval early with one and otherwise finding them effective for distance. He also throws roundhouse kicks that are plenty good, as Sandoval finds out. Sampson stuffs a shot (BUT HOW), then throws a one two down the pike into Sandoval’s face before throwing a left high kick that connects square. Sandoval is unconscious before he hits the mat, and stays that way for awhile, eventually being stretchered out. Erik Apple remarks that its embarassing to get hit with those kind of kicks. Sampson only fights once more and loses to Nassor Lewis on a Gladiator Challenge show. Sandoval went looking for safer hobbies.

4) DANNY AILES vs. AJ FONSECA: Ailes is 2-0 and in his first fight since a nasty car crash. Fonseca is 2-1, with the loss being to Shawn Bias.

This fight nearly put me to sleep. The longest inactive streak ever allowed by Cecil Peoples, Ailes had Fonseca in a sorta-guillotine that was nowhere near deep for about a full minute in round 1. Round 2 had some standup action where nothing connected and then Fonseca scored takedowns. Round 3 was more of the same. Ailes was being hailed as a black belt in BJJ, but hell if I saw anything to indicate it. Fonseca wins 30-27 on wo cards and 29-28 on the third.

5) GIGO JARA vs. KHOMKRIT NIIMI: Niimi trains with a Gracie dude in Reno and won a bunch of regional grappling tournaments. Jara is brother to semicontender Jamie Jara, but has a losing record.

Niimi shoots immediately and gets Jara down, but Jara is able to climb up the cage. Niimi keeps pushing and eventually gets Jara down again. He tries an assortment of armlocks and triangles but nothing ends up working, and Jara is soon enough back on his feet. Niimi immediately pushes himself right into the clinch, and Jara leans against the cage to prevent the takedown. After some struggling by Niimi, Jara feels he’s tired him out enough and gets away from the cage and throws knees. Niimi blocks a couple and then eats about five until he turtles up and Herb Dean stops it.

6) ROLANDO TORRES vs. JEREMY FRIETAG: Frietag is an ex-college football player at Louisville, who now trains at Capital City Fighting Alliance, and Dean Lister is with him. He also gets a stupid little promotional movie. Torres is some random Mexican dude from a bad team.

This fight is seemingly in slow motion, with every act needing 30 seconds to be set up. First they throw lousy strikes, then Frietag gets the take down. Then he lays on Torres in side control for awhile. Then he finally passes to mount and lays there for awhile. Then he tries to posture up and Torres bridges and lays in Frietag’s guard for awhile. Then he starts scooting Frietag to the cage and Frietag goes for an armbar, and he fights for it for awhile. Finally Torres taps and it takes the ref (Mazzigatti?) like 30 taps to see his flailing hand.

7) AKIRA SHOJI vs. KYACEY USCOLA: This is a fight that intruiges me. Two guys with reputations as not being elite but entertaining. Also, it’s a non-title fight even though Shoji is their 185lb Superfight champion, so only 3 rounds. Boooo.

Uscola controls round 1 with the jab. That’s pretty much the whole story. Shoji’s best offense came with a JUDO THROW that was instantly reversed by Uscola and had Kyacey on top in half guard. Shoji’s eyes are closing from the repeated stiff jab. Round 2 is more of the same, except Uscola begins to throw punches behind the jab. Shoji doesn’t like combination punching any more than anyone else as the round goes on, getting more and more weary and his face more and more beat up. Eventually Uscola throws a 3 punch combo finished with a left hook Shoji doesn’t see, and he’s out cold. Steve Mazzigatti waits for him to go into convulsions from repeated head blows on the ground from Shoji to stop it, unfortunately. This would be KO of the night on almost any other show ever.

8) BIBIANO FERNANDEZ vs. URIJAH FABER: Fernandez has all of one fight, but he’s a nasty BJJ guy.

Faber and Fernandez clinch and Fernandez pulls off a sick takedown that gets him immediately in back control. Faber never panics and is able to eventually turn himself around and be in Fernandez’s guard. He then pushes Fernandez into the corner and begins the beating. Elbow after elbow lands, causing a cut on the forehead. A long pause in the action follows as translators are needed for Fernandez to interact with the doctor. Fernandez looks beaten, however. When the action is restarted, its in the same position as before, and Faber opens a second, far worse cut along the forehead. Herb Dean lets it go a little and then stops it, as the blood loss is too great for it not to be in Fernandez’s eyes. Faber wins by TKO in round 1.


FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Sampson/Sandoval: Bizarre fight showing technique you never see and a great ending.
KO OF THE NIGHT: Sampson/Sandoval: Absolutely brutal KO.
SUBMISSTION OF THE NIGHT(S): Torres/Freitag: By default.
OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 4.5 out of 10: Top of the card wasn’t bad, but the rest was really awful stuff for the most part. No legit prospects, not a ton of decent action, minus one fight.


With that, the KOTC Combat Collection is done. To review:

Execution Day: 6.5 out of 10
Redemption On The River: 7 out of 10
Predator Returns: 6.5 out of 10
Rapid Fire: 5 out of 10
All Stars: 4.5 out of 10

AVERAGE: 5.9

Not a bad score, but hey, ROTR has a boxed set out right now for about this price point, and it has Gomi/Penn. Just sayin'.

#19
Cyclone (11/11/06)


We jump ahead another month and now we’re in the waining days of 2006. PRIDE still existed then. That’s how long ago it was. People even though it was like, healthy and potentially never gonna die. This event is in the home of ol’ JR and the future home of the Seattle Supersonics, the state of Oklahoma. Not a very interesting list of fights: Matt Jaggers, Gabe Rivas, and Buddy Clinton are on board though. That asian guy and some fighter I’ve never heard of (Shawn Loeffler) are announcing. Sherdog says Shawn fights in a show I will soon be watching. YES.

1) ABEL COLLUM vs. JOHN CHESTER: This is at 145, I know nothing about either.

Collum is better at everything. Still, his standup is quite sloppy defensively and Chester gets a few opportunities, catching Collum with wild punches. Highlights are Gollum’s hip toss and two spinning heel kicks standing, one of which lands. Collum eventually chokes out Chester in round 2. Not that competitive, but fun to watch. Should be noted that rounds are apparently 3 minutes long in Oklahoma, so these may/may not be “amateur” bouts.

2) DEWAYNE HAYNES vs. RYAN GILLMAN: Haynes is a Rutten trained fighter and is rocking wrestling shoes. Gillman is a lumpy white dude with well trimmed sideburns.

Haynes takes down Gillman and beats him up. Eventually he goes for a sloppy armbar but gets it because Gillman is totally inexperienced and can’t defend.

3) JARED WEISE vs. MIKE BENNETT: The announcers keep looking to see Weise’s belt to see what rank he is, since he’s rocking a gi. Then he gets in the ring, and its apparently a camo belt. Loeffler states that he’s not sure what rank that is. We are all at a loss for words. Mike Bennett is the CAVEMAN. They are also lightweights, so hopefully it doesn’t suck.

Weise’s belt is clearly not in BJJ, and if its in judo, well, his throw defense and submissions suck. Bennett takes him down over and over, and Cecil Peoples gives Weise chances over and over with lots of premature standups. Doesn’t matter. Eventually Bennett gains mount for like the 3rd or 4th time and just belts Weise with elbows until Peoples has to stop the fight in round 2.

4) MOISES CASTILLO vs. JASON LEE: Heavyweights. Uh-oh.

Castillo is clearly much better than Jason Lee. He defends all of Lee’s poor takedown attempts and nearly Kos him twice through the first two minutes of Round 1. Then Lee stumbles and falls down from a punch, Castillo tries to follow him to the ground, and with his rotund body, basically falls over Lee and ends up on his back. Lee comes back in round 2 and gets a takedown, and once on the ground Castillo is nothing. Lee pounds out Castillo, who taps from strikes. Neither beats Brian Vetell.

5) GABE MORANTES vs. JOE GEROMILLER: Geromiller is this old dude with a mustache who wears a rash guard and has a record of 13-13-1. Gabe is 4-1, which leads me to believe someone is supposed to win and someone is supposed to lose.

I was wrong. Morantes isn’t that skilled on the ground and Geromiller apparently has a wrestling background, which translates to a couple takedowns and general control of the fight. Morantes does get a takedown, but Geromiller is skilled enough to force position changes from Morantes, which leads to a sequence where both men trade footlocks. Geromiller gives up his and Morantes doesn’t, but Morantes isn’t deep enough to pull it off and so Geromiller stacks and breaks out of the lock and straight onto Morantes’ back with hooks in. 5 seconds later Morantes taps from an RNC.

6) SHANE JACKSON vs. JOHNNY HUGHES: Jackson is another camo belt from Team Triton, and big surprise, he’s 0-2 as a pro. Hughes is a dude from the midwest.

Hughes gets down Jackson, blah blah, Hughes wins by strikes in mount.

7) KENNY GIDDENS vs. CHRIS BOWLES: Bowles has been on a bunch of shows on HDNet, so you, like I, may be familiar with his name from that. He’s also Lions Den through and through. Giddens is TULSA TOP TEAM, a name that reverberated through the MMA blogosphere recently. Or something.

Giddens and Bowles engage in an exhibition of bad stand up. Loeffler explains that fighters step forwards when they punch for reach advantages. Yes, I guess that is true, though you don’t exactly use your reach advantage walking forward. He also says that punching power is a result of the “ripping” force of the hand going through the target and being pulled back quickly. This is ridiculous, naturally. Guys in MMA who throw punches at each other and don’t get KOed don’t get KOed not purely due to a lack of force, but because they know the shots are coming, from where, and can mentally react and adjust to accept the shots. On the other hand, when you have one punch/kick knockouts, they come about by setting up the shot first, whether by movement, feinting, or throwing in combination (i.e. the one/two jab-right cross combo that everyone knows). People don’t win leading with high kicks or overhand punches and nothing but unless there is an immense gap in physical ability or you’ve got some out of shape tomato cans fighting and someone gasses before the end of the fight/first round/first 30 seconds.

Anyhow, enough of that. Bowles beats up Giddens in an almost competitive standup fight, then once they go to the ground, Bowles is able to roll Giddens right into mount. Some punching leads to Giddens giving up an arm, and Bowles takes it for a first round submission win.

8) MARK BARRETT vs. MATT JAGGERS: Jaggers is a pretty talented young fighter and Barrett is someone I have no familiarity with.
Okay, Jaggers is totally dominant in this fight, gets it down, gets mount, drops ‘bows, goes for a side choke, can’t quite finish it, so he transitions to mount, Barrett holds on tight with a sort of guillotine, and Jaggers taps? He tapped while on top in mount in a guillotine? Holy shit, that’s embarassing.

9) JIMMY JOHNSON vs. RED ANQUOE: Anquoe is some fat native american dude and Jimmy Johnson is wearing a camo belt. Lots of jokes are made by the announcers about the camo belts and gi’s, as well as plenty of prerequisite jokes about race car drivers and football coaches.

Anquoe gets JJ down, but big surprise, 3 seconds of stalling is all Cecil Peoples needs to get it back on the feet. Johnson hurts Anquoe with something, then gets taken down again, but reverses it, almost gets a rear naked choke, then holds onto a mount position to win with strikes in round 1. A win is garnered for the otherwise hopeless Team Triton.

10) MELVIN SCOTT vs. GABE RIVAS: Scott is from Team Triton, supposedly (no gi or camo belt). Gabe Rivas is a journeyman that everyone’s heard of.

Rivas beats Scott up, ref stops it, round 1, by strikes on the ground in mount. Do you need to know what else happened, really? I bet you can imagine it.

11) DONALD SANCHEZ vs. BUDDY CLINTON: Fighters named “Sanchez” from New Mexico have good track records in KOTC. So does Buddy Clinton! What will happen here in the MAIN EVENT OF THE EVENING

Clinton jumps in, clinches, gets Sanchez on the ground, and controls him for a little while. The control ends when Sanchez taps from a rear naked choke in the first round. Sanchez was simply outclassed at everything here.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Collum/Chester First fight was the best one.
KO OF THE NIGHT: Johnson/Anquoe Nothing really awesome.
SUBMISSTION OF THE NIGHT(S): Jaggers/Barrett The armbar in Bowles win would have won if not for this unique loss. Like the time Kongo was KOed while he was on top in the mount, something you won’t forget.
OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 3 out of 10 Buddy Clinton completists, look no further! This could have gone up to a 4 if the Wildman was included fighting a scrub. Seriously, best things about it are the Jaggers loss, the opener with the sweet spinning heel kicks (in retrospect, cleanest standup of the night), and, uhhh, them making fun of Johnson/Anquoe during the proceedings.

An idle google search for "camouflage gi belts" yields this:

https://www.hatashitasports.com/product-des...=359&new=1#

When the fuck are you ever going to need to hide, in the desert, while practicing your judo?

I hope the John Renken who gave his testimonial is the same one that kicked Curtis Stout in the head. If so, I'll take 70 of those.

Also, Kenny Giddens was the victim of one of the most hilarious KOs ever by a Team Triton guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMl9Eht9sds

#20
Destroyer (12/1/2006)


December 2006! The home stretch, folks. We’re back at Soboba. I think the announcers are Matt Stansell and the Asian Persuasion guy.

1) JOHN DE LA O vs. ADRIAN PEREZ: No fight is more KOTC than this. Its like asking, “Hey, name the most generic FMW match” and coming up with W*ng Kanemura/Masato Tanaka. Except not quite that good. More like, I dunno, Gedo vs. Mr. Pogo. If you’re wondering how I justify the hypocrisy of being a guy who compared this match to pro wrestling when I generally hate when people do it and wish them, their wives, and their spawn horrible deaths, it is easy. This is a stupid match in a stupid promotion. It does not need to be treated in any way seriously.

Perez and De La O clinch for the first minute. De La O can’t get him down, so the ref decides that in spite of the obvious activity, he should separate them. Then De La O gets a takedown and just tools Perez on the mat. Eventually this leads to an armbar finish. De La O moves to like, 7 wins and 22 lossses or something because he is not a good MMA fighter.

2) KEI MAEDA vs. SHAD SMITH: Maeda is a beanpole repping Osaka and training with Jean Jacque Machado. He wears a Gi in with a blue belt. Easy enough. Wears the pants for the fight too. Shad Smith should be familiar by now.

Smith lets Maeda pull half guard and just beats him up. Maeda looked pretty damn helpless, in fact. Smith eventually wins with elbows from half guard. Not what I was expecting. Noncompetitive.

3) JOSH RAMAGE vs. MIKE GUYMON: Neither is that great. Guymon was involved in a KOTC bout I already reviewed where he won really quickly.

Guymon shoots, pounds a little, takes the mount, immediately moves for a bottom triangle and gets it. Short.

4) DONALD MOLINA vs. CHARLIE KOHLER: On one hand, it’s a Charlie Kohler fight. On the other….

Molina is just all over the place. He has no balance or discernable skill. Kohler is firing punches at will, just pushes Molina over, hits him a couple times, and this is over inside a minute. Like making Samuel Peter vs. Ron Rumpf a real fight.

5) RICHARD SOLIS vs. JARED ROLLINS: J-ROCK~! The squeaky voiced dude is here for our entertainment.

This is probably the fight that got Rollins his contract. I say that because though he has every advantage (age, physical shape, ability, training, skillset) he is still in trouble multiple times when Solis is catching him. Solis looks Naimark old, has lovehandles and a protruding stomach, and all around is not impressive. He’s gassed early, but rumbles on anyhow. Rollins lands a lot of stuff but is inactive when it hits the mat instead of using his superior grappling ability. Rollins wins by submission but it was right at the bell and he got the benefit of not going to the cards. This would have been a really exciting fight on TUF. It is also a really low quality fight, to be honest.

6) RICHARD MONTANO vs. MANNY TAPIA: I know Montano likes guillotines and Tapia is a guy that Zuffa would like to be a star in the WEC. Montano is 0-2 but dropped all the way from 170 for this. Its also a three rounder for Tapia’s 135lb belt.

Montano was surprisingly game, lasting all the way till the third round. His wild striking was partially effective, bloodying the nose of Tapia, and showing that Tapia is not good on the backfoot (important given who is #1 in the WEC right now at his weight). Tapia also had a lot of trouble getting takedowns in round 1, though when he finally got Montano, he was able to transition to having hooks in and being on his back with little difficulty. The first round was close, but Tapia largely dominated round 2, and in round 3, slammed Montano and pounded him out with a barrage of punches that lasted seemingly forever.

7) FERNANDO GONZALEZ vs. OMAR LUV: Luv is a well respected prospect, and Gonzalez is a chubby dude of no real note or interest.

Luv should be dominant and destroy Gonzalez, but a funny thing happens. His kicking ability is never displayed in the fight, and Gonzalez is able to dominate the clinch, in spite of being sorta flabby while Luv is chiseled. Gonzalez gets a trip takedown and rains blows onto Luv, completely dominating the first round. He gets in mount and even has Luv’s back for a short time. Round 2 opens much the same, with posturing from both, a body kick from Luv, and a counter left hook from Gonzalez. The left hook grazes the eye of Luv, and he falls back, tapping out. Very unfair to call this a sturgeon for Gonzalez, who goes on to a two fight stint with the WEC and even a couple fights with MMAX in Mexico.

8) DAVE TERREL vs. AARON WITHERSPOON: Really interesting fight that seems almost out of place. For Witherspoon’s welterweight crown.

Witherspoon and Terrel are nearly in a stalemate of control in round 1, but round 2 and 3 are clearly Witherspoon’s, as he lands more effective blows, is typically the one pushing Terrel, and has Terrel hurt somewhat badly in the 2nd off an elbow. Lots of weakness presented though. Witherspoon has no headmovement, can’t effectively get inside without just bullrushing amateurishly, and his combinations are a bit weak and wild.

9) BRIAN SIVOA vs. SEAN LOEFFLER: Loeffler was announcing the last show, and here he is fighting. He’s a white dude with dyed blonde hair in a crewcut fashion. Innovative. There is also a flame motif going on, I think. I can’t tell because its just black on the blonde. Sivoa is unimportant.

Loeffler starts out with a Superman punch right at the bell, and lands it. That tells you the talent level of his opposition. He takes the back later on with a sort of cartwheeling thing from a standing position and gets the choke.

10) CALVIN BELL vs. JEREMY YBARA: Ybara is a nobody, but he’s a nobody substituting for Brian Sesma, so this could be an improvement. Bell’s team has the worst shirts ever. It looks like someone scribbled on them in magic marker.

Bell gets a takedown with the old Severn style cradle and then pounds Ybara out. Non event.

11) ART RAMIREZ vs. MICHAEL SANDEC: Sandec is from Team Body Shots. Ramirez, unfortunately, is not from Team Wet T-Shirt Contest.

Ramirez falls into guard almost immediately and tries for a guillotine. Sandec has none of it and breaks out and starts punching. Ramirez however spins and goes for a knee bar. Sandec is in trouble and grabs the cage, earning a pause in the action from Cecil Peoples and the ability to immediately break out of it after the action is restarted. Good referring there. Then Sandec holds onto the cage some more and pounds Ramirez, which doesn’t get another real warning, as Peoples just swats it off and then lets Sandec drop more and more shots until Ramirez needs his help. Sandec by shitty ref job.

12) BEN BEEBE vs. TIMOTHY MENDOZA: Fat dudes. Mendoza has a shirt. Beebe looks stoned.

MMA-IDS. Horrible. I never fast forward through anything, but I did it for this. Beebe wins the fight via decision in spite of being pushed into the cage all ten minutes. This is likely because he threw knees sometimes. Raging piece of shit that would have been better in the YAMMA because someone would have top control and it would have been over in 5 minutes.

13) DAVID ZUNIGA vs. SEAN MCAFFERTY: This is a BONUS fight according to announcers, which means they had no idea it was gonna happen. It was probably put together in the back over some dumb shit. McCafferty is listed as being from the Hammer House.

Zuniga comes running out, gets taken down, gets choked out. Stupid, but a BONUS.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Luv/Gonzalez. Total shocker.
KO OF THE NIGHT: Luv/Gonzalez I am calling this a KO because I can. It looked more painful than the other ones.
SUBMISSTION OF THE NIGHT(S): Guymon/Ramage Who doesn’t love triangles from mount?
OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 5.5 out of 10: Tons of crap at the end, but otherwise somewhat solid. Not gonna be confused with anything really great.

#21
Combat Academy (?????? “December 2006”)


Talk about little information. This was the first MMA event ever held in Singapore, and to my knowledge, the last. Only four fights were taped. If there were more, who knows? Herb Dean is a ref. There are no FCFighter or Sherdog listings for this event. Does it even matter? None of the fighters are listed either. Asian guy and Brian Warren are announcing.

1) SPIDER MAXI vs. XIAO LONG: Both are from Singapore, neither have ever fought in a cage, the announcers have no real idea who is who.

Long and the short of it is that Long and Maxi throw some bad strikes at one another, Long gets composed and then starts firing some straight punches. A jab rocks Maxi, and he drops him later with a straight right that ends the fight. Almost looks like Dean was counting. Long gets a belt, which I’m told is out of appreciation/money paid by Combat Academy in Singapore.

2) KADIR vs. MUBARAK ABAT: C’mon. Like I have background shit.

Kadir and Mubarak throw some kicks that don’t land, Mubarak with a takedown, and then he is able to pass guard (if you want to call it that) and gets an armbar. Hey, someone wins the best submission award! Also, another belt.

3) AARON FISHER vs. WICHAN TOONKRATOAK: I do have background info! Wichan Toonkratoak won a bronze at the Southeast Asian Games in San Shou. So, yeah. Aaron Fisher is apparently from Ohio but is now training in Phuket.

Fisher immediately rushes Toonkratoak and clinches. He gets a takedown, maneuvers a little, then pounds him out with punches from mount. Toonkratoak clearly never trained on the mat in grappling a day in his life. Fisher gets his belt.

4) SEAN DOUGLAS vs. SATIT KAOWPRAPAI: Sean Douglas is a kickboxer living and working for, you guessed it, Combat Academy in Singapore. He probably put the show on. His opponent won a amateur muay thai title as a featherweight (like, a 127lb featherweight).

Douglas gets a takedown early rather than stand, some bad grappling from both, then Douglas gets the Thai’s back and chokes him out. Douglas? Gets his belt.

That’s it, shows over. With intro, less than 14 minutes. No credits either.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Maxi/Long.
KO OF THE NIGHT: Maxi/Long
SUBMISSTION OF THE NIGHT(S): Kadir/Abat
OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: .00000001 out of 10: Historical value only. Also, short. Don’t think it’s the worst MMA committed to tape, but yeah, not good or anything.

To be fair, there is also a one hour documentary film about Brian Warren’s life, camp, and fights with Cung Le. Its not bad, I guess, but it’s the second time KOTC filled time with a documentary film. At least this one didn’t fill space with tape of fights you had just seen elsewhere in the DVD set, like the first KOTC DVD set’s documentary had. At least, I think not, because I guess the Fanshear/Warren bout may have been on there in full. I didn’t bother watching the whole thing. Not enough hours in the day to watch a documentary on Brian Warren’s training.

lol, I remember being at this show. Perez was bitching that De La O tapped and Loeffler fought a dude they found in the audience that night.

I need to preface this with the announcement that KOTC Of The Day will continue on, as there's another boxed set out now that goes up through mid-2007 with more "unseen" stuff. I'll be buying that sometime this or next week.

EDITED~! Thanks to Elsalvajeloco for the info.


#22
Oceania II (12/1/07 & 2/4/07)

Who are most of these guys? Again, Tony Bonello is listed here as fighting against some guy named John Wayne Parr. Steve Inman and Brian Warren are doing PBP the same way I'm watching this, basically. Nothing else I can tell you.

1) AARON RYAN vs. MICK ABELLA: I have reason to believe its the same guy as Mike Abela, who is listed as fighting in Australia back around this time period with an 0-1 record on FC's list. Sound for the fight is nonexistent, so they play the copyright free music in the background.

Abella clinches with Ryan and Ryan gets a guillotine very quickly. Hilarious to hear Warren lie about having been "mixing with some of the fighters backstage".

2) KHALIL KABASI vs. CHI CHI: No idea who they are.

Okay, my guess is that the original announcing was dubbed out by music. Talk about killing the life outta this. I think the fights are either really short rounds or its editing again. Chi Chi blocks a bunch of kicks from the kickboxing Kabasi, and is able to take him down and work him over. This makes it to the second round before Kabasi taps from strikes while mounted.

3) KYLE MADDEN vs. DANIEL HOLMES: The rounds thing is explained: 3 2 minute rounds. Yikes.

Holmes and Madden flail at each other. Somehow in the flailing, they both fall down, and when they get up, Madden has Holmes in a schoolyard choke. Fight over.

4) DANIEL COLLINS vs. PAULO GUIMARES: Guimares has a really well patch decorated gi and a black belt, probably in BJJ.

Collins gets taken down immediately, Guimares gets his back, chokes him out, and refuses to let go until Collins is unconscious. Inman: "That's not just right."

5) ADAM O'BRIEN vs. PHIL RUDALEHM: Both guys are wearing muay thai shorts. Both seem to be on the larger end of the spectrum, like around light heavyweight.

Some brawling here and there, O'Brien always ends up in superior position when grappling or on the ground, Rudalehm is trying to force standups. Exchange of awesomeness with Rudalehm getting a sidewalk slam on O'Brien, but leaving his neck out while doing it. He gets the pro wrestling move in MMA of the day, but loses by RNC in round one.

6) JASON SCERRI vs. LUKE PICKLUM: Picklum has two other fights in the FC database, one in Brazil in '03 and the other in Florida in '01. He's 1-1 on those.

Picklum gets a takedown fast, goes for a leglock, and Scerri actually defends it somewhat competently, though one could guess it was more that Picklum's attempt wasn't that good. Anyhow, Picklum goes and gets an armbar right after.

7) SHANE NIX vs. CHRIS JOHNSON:

Nix goes right for a takedown at the start of the fight and is successful. He pins Johnson against the cage and is in side control when the ref stands them up for inactivity Nix again goes for the takedown and Johnson is throwing kicks. One lands solidly on the body and another square on the face, but both were offbalance and Nix has Johnson down again. In short order, he goes guard-half guard-side-mount-back with hooks and Nix gets a choke.

8) ANGELA PARR vs. STEPHANIE BOUQUET: Women's fighting. Given the quality of the card, I doubt either will make one of Cell's lists. This ends up being proven totally, as it is muay thai rules.

Since this isn't MMA, I fast forwarded through most of it. Women's muay thai in Australia in a cage has no bearing on anything ever. This might as well be commercials for laundry detergent. Bouquet won a fight that was impossible to enjoy, given that there was zero sound, and that the talent exhibited was mediocre (not very many combinations).

After this fight, the announcer bids us aideu. So another show!

OCEANA II, PART II-

9) TANE NGARONOA vs. AARON RYAN: Aaron Ryan reappears for our pleasure against a thai kickboxer.

Ngaraona throws some kicks that don't land and Ryan clinches. The ref breaks it up, and the same things happens again. This time Ryan is taken down by Ngaronoa and gets mounted almost immediately. He taps due to strikes soon afterwards, and as Ngaronoa is peeled off, he throws and lands a soccer kick. Classy.

10) PAULA MCRAE vs. JENI SATCHAPANSY: More women's muay thai. Santchapansy wears a gi the whole time.

Fight is awful, Satchapansy wins from sheer volume, no technique, as the Brits would say, utter shite.

11) KHALIL KABASI vs. GRANT JONES: Kabasi's second appearance.

Horrible. Words barely describe, as the entire fight is of guillotine attempts that are nowhere near deep that end up with both men rolling and sweeping each other in guard. Kabasi actually gets mount and looks as if he's finishing Jones with strikes, but the ref stops it, offers no warning, and restarts standing. Kabasi wins a decision.

12) DEON LAUPEPE vs. BRENDAN HOWELL: Heavyweights.

Howell is a complete roid job. Laupepe is sorta chunky but in decent shape, and basically manhandles the outrageously ripped Howell, eventually choking him out with a guillotine (with the arm in, mind you) in round one.

13) ASHA INGEGNERI vs. EMMA MCGUIRE: More shitty women's muay thai. Asha wins.

14) GORDON GRAF vs. NOURI KHEIT: The announcers can't remember if the script has them in Australia for the second time or if this is the same show.

Graf and Kheit throw bad strikes at each other and roll around some. Kheit chases Graf around at one point and gets caught and is knocked out cold. Gordon Graf wins.

15) JOHN WAYNE PARR vs. TONY BONELLO: Bonello is an undefeated "prospect" who's wins you can not really care about. Parr was a boxer who at one point held the prestigious Australian middleweight crown. To his credit, he went 12 with Nader Hamdan and Sakio Bika. He is also a kickboxer with some decent wins in K-1. Of course, Bonello is generally known as a heavyweight. This is at some sort of catchweight.

Bonello rushes Parr, takes him down, gets his back, chokes him out.


FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Rudalehm/O'Brien: None are deserving, but I force myself to pick one.

KO OF THE NIGHT: Graf/Kheit

SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT:Picklum/Scerri: A submission that wasn't a choke.

OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 0 out of 10: No redeeming values whatsoever. Even worse than YAMMA.

The first show happened on December 1st and the matchmaking was done by Tony Bonello. The second card happened on February 4, 2007. Also somewhere in Australia is Sydney. For Bonello/Parr, I think the catchweight was suppose to be like 187 or 190 pounds. Something in that range, but Parr was like 156 pounds and Bonello weighed over 200 pounds.

Aweeeesome for the update. I'll edit it in a few. Any reason these shows aren't included on either major fight database?

With the somewhat short history of MMA in Australia, I am pretty sure none of the sports commissions would sanction JWP/Bonello. All the Australian KOTC shows before October 2006 where put together in some way by Bonello and his friends. The 12/1/2006 card was a KOTC show, but at the same time, not a KOTC show. Bonello got permission to use the KOTC name on the December 1st show to promote his fight John Wayne Parr for February of the next year. Hell, he even threw JWP's wife on the card. These shows are just a bunch of D class muay thai kickboxers in amateur MMA bouts. Bonello made a quick buck and hauled ass to southern California.

#23
Conquest IV (12/3/06)


Okay, onward! Upward! Three shows remaining! I refuse to be sick of fighting. EVAR. This was recorded for TSN, believe it or not, live from the Stampede Corral in Calgary. I’m gonna hope this is a private party, because no one is there. Oh shit, its Mauro announcing with Trebilcock. Fuck this show already.

1) KYLE CHEYNE vs. DARYL BONAR: Bonar has a hilarious last name, and is from Vancouver. Cheyne was on the 2nd show reviewed in this series and he sucked.

Bonar kinda pushes Cheyne around, throws a low kick, charges him again, gets a guillotine and Cheyne uselessly taps. Awful.

2) CRUZ CHACON vs. CHRIS WILSON: Chacon was once fodder for Diego Sanchez, but put up a pretty decent fight. Even cut him. Wilson you likely know from his IFL stint and from a recent fight with Jon Fitch. Jason St. Louis joins the commentary booth.

Wilson is largely dominant in this fight, and so you look for things that intruige you to take your mind off of it. Chacon’s only real offense came in the clinch when he landed a BACKDROP DRIVAH~!, which was like a giant flashing light that said he was gonna lose to Jon Fitch by repeated takedown. Chacon’s a gamer generally, but he went through most of this fight like he was in there to survive and get the check. After tasting Wilson’s punching power, he was never really committed to working his way inside and eventually got pulled into Wilson’s guard and choked out. Also, the most absurd moment of the fight came in round 1 when the ref stood them up while Wilson was working rubber guard.

3) BLAKE FREDERICKSON vs. JAKE SHORT: Frederickson looks ridiculous with his teeth and sideburns. Bantamweights! Short is a Division 1 wrestler, so he will win. He also comes out to “Real American” so I hope he is brutally knocked out. Ken Shamrock joins the announce group.

Bizarre announcing and judging. Frederickson is given tons of credit for getting taken down and then really not doing anything while there other than going for aborted submission attempts. The fight is ruled a unanimous draw, but apart from about 30 seconds of which Short was turtled up and Frederickson had his back (which was followed by a reversal and Short controlling for the next 3 minutes), Short dictated the location of the fight and the pace. It was essentially lay and pray, but Frederickson had no answer for any of it.

4) DAVID MAH vs. TYLER JACKSON: Mah entered last time as an homage to Great Muta and he does it here again, even including the mist. Jackson is said to be a boxer, but the only fight on record at Boxrec is from 10/27/2007, and it even states that it’s a pro debut.
Easily the most entertaining bout thus far. Jackson has some decent standup, and Mah is going for a bunch of submissions. He goes for a guillotine early and gets slammed. Jackson pulls his head out and while attempting to stand up, gets caught in an armbar. He fixes that with the old high angle power bomb escape, and eventually worms his way out. Lots of crazy stuff here including german suplexes and a wild twisting judo throw from Mah. The fight ends in round one as Mah again goes for a guillotine and gets slammed out of it by Jackson, who then throws a bunch of elbows in guard and catches Mah right across the forehead. The cut is pretty severe and is enough to merit a stoppage. Looking up his record on Fightfinder, I realize that Jackson was the one who had a draw with Dmitry Samoilov on the second season of Bodogfight. That was an entertaining bout, but of course I remember Cell hating it.

5) TIM THURSTON vs. JASON TATLOW: Tatlow is a wrestler or something making his pro debut, and he trains alongside the then bright prospect Kalib Starnes. Tim Thurston came to the sport late, has some training in boxing, some BJJ.

Pretty horrible fight. Almost the entire thing was clinch against cage-reverse-more clinching against cage with guys swapping who was doing the pushing. Tatlow got the only real takedowns and Thurston rarely landed anything particularly powerful. Since the fight favored Tatlow in the way it was fought, the distance it was fought at, etc, he was the obvious pick, though big surprise, Mauro disagreed. Maybe he can ask NOAH if they need a time keeper?

6) VICTOR HERNANDEZ vs. JOSEPH MARTIN: Hernandez has been seen before and sucked then. Martin is with LION’S DEN in the modern day, so he is probably not very good. He comes across as a huge dork and not at all intimidating.

Hernandez is taken down very early in the contest and actually sweeps Martin, which is not a good sign. Martin does get a triangle soon after and Hernandez chokes, ending the fight early. Horrible


FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Mah/Jackson
KO OF THE NIGHT: Mah/Jackson?
SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT(S): Wilson/Chacon
OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 3 out of 10 Pretty bad, but short, decent production value (well, if you ignore the misspelling of Joseph Martin’s nickname), and Chris Wilson fought in it. Mah/Jackson was kinda fun too.

#24
Hard Knocks (1/19/07)


One more to go after this and then a short period of rest before the next box set gets ordered during the upcoming Deep Discount DVD sale. This comes to us from Rockford, Il and it’s a cheap setup of cameras, per usual. Interesting lineup, however, featuring such luminaries as Chase Beebe, Hector Urbina, Mac Danzig (against Clay French, no less), Justin Robbins, and Jeff Curran. Inman and Loeffler are announcing. Because its Illinois, 3 minute rounds are the norm here for the early bouts, and somewhere around Griffin/Marrello they get longer. I think elbows are illegal in Illinois at this point. Scoring is some bizarre 30 point a round system.

1) JOHN CHESTER vs. JOE SANTIAGO: Featherweights I’ve never hear of.

Neither man was bad on the ground, though both were pretty lousy standing. This was mostly a stalemate on the mat, with both securing takedowns, top control, sweeps, and submission attempts (Chester with a pair of guillotines, armbars, and knee bars, and Santiago with a couple triangle attempts). On the feet, lots of bar room boxing. Chester twice landed shots to the groin inadvertently while Santiago was in butt scoot, and after the second time and the rest period ended, Santiago retaliated. You never see fighters do that in MMA, and I have no idea why not. You gotta be willing to show you’ll do anything to win. Santiago won the decision from the judges and I agreed, giving him rounds 1 and 3 in a very competitive matchup.

2) SAL REAGAN vs. TODD ALLEE: Oh no, heavyweights. Regan is representing HAMMER HOUSE. YES. Allee is apparently 6-0, though it doesn’t show it on any record sites.

Lots of lame heavyweight action with poorly thrown punches and atypically bad ground technique. Reagan and Allee looked gassed real early, and a pair of low blows don’t help Reagan in that regard. Reagan does rally in round 3 after nearly being stopped due to GnP in the prior round by sinching in a guillotine and forcing the tap. Apparently he’s not fought since.

3) JASON GILLIAM vs. ALEX BELOSI: Welterweights. Gilliam is undefeated and rocks a rooster hat to the ring.

Belosi has no ground skills whatsoever and gets tapped out nearly immediately by RNC after Gilliam takes his back standing.

4) CODY SHIPP vs. NATE MOHR: Mohr is a Team Curran guy and Shipp is a product of Hammer House. This is at a 160something pounds.

Good competitive fight, but Mohr looked much bigger naturally and his standup was clearly superior. Another heavy groin shot in this fight from a thai knee, making the count now 5 in 4 fights. Mohr eventually overpowers Shipp and beats him with strikes from the mount. The victory earned him the opportunity to go 1-2 in the UFC in what were scheduled to be untelevised fights. He also lost to Donald Cerrone (who made his WEC debut this weekend with a win) previous to this fight.

5) JOHNNY HUGHES vs. KEVIN COOLEY: Hughes previous showed up on a KOTC show from Oklahoma where he beat up one of the hopeless Team Triton guys.

Hughes goes to touch gloves and then low kicks Cooley and shoots on him. Loeffler is really not happy about this and remarks that he wishes Hughes was at 185 so that he could sign to fight him. Cooley is a much smaller man than Hughes and takes a ton of punishment on the ground, but he’s also a skilled operator on his back, and he’s able to shock everyone by grabbing one of Hughes’ arms and stretching it for the submission. Great win for Cooley, as it was one of his 4 wins in 2007.

6) BRANDON GRIFFIN vs. MIKE MARRELLO: Marrello is a Curran guy and Griffin has a flashy record. This is probably a unofficial TUF 8 eliminator, given the dearth of unsigned fighters for that tourney.

Griffin has much better conditioning and standup, and should easily win the fight after taking a drubbing from Marrello in most of round 1. Instead, he stupidly follows Marrello into his guard, thinking that he’s so tired, he’s just ready to go. Of course, Griffin sucks shit compared to Marrello on the ground, and so on every occasion he decides to take up Marrello’s offer of laying in guard, he gets his stuff blocked, he goes to stand up, and then gets taken down and laid on. He loses the unanimous decision and Marrello, who looks hyper one dimensional and like he needs to start doing road work, picks up the W.

7) MIKE BENNETT vs. CHASE BEEBE: Beebe is, of course, the former WEC Bantamweight champ. Fight is actually at a catchweight of 150lbs.

As you might expect, largely Beebe domination. Beebe catches a flying knee and takes Bennett to the ground, immediately taking the back and flattening him out. Beebe tries to ward off the choke by putting the chin down and controlling the wrists, but eventually gives it up.

8) HECTOR URBINA vs. ADAM MACIEJEWSKI: The dude with the Polish last name trains with KEITH HACKNEY.

Lots of the grapplez to start with clinching against the fence, but Maciejewski is able to get a sweep takedown and then pounds Urbina out. Nothing too special, but Urbina was on the mat for awhile afterwards. Maciejewski lost in both IFL fights he ever had to Reese Andy and Mike Ciesnolevicz, respectively. This is by far his best win.

9) CLAY FRENCH vs. MAC DANZIG: Wow. This is not a bad show.

Let me preface this entire review of the match with a simple fact: French wins. Now that we get that out of the way, how he does it and how it pertains to now:

-STRIKING: French is basically a small version of a Coleman type wrestler with boxing skills. His boxing is decent, and he has adjusted that to his wrestling by going with a southpaw stance. His left hand is quick but has little on it, which means either he’s not a natural lefty or he’s not closing the fist when releasing. The striking is all secondary for him though, and little of the fight is on the feet. When it is, both men’s defense largely nullifies the other’s offense.

-GRAPPLING: Danzig has some BJJ skill, but French is an overpowering wrestler out of the Reinhardt camp. Once the first round ends, Danzig’s stamina goes down appreciably and suddenly French is able to do a fairly decent job of controlling on top and landing shots. French also never puts himself in a position in which he’s going to easily be submitted. He is able to pull himself out of Danzig’s rubber guard, and generally keeps close enough to him that Danzig isn’t able to lock in triangles or even do effective sweeps as the fight goes on. In the clinch, Danzig tries for some guillotines early but doesn’t really come close. Once he’s on his back, its simply not the place to be.

Danzig struggled a lot with Bocek (who’s not that good) and easily beat Tommy Speer (who simply didn’t belong in the cage with him), but better wrestlers at 155 will dominate him, and the UFC has lots of those. Danzig couldn’t even realistically hope to beat Gray Maynard, Tyson Griffin, Frankie Edgar, Clay Guida, Joe Stevenson, or Sean Sherk if in the cage with a firearm. I don’t even know if he can beat Manny Gamburyan.

10) JUSTIN ROBBINS vs. MUSTAFA HUSSAINI: Hussaini is from the camp of Hackney again. Robbins just fought and lost on the EliteXC undercard.

Hussaini losses a wide decision. He was wild with punches and a terrible wrestler, with his only highlight occuring in round 1 with a fairly acrobatic guard pass that was reversed soon after. Robbins was much cleaner standing and an infinitely better wrestler, thus earning him the decision.

11) DONNIE WALKER vs. JEFF CURRAN: Walker is from Jason Dent’s camp and was seen waaaay back at KOTC Shock and Awe in October 2005 in this series of reviews. Curran just got laid on HARDCORE. Curran is wearing a rashguard, BTW.

By far and away, the most entertaining part of this fight was the dude at ringside in a suit banging on a table and screaming for Walker to win the fight. His bellowing, “KICK HIS MOTHERFUCKING ASS. LOOK AT HIM. HE’S WEARING A RED SHIRT. HE SUCKS,” were to no avail. It is three minutes of Curran dominating the standup when it was located there and then rolling around with the guy like its sparring, eventually getting the chokeout in the 3rd round. Walker has since gone on to beat a bunch of nobodies and then lose to Cub Swanson on some nothing MMA card in Ohio that Sean Loeffler also took part in.

FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Cooley/Hughes Lots more action than any of the longer fights.
KO OF THE NIGHT: Maciejewski/Urbina None of them were memorable, really.
SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT(S): Cooley/Hughes Super cool armbar.
OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 5 out of 10 Nearly the best show on a bad boxed set, if that’s any consolation.

#25
Mass Destruction (1/26/07)


We’re coming from the Soaring Eagle in Michigan again, the final in the series. Inman is announcing. So, here’s the scoop: I’ll still be posting the KOTC reviews here, but I’m planning to start up a blog where I’ll be watching nothing but B and C level shows in the MMA world (along with the occasional boxing show). I’ll post a link to that eventually, but with a shipment of every Shooto ever supposedly coming along with USMMA shows, FFCs, another KOTC boxset, and all sorts of IFL and HDNet shit out there (not to mention all the crazy shit from everywhere else all over the world), I have enough to feed the concept for a long time.

I’ve also decided to change the reviews a little bit. Snowflakes for legit fights is retarded shit for the dudes who run PWTorch. Instead, I’ve come up with my own system, which is intended to not necessarily rank the quality, but the relevance of each bout.

0: Fights of no value. Feature no one who went anywhere or will go anywhere. Had no real skill. Apathy is as bad as being actively awful.
1: Fights of minimal value. Fun but brief fights between nobodies and early and nonessential fights from fringe contenders and future/past reality stars who never really rise above that platform.
2: Fights of some substantial value: Fights featuring legitimate top 40-50 contenders at any stage of their career. Also, prospects deemed ones to “watch out for”. Also, all out wars featuring technical skill between fighters of any level.
3: Fights of major value: Entertaining fights between top 40-50 contenders at any stage of their alloted career. Early/developmental fights for elite talent.
4: Fights of critical value: On a KOTC level, think Jorge Santiago/Diego Sanchez.

So let’s give it a shot, shall we?

1) STEPHAN JASKULSKI vs. BRANDON HUNT: Jaskulski supposedly has lots of KO power. Brandon Hunt is from MASH fight team.

Jaskulski and Hunt come to the middle of the ring and Jaskulski unloads a few punches on Hunt, and he’s out almost immediately. Neither means anything at this juncture. (0)

2) NATE CAREY vs. RICH WEEKS: Weeks fought on KOTC Meltdown and was horrible.

Its tough to give this any sort of legitimate rating, but the fact is that Weeks is not good taints the win for Carey. Carey and Weeks have some fairly unexciting standup until Cary sinches in the thai clinch and blows away Weeks with a knee to the head. Weeks tries to recover but ends up eating another one and the ref stops it. Carey went over to Hawaii and went 3 rounds with recent ShoXC alumni Po'ai Suganuma but lost. (0)

3) SCOTT BICKERSTAFF vs. MILES JURY: Bickerstaff is a mini version of Joe Riggs and Jury looks about 14 years old.

Short fight. Jury lands a bunch of knees to the body in the clinch and Bickerstaff goes down. Maybe 30 seconds long? Jury has since risen to 6-0 since, but against no one notable. (0)

4) TERRY DAVINNEY vs. DAN SANDMAN: Sandman is scrappy but not good, and yet he has his own MMA team. Davinney is a question mark.

Sandman is semi competent standing but Davinney clearly has more than just awful bar brawl boxing in his bag. He takes Sandman down, but Sandman scrambles to his feet. As he returns to a standing position, he takes two kness from Davinney and backs off. Sure enough, he’s on the ground again soon after, and this time he gives Davinney his back. Sandman has not miraculously reached a 3rd degree BJJ black belt level yet, and so he is easily submitted. (0)

5) BILLY KIDD vs. JOE VOISIN: Two career losers meet.

This, folks, is the sole career win in 7 fights of Voisin’s career. He basically slams Kidd a couple times then gasses out. He’s totally out of energy midway through round 1, and Herb Dean stands the fight up. Kidd throws a punch but his knee buckles and he collapses in pain. (0)

6) COREY GARDNER vs. BUDDY CLINTON: Clinton may be one of the best on the card. Gardner not so much.

Clinton and Gardner circle, clinch, Clinton drops down, scissoring the leg on the way and gets a knee bar. (1)

7) AUNGLA SUNG vs. JIM MARTENS: Sung apparently fought in a not taped bout for KOTC and won by armbar.

One has to assume watching this that the matchmaking here was entirely accidental. This was a very competitive fight, and for most of the two rounds was actually fairly entertaining. Neither man displayed a terrific amount of skill: Sung went to drop back for what looked to be a heel hook attempt, but forgot to grab the leg of Martens, or even isolate it. Martens would go for takedowns, but never pass. Neither had very good standup. Martens won a decision because he controled the pace more often, but in reality it was a decent fight to watch and that excited the crowd. (1)

8) ANTHONY LAPSLEY vs. JOHN MAHLOW: Lapsley I’ve seen and he can wrestle a little. He’s also now training at Hammer House.

Mahlow gets a takedown very early, which is not a good indication if the opponent is from Mark Coleman’s gym. Lapsley is in an armbar and its deep, but he basically pulls his arm out of it and escapes off strength. Now that’s the Hammer House I know and love. Lapsely then takes the top position and rains in some blows, through Mahlow is consequently attempting the triangle. He nearly gets it, but Lapsley sandwiches Mahlow into the cage and stacks up. He is able to break free as Lapsley tries to move off the cage with his feet, and takes the mount. What occurs next shocks me: Lapsley goes for a triangle from mount….and gets it! A Hammer House submission win that’s not a kimura or can opener? Wow. A new day dawns. Astonishingly, Lapsley fought 12 times in 2007. (1)

9) WADE HAMILTON vs. DAN SEVERN:

I’m gonna be honest here. This fight was worked. Severn’s hands looked open when striking, Hamilton went over for a german suplex, and Severn won using a cross face-chicken wing. People who wonder what a worked competitive bout looks like, this is it. Here’s another fun Dan Severn fact: He just beat Colin Robinson. No shit. In spite of this, I’ll rate the fight as I would Severn/Ritch, Severn/Matsunanga, or many of the other apparently fraudulent bouts he’s had.(1)

10) JIMMY BOYD vs. JASON IRELAND: Boyd is 2-1 in this series of reviews, and against Ireland he fights someone with legitimate talent.

Boyd seems to have a gameplan of “squash into cage wall, repeat”. Ireland lays there for awhile, seems to think better of it, gets the fight down, takes a more dominant position, and Boyd scrambles back up. Boyd again tries to pin Ireland against the cage, but fails this time. The result of such failure? A right hand to the temple which knocks him out cold. (1)

11) BILLY AYASH vs. JOSHUA TAIBL: Ayash is being remembered as not being too good. Taibl made a miraculous comeback at KOTC Meltdown to win his fight, which was actually a decent fight.

Taibl gets hit with a right hand immediately and goes for a takedown. He is put in a guillotine though, and taps out. Fight over.(0)


FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Sung/Martens
KO OF THE NIGHT: Boyd/Ireland
SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT(S): Clinton/Garner
OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 1 out of 10: Really, a whole lot of nothing.
STATISTICAL OVERVIEW: 11.37 out of 100 “relevance points”

And now for the Underground Worldwide boxset:

Shootout: 2 out of 10
Meltdown: 4.5 out of 10
Booyaa: 2.5 out of 10
Cyclone: 3 out of 10
Destroyer: 5.5 out of 10
Combat Academy: .00000001 out of 10
“Oceania II”: 0 out of 10
Conquest IV: 3 out of 10
Hard Knocks: 5 out of 10
Mass Destruction: 1 out of 10

AVERAGE: 2.7

Honestly, this sucked. I was glad to get it over with. There’s not even a decent single event to be put together with all the fights on the boxset combined, and the three best fights aren’t even from any of the events purported to be on the box set. Maximum suggestion to avoid.

Oh lol so basically Dan Severn is the same level talent as Eddie Sanchez? That is not terribly surprising actually.

Well, if you liked what I did here, I'll be doing a vast assortment of other similar stuff over at bshowassault.blogspot.com, and I promise that all future KOTC reviews will still be posted here as well. I wouldn't have it any other way.