Chris2K

My fight org is up for sale to the general public after the potential buyer fell through, it has a fairly decent pool of talent and a good hype (73+ after 9 events), no debts and $20k in the bank which you can have on me. Looking for any reasonable offers so just PM me in here or in the game itself. http://www.mmatycoon.com/orgpublic.php?oid=3696

Welcome to the preview of the second Lighting Fight League show "LFL 2: James vs. Rich" scheduled to take place on Saturday 27th April at Wild Bob's Bar in New York. It's a significant rise in venue from the first show with an extra 350 seats available, the LFL have also lowered their ticket prices to ensure most, if not all of the seats will be filled. Three new champions will be crowned during the event with a title up for grabs in the final three matches of the night. The first fight of the night will be in the Welterweight division between Boby Lee (23-14) and Chris Irvine (0-0). This quite horrendous mis-match came about thanks to a scheduling error, Lee was in fact meant to be facing another high ranking Welterweight but Irvine's name was selected by mistake. Lee has the advantage in every part of MMA so Irvine's chances of winning are slim, however it's thought Irvine is going to be financially compensated for the error. Lee is a former New Age Fighting and Ultimate Proving Grounds Welterweight champion. Irvine is not. Two debutants square off in the Weltweight division when Lloyd Conan (0-0) takes on Jose Torres (0-0). In a stark contrast to the opening bout this fight couldn't be much closer, both fighters have their advantages but they balance each other out well. Conan has the advantage in Boxing and Wrestling, Torres has the advantage in Muay Thai and BJJ, so this fight is pretty much impossible to predict without knowing what gameplans are going to be executed. In the Lightweight division Al Bundy (3-0) will take on Jon Penn (1-1) in a match that could also go either way. Bundy has a very strong wrestling game which will most likely allow him to dictate where the fight takes place, however Penn will likely be the stronger fighter both in striking and on the ground. This might not be the most entertaining of fights if Bundy is able to negate all of Penn's attacks. Penn fought on the first LFL card in a losing effort to Alberto Rodriguez, Bundy formerly fought in Armageddon Fight Promotions where he won his last fight with a first round TKO. In another Lightweight contest Javier Vasquez (0-0) makes his professional debut against Clark Griswold (1-0). I'm told that Griswold is absolutely terrible at striking and much better on the ground so Vazquez's tactic will no doubt be to keep the fight standing at all costs. That said, Vazquez may be better at BJJ so Griswold will need to be careful if he is able to get Vazquez to the ground using his superior wrestling. The only fight either of these two have had belongs to Griswold who won via TKO thanks to ground and pound rather than stand-up striking. Two experienced fighters collide looking to end losing streaks when Bret Hill (18-14) takes on Edilberto Nestuta (9-5) in another Lightweight match. I'm pretty sure the entire LFL Lightweight division is on this card. Hill is a three time champion in various Featherweight divisions so will have a weight disadvantage here, Nestuta is a feared striker with several KO victories, Hill is very strong on the ground and Nestuta is a beast in the clinch. I can't predict the winner here, but both need to win after losing at the first LFL show. In the Light Heavyweight division we have the standard striker vs. grappler contest with Du Frukost (1-2) taking on Lucas Hill (0-0). Frukost is coming off a TKO victory over Arm Bar at the first LFL show so will be riding a wave of confidence, his striking is by far his strongest element so he will want to keep the fight standing. That may be difficult against Hill who is a very good wrestler with decent submission skills to use if he does get the fight to the ground. Once again this fight will come down to which fighter can implement the better gameplan. Hayden Venn (0-1) is being sacrificed to THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR (8-4) in a Heavyweight division clash which may be very similar to Warrior's match against HHH at WrestleMania 12. Warrior holds an advantage over Venn in everything except Muay Thai so it's hard to think how Venn has any chance of winning. We're told that Venn's manager isn't very impressed with him, a stand-up fighter who gets knocked out in his first fight is never a good sign. WARRIOR has fought in several companies, Team Thomas Fight Club, SPFC and LA Combat to name the three of them. The first champion to be crowned in the LFL will be the Middleweight champion when Ben Hutch (9-0) takes on Kova Naama (3-3) for the vacant strap. On paper Hutch looks like the favourite, he's undefeated and has an advantage in several areas, however Hutch has only fought once since November 2011 due to fighting a serious addiction to maple syrup. This addiction caused Hutch to isolate himself from the world only making occasional trips to Canada to get the product he required and his promising MMA career came to a sudden halt. Naama earned this title shot by defeating Dalip Rana in the fight of the night at LFL 1, he's a well-rounded fighter but will have a significant mental advantage going into this fight. The co-main event will crown the first LFL Heavyweight champion when Barriston Selmy (7-3) takes on Dean Walker (7-2). This fight favours Selmy greatly due to him having a very big advantage in striking and also being better at Wrestling and BJJ for good measure. Walker's main chance of victory will be if he can get the fight into the clinch and batter Selmy from there. Selmy has mainly fought in Team Thomas Fight Club and Immortals New York prior to joining the LFL, Walker only fought in Empire QFC before moving up to the big leagues. The Main Event will see two of LFL's top fighters square off for the Welterweight title as Jesse James (13-6) takes on Rick Rich (10-5). Both fighters are very popular in the New York area and are both on winning streaks coming into this fight. Again it's a striker vs. grappler, most of James' wins have come via TKO while most of Rich's wins have come by submission, however both fighters have enough talent to adequately defend themselves if they're in a situation that doesn't suit their styles. James comes to the LFL having spent most of his career in Helsinki for Black Hand Fight Club and in Amsterdam for xXx, Rich has only fought in Los Angeles before this for Epic FC and LA Combat. That's the card so join us at Wild Bob's Bar (seriously, we need people to buy tickets) on April 27th for a night filled of action with titles on the line everywhere. Buy now and receive a complimentary "Wild Bob Onion Cocktail" on the night of the show.

There were so many commentators complaining about the one hole sudden death format but it really does make it more exciting. Last year and this year have had great finishes and with a three/four hole play-off you wouldn't get half the fun.

Looks like it's gonna be an Aussie winner which I'm happy with, always nice to see a non-American win. All that's left to hope for is that Tiger doesn't finish 2 shots off the lead so we don't have to hear about he was "cheated" by having a two shot penalty when anyone else would probably have been disqualified.

Welcome everyone to the preview of the very first Lightning Fight League show, entitled "LFL 1: Venn vs. Brooks", which will be taking place at the Micro Arena in New York on Saturday April 13th. We're going to run through every fight on the card to show you the array of talent that the LFL has managed to get hold of in one way or another. The very first LFL fight will be in the Welterweight division between Tommy Goldman (7-6) and Andrew Trent (7-1). Goldman is one of the most experienced fighters in the organisation after fighting several times in Montreal for ACME, unfortunately his time there wasn't very successful as he amassed a 1-5 record before being released. Thankfully the QFC came to the rescue to give Goldman six wins and make him look better than he actually is. Andrew Trent has a very impressive record and is currently riding a six fight win streak. During that time he won the ECF Welterweight title in New York before the org closed, and has finished his last four fights in Rounds 1 or 2. These two fighters are very evenly matched so I'm expecting a boring decision. In the Light Heavyweight division we will see LJ Warner (3-0) take on Jacob Alexander (7-2). This is another very even battle with the only real advantage going to Warner if the fight goes to the ground due to being better at BJJ. Warner lacks the experience of Alexander but also has a 100% record, two of the wins coming in the QFC and one in his brief stay at TTFC in New York which was a devastating 3 minute KO. Jacob Alexander is a ground and pound specialist, of his 7 wins 3 of them have been by TKO on the ground and 2 times he has forced his opponent to submit due to the power of his ground strikes. If this fight does go to the ground it will be very interesting to see who is able to come out on top. The close battles continue into the Lightweight division when Robbie Hartford (2-1) takes on Edilberto Nestuta (9-4). Both of these fighters have a Muay Thai base and actually spent several years training together before they made their MMA debuts. Hartford has had less fights and didn't look very impressive in them, his victory was a close decision and his two other fights were TKO losses. Nestuta got off to a great start to his career thanks to his vicious knees and killer instinct, but began to suffer losses to fighters who were able to negate his clinch game. I think it's fair to say these two are likely to battle in the clinch for the majority of the fight. Finally we come to a fight between fighters that don't belong to me. In the Lightweight division Alberto Rodriguez (0-0) takes on Jon Penn (1-0) in a match where both fighters are almost polar opposites. Rodriguez will come in with a significant striking and wrestling advantage whilst Penn is better at Muay Thai and BJJ. The only fight either of these two have had gives us a good indication of the strength of Penn's ground game, he was able to submit Valnor Perrea with a heel hook in Round 3. It will be interesting to see where the fight mainly takes place, the winner will depend on who is able to get the fight where they want it. In the third Lightweight fight Bret Hill (18-13) takes on Lance Marcy (0-0) in what looks like a mis-match in experience terms. However Hill is coming out of retirement to take this fight and Marcy is a well-trained striker who will likely dominate if the fight stays on the feet. Hill is the most experienced fighter on the roster with 31 fights and 3 championships to his name in the SFC, ECF and UFF. However they were all at Featherweight and Hill is much lighter than his opponent. Marcy is a well-rounded fighter whose 0-0 record is misleading, significant training has made him a dangerous fighter wherever the fight takes place and as such is a heavy favourite. Next up is another fighter making his professional debut as Edgar van der Houst enters the cage to take on Tank Goldman (0-1). Van der Houst is pretty much your one-dimensional kick boxer who has very ordinary skills in everything except striking. His biggest weakness is in the clinch where he seems to have absolutely no clue but he also isn't great off his back and his wrestling is just about good enough to defend himself if necessary. Tank Goldman may have lost his professional debut but he seems to have some potential, the 20 year old came across a fighter under the tutelage of veteran manager and master tactician Dave F (once a mentor to me before he saw sense) so the defeat could be expected. Goldman should have no problem winning this one. In the Light Heavyweight division Blight Phears (0-1) will take on Lorenzo Fabricio (0-0) in the typical striker vs. grappler battle. Phears will have the advantage on the ground with some decent BJJ skills, however when the fight is standing it is Fabricio who is likely to outshine Phears significantly. In Phears' only fight he was grinded on for three rounds without ever being put in any danger of being finished, Phears did manage to secure three takedowns during the fight but may need to adjust his tactics a bit to be less one-dimensional. Another fight in the 205lb division sees the strangely named Arm Bar (0-0) take on the equally weird Du Frukost (0-2). Again it's going to come down to Boxing vs. Jiu-Jitsu, Frukost has some impressive boxing skills which can also be utilised inside the clinch whereas Arm Bar, as you'd expect with a name like that, is more proficient on the ground and will be hoping to get the fight there as soon as possible. Frukost's losses have come at the hands of the vastly more experienced Bam Boon I and a very skilled ground fighter called Mike Westfield. Finally we move on to the biggest two fights of the night, firstly in the co-main event we will see Kova Naama (2-3) take on Dalip Rana (0-0). On paper it seems that Naama is the more proficient fighter with strengths in boxing, Muay Thai and BJJ, however Rana does have the wrestling edge which could give him the opportunity to dictate where the fight takes place. Naama also struggles with inconsistency, whilst his record from his time in SPNY has two TKO victories it also has three losses, one by KO, one by submission and one decision. Rana definitely has the chance to score an upset here; the important thing for him is to make sure he is tactically astute. Finally the very first LFL main event will be in the Heavyweight division as Hayden Venn (0-0) takes on CM Brooks (0-0) amazingly despite both of these fighters never having competed before their match is the one that has the biggest hype behind it. That may be mainly due to their former lives, Venn who is a former celebrity chef who has traded in his knives for hand-to-hand combat whilst CM Brooks is a local professional wrestler. Venn will have an advantage in both Muay Thai and Wrestling going into the fight but in a pre-match interview he stated he was going to go out there and trade punches despite Brooks having the edge in Boxing. If that's the case I would expect Brooks will be able to come out victorious. That's the card so join us at the Micro Arena on April 13th for the first ever LFL show, it's a bargain price of $150 per ticket (seriously) and I'm sure you'll get your money's worth!

I can see an outsider winning it this year, I don't think Woods will and I certainly don't think McIlroy is in a winning frame of mind right now. I always like an underdog story so someone like Immelman or Schwartzel shocking the world again would be nice, just preferably Brisih and not South African

Here's the place to cut any promos on other fighters or to hype your own fighters up in the Lightning Fight League, don't forget to follow the rules of the Smack Talk forum! http://www.mmatycoon.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=859 I will always take any challenges made in this thread into account when booking matches so give it a go

Check out the article about the Lightning Fight League in the Tycoon Times here: http://www.mmatycoon.com/tycoontimes/tycoontimesstory.php?SID=1506 The first card has been booked and a preview will be made soon, we're still actively seeking new fighters so feel free to get in touch

The Lightning Fight League is a new fight organisation looking to bring in rookie fighters to give them the chance to shine. Whilst our long term plan is to develop into a larger company for the time being we just want to make this a fun place to have your fighters with regular shows to keep the money rolling in! Weight divisions are being kept between 155 and 265 for the time being, although if there's a lack of fighters that may drop and if I can get a solid number of Bantamweights and Featherweights then I'm happy to open those divisions up. I have had experience running a Fight Org before, I ran a company called Stampede Fighting Championship in Montreal which ran over 100 shows. I'm hoping to do even better this time and I need all the support I can get! If you're interested in joining please feel free to send me a message on the forums or in-game, I'm also looking for someone to do a logo/banner for some in-game money .

Blitzkrieg were back on Saturday 30th April for their latest show Blitz 153: Saints and Sinners. Despite the fact that some other company were running some two-bit show in Toronto on the same night there was one of the biggest attendances in recent history, over 9,000 people turned up to watch the action. The highlight of the show was destined to be a Light Heavyweight title contest between the champion Ryan Larkin and challenger Jonas Justice. First up on the card was a fight in the Welterweight division that saw Barich Fendsor (12-4) take on Seth Vandrel (12-5). This was not the most exciting of fights, and by that I mean it was pretty terrible. Fendsor scored a takedown early in the first round, and the fight remained on the ground for the next four and a half minutes. Fendsor got through to mount but at no point actively looked to finish the fight. Fendsor just controlled the action on top until Vandrel managed to get back to half guard, but that just made for even less excitement. The referee apparently decided that enough was happening to warrant leaving them there, but the crowd's reaction suggested that they didn't feel the same way. Round 2 was almost identical, Fendsor scored a takedown even quicker in the round and again went to work by advancing to the mount. This time Fendsor opted to take the back of Vandrel, but despite getting the hooks in he didn't go for a rear naked choke. Eventually Vandrel was able to get out of the position and got into Fendsor's guard, which at least prompted Fendsor to half-heartedly try a triangle, but Vandrel avoided it. Round 3 was a combination of the worst of the first rwo rounds, Fendsor got another takedown and spent four minutes trying to get the back of Vandrel and failing miserably, eventually Vandrel swept him and took the top position but he too did little to excite the crowd. Despite the fight spending over 13 out of 15 minutes on the ground, not one ground strike connected from either fighter. Yikes. Fendsor ended up taking the win 30-27 on the judges' scorecards, and we shall now never speak of this fight again. The second fight of the night was a Lightweight division match with Ted Mosby (8-4) taking on Tyrone Eastman (10-4). The first round was very similar to the previous fight, Eastman got a takedown within the first sixty seconds and used his wrestling skills to get through to the mount. Thankfully Eastman actually tried to land some punches from the mount so we weren't treated to the same tedious display that Fendsor had offered up. Eastman maintained control for the remainder of the first round, but never really looked like doing a lot of damage with his strikes and Mosby was never in any real trouble. The second round was an all standing affair which seemed to give the advantage to Mosby. Eastman was shooting in for takedowns at every possible moment, but Mosby showed some impressive balance to keep the fight standing, and it allowed him to put his boxing skills to good use. Mosby dominated the round with his striking, landing far more shots than Eastman who struggled to keep up with the number of punches that were coming his way. Round 3 began with Eastman getting another takedown, and once again he was able to advance into mount. An attempt at an arm triangle that didn't quite work allowed Mosby the opportunity to get back into half guard, and he was able to control Eastman for a couple of minutes before the referee stood the fighters back up. Mosby was able to keep the fight standing for a bit despite Eastman's constant efforts to get another takedown. Again Mosby was by far the better striker of the two, but right at the end of the fight Eastman was able to secure that takedown he had been desperate for. It was the third takedown that Eastman was successful with, but he had attempted 17 throughout the fight. Would that last minute takedown be the difference in the fight? Apparently so, as the scores came in 29-28, 29-28 and 28-28, giving Eastman a majority decision win. That 28-28 was due to one judge scoring the second round 10-8 to Mosby. The third contest of the night was a battle between Luther Pope (15-6) and Hans Titties (11-3). The whole fight was on its feet allowing both fighters the opportuntiy to show off their stand-up skills, in the first round it was Pope who got the better of the two by throwing a good variety of strikes including high kicks, hard punches and on two occasions he landed a flying knee. Titties was looking to counter a lot but Pope didn't give him many loose punches to work with, and Pope himself also countered well if Titties missed with a strike. Pope tried to instigate a clinch on several occasions but Titties was able to keep the fight at a distance, that is until the final moments of the first round, Pope got the clinch but didn't have time to do anything with the position. Round 2 saw Titties seemingly get a bit tired, whilst he was more aggressive with his strikes he was far less accurate and was handing Pope the opportunity to use counter punches to good effect. Titties did manage to land a couple of decent head kicks, but his leg kicks were being easily telegraphed by Pope, who frequently responded with good punches to the head and body. Titties also tried to take the fight to the ground on a few occasions, but Pope kept it standing and continued to dominate the striking game. Eventually Pope connected witha head kick that left Tittie rocked, Pope then followed up with a straight right hand and a left hook that dropped Titties to the canvas. Pope followed him down and landed some hard shots from the mount until the referee intervened and called a halt to the fight, giving Pope the TKO victory. Next up was a fight in the Light Heavyweight division between Ola Afolabi (9-1) and Yang Leiden (15-4). To try and save me some time with all these decision fights I'm going to skip to just the statistics on this one. Leiden was fairly dominant throughout, he landed the higher number of strikes during the fight (50) and had the higher level of accuracy as well (67%). Leiden threw a lot of counter punches, including some good combinations that left Afolabi stunned. He had these opportunities to fire back when Afolabi missed because Afolabi stuggled to find his range throughout the fight, ending up landing just 26 strikes with a very poor accuracy of 32%. His striking mainly consisted of looking to land punches, a tactic that Leiden quickly picked up on. During the fight Leiden was also able to secure two takedowns out of three attempts, one in the first round and one in the final round. Both times when Leiden got the fight to the ground there wasn't a lot of time for him to work, to the extent that he only tried one submission attempt and didn't even throw a solitary strike despite being in the mount for a bit of that time. Leiden's accurate and sustained striking allowed him to get a distinct advantage in each of the three rounds in the eyes of the judges, but those takedowns also helped to cement his place as the winner of the fight. All three judges ended up scoring the fight 30-27 to give Yang Leiden the unanimous decision victory. The fifth fight of the night was a contest in the Super Heavyweight division between Musashimaru Koyo (15-2-2) and the peculiarly named Gus The Bus (10-1). This was one of those ridiculously one-sided fights that's basically impossible for me to commentate on, so I'll just go to the statistics again. Bus landed 84 strikes during the fight, all of them punches with 35 connecting to the head and 43 landing to the body with three combinations, and he finished the fight with an astonishing accuracy of 93%. Obviously these punches didn't have a whole lot of power behind them, but the constant accuracy and speed in which they landed caused Koyo all sorts of problems. Koyo had very little answer for the barrage of punches he was being caught with, he landed just 6 strikes during the fight with an appalling accuracy of just 10%. He attempted 7 takedowns during the fight, but Bus was able to keep it standing and repelled the first 6, before Koyo was finally successful in getting the fight to the ground with just 60 seconds remaining, leaving him little time to do anything that would finish the fight. The dominance of Bus was evidenced in the scores from the judges, each one giving the first two rounds to Bus as 10-8s, with only that late takedown from Koyo doing enough for him to drag the third round to a closer 10-9. Either way it was incredibly one-sided, and Bus took a deserved victory with 30-25 scores from all three judges. Kicking off the second half of the show was a fight between former Welterweight champion Magnum PI (19-4) and Tommy Boyce (18-10). Magnum got a takedown almost straight away and spent some time landing some decent elbows, before attempting an armbar that lost him the top position. Magnum was by far the more active fighter on the ground as Boyce was more interested in stalling than looking to finish, whilst Magnum was going for guillotines and triangles whenever the opportunity arose. Despite Boyce being on top for four minutes it was easily Magnum's round thanks to Boyce's decision to just lay and pray. Magnum spent the early minutes of Round 2 countering with some hard shots whenever Boyce missed a punch or a combination, but Boyce was able to land a good right hand that opened up a cut under Magnum's left eye. Halfway through the round Magnum was able to secure another takedown, and this time he was able to stay on top for the remaidner of the round. Magnum managed to land some decent ground and pound despite having his options restricted by being in Boyce's guard. Round 3 was very similar in that again Magnum spent the first two minutes landing some decent counter strikes, before eventually getting the takedown into guard. Magnum was successful with all three of his attempted takedowns during the fight, making you wonder why he didn't try for the takedowns earlier in the round. After a minute of landing some strikes on the ground Boyce was able to sweep and take the top position. Boyce was again very reluctant to try anything from the top and ended up paying for it, Magnum threw his legs up for a triangle from the bottom and manage to get it locked in, leaving Boyce with no option but to tap out with just two seconds of the fight remaining. Would Magnum have won if he had not got the submission? We'll never know... The next fight was scheduled to be a bout between Mauri Pekkarinen and Vim Fweigo, however Pekkarinen didn't get to Hilo in time for the fight so it was declared a no contest. How foolish. So instead the next fight was another Welterweight division contest with Kasper Kessler (17-3) taking on Sunny Supernova (14-1). We had another action-packed fight, too action-packed for my humble writing skills through. After a couple of minutes of striking in the first round Kessler managed to get a takedown, but they were only on the ground momentarily as Kessler fell victim to the MMA Tycoon Leglock Reversal System and gave up the top position, Supernova was quick to convince the referee to stand them up. Kessler was able to get a second takedown late in the round, but he was left with nowhere near enough time to get close to an advantageous position. Kessler tried another ten more takedowns in the next two rounds but Supernova was able to keep it standing, a situation that suited him perfectly as he began to dominate the fight with his striking. Supernova landed 84 strikes during the fight, 51 on the outside and 33 in the clinch, and showed decent accuracy throughout particularly in his clinch striking, his total accuracy being 68%. Supernova's fists did most of the talking, he landed 63 punches to the head and body in total. Kessler struggled to keep up with the pace that Supernova brought to the fight, Kessler landed only 20 strikes during the fight out of the 48 that he threw for an accuracy of 41%. Kessler's constant takedown attempts likely tired him out quite quickly as well, leaving him as pretty much a sitting duck for the final few minutes of the fight, allowing Supernova to connect almost at will. It cost him in the end as Supernova landed a left/right combination that dropped Kessler to the mat, Supernova was quick to follow up and began landing some hard ground strikes until the referee took pity on Kessler and called the fight off, giving Supernova the TKO victory. The co-Main Event of the evening saw another former Welterweight champion in action as Arthur Meighen (16-2) took on Hulohot Yokohama (19-6). The first four minutes of the first round took place on the feet, with Meighen looking to take the advantage with his striking game. He landed a lot of good shots but was also pretty careless with his accuracy, allowing Yokohama to retaliate with good counter strikes on several occasions. Yokohama was actively looking for takedowns but couldn't get it to the ground until just one minute remained in the round, and even then the referee stood them up after just thirty seconds. Early in the second round Yokohama got another takedown, but once again there was not a lot of action and the referee stood them up. Yokohama then used a spinning back fist to help set up another takedown, but his attempt at a leglock saw him fall victim to the MMA Tycoon Leglock Reversal System. With Yokohama now on his back he was going for submissions from all sides, Meighen was very careful not to get caught with Yokohama's legs flailing all over the place as he looked for any possible chance of locking in a triangle. Meighen was able to survive the round, but with Yokohama being so active it was enough for him to win the round. A very dull third round began with another takedown by Yokohama, but in his attempts to take the back of Meighen resulted in him giving up the top position. Meighen stayed on top for almost the remainder of the round but his lack of action on the ground had the crowd booing him loudly and angrily. Eventually after a brief scramble he was able to get into the mount, but from there he opted to just stand up. A strange decision. Speaking of decisions we ended up going to the judges once again, one scored it as a 29-29 draw but the other two scored it 29-28 in favour of Arthur Meighen. Perhaps a bit of a controversial decision there, but that's why you can't leave it in the judges' hands... Finally we came to our main event of the evening, five rounds of action for the Light Heavyweight championship as Ryan Larkin (15-4) defended his title against Jonas Justice (10-1). This was another one of those all stand-up, one-sided fights that I'm sure a better writer would go through punch by punch, kick by kick. But I am not that writer, so I'll look at the statistics. Larkin absolutely pummelled Justice for the full five rounds, which is something I certainly wouldn't have predicted going into the fight. His striking was just too aggressive and consistent for Justice to do anything about. Overall he landed 103 punches and 51 kicks for a total of 154 strikes, and his accuracy was only at 58%. Throwing 262 strikes during the fight didn't seem to leave Larkin tired, and he was relentless in his moving forward to land as many strikes as possible. It's a tactic that has suited Justice before in his ten victories, but in this instance he was just unable to keep up with the champion. Justice landed just 21 strikes during the five rounds, and only had the opportunity to throw 79 in retaliation to what Larkin was sending his way, giving him an accuracy of just 26%. Neither fighter wanted to take the fight to the ground or to the clinch, nobody attempted a takedown and nobody tried to initiate a clinch at any point. It simply came down to two fighters slugging it out, and in this instance it was one fighter who took the initiative to just keep throwing strikes until the fight ended. Larkin ended up taking a unanimous decision victory with some very high scores in his favour, two judges scoring it 50-43 and the other going with 50-42. The third and fifth rounds were considered as being 10-8s by all three judges, with that one judge scoring the first round as a 10-8 as well. Larkin put in a superb performance here against somebody that many people considered a strong competitor for his title. As it turned out it was Larkin walking away with his belt after a dominant display. --------------------------- Statistics Event Rating: 199.12 Attendance: 9,710 Fight of the Night: Ryan Larkin vs. Jonas Justice KO of the Night: Luther Pope Submission of the Night: Magnum PI ---------------------------

Ben Hutch is looking for an org anywhere in the world, although the further away it is might require a bigger signing bonus to cover travel.

Looks absolutely phenomenal as far as I'm concerned, had my pre-order down after I saw the first trailer, and every trailer since has gotten me more excited.

It's his mother who's started all this (Diana Smith for anyone who remembers her from 1996 WWF), she's been saying on Twitter that Harry would be able to compete in the UFC with his wrestling skills. She also said he'd do well in PRIDE, bless her. He'd be a Lashley though, lacking the wide range of skills needed for top level competition. Or Chad Griggs.

Blitzkrieg were back on Saturday 16th April for their only show of this week, Blitz 150: Hybrid Theory. Despite the celebrations and hype given to the 100th Blitzkrieg show, Blitz 150 wasn't given as much attention by the company. The Main Event of the show saw former Blitz Middleweight champion Harsan Varsi return to action against Fedor Belfort, whilst the Featherweight Title was on the line in the co-Main Event, Rolando Garcia defending the title against Grimlock Jones. The first fight of the evening was a contest in the Middleweight division, Pierre Tran Duc (10-5) taking on Kalib Koscheck (7-4). It was Duc who scored the first takedown of the round, countering a missed uppercut from Koscheck to get a takedown into half guard. Koscheck quickly reversed the positions when Duc got a bit over-excited in an attempt to move to mount. Koscheck remained on top for the next four minutes, landing some good ground and pound from half guard, whilst Duc struggled to control him and only attempted one submission from his back. Round 2 began with another takedown from Duc, and although he was able to stay on top for a bit for a little bit Koscheck eventually kicked him away and the fighters went back to standing. Duc got the better of the striking game for the most part, at one point landing a nice combination to the head of Koscheck that opened up a cut under Koscheck's right eye. Both men tried to score a takedown throughout the second round but good takedown defence from their opponents meant that the fight remained standing. Duck scored with a couple more combinations during the round to give him the second round in the eyes of the judges. Round 3 was standing for the first four minutes, however the striking accuracy of both fighters seemed to be lacking. A lot of strikes were thrown during the round but very few of them actually connected, and only occasionally did somebody respond by landing a counter punch. Both men were again looking for takedowns throughout the round, and it was Tran Duc again that proved to be the only one who could get the fight to the ground. Koscheck again managed to sweep Duc, but there wasn't enough time left in the round to do anything with the top position. The judges ended up scoring the fight unanimously 29-28 to Duc, those takedowns perhaps proving the difference between the two fighters. In the second fight of the night we saw two Lightweights collide, with Joe Hughs (13-2) taking on Jukka Purjo (16-8-2). This was the first all-standing, all punching and kicking fight of the night, but it wasn't particularly spectacular. During the fight Hughs managed to land 27 strikes out of the 74 he threw, an accuracy of 36%, and 20 of those strikes were kicks. Purjo actually managed to outstrike Hughs, landing 31 strikes in total, and had a much higher accuracy of 62%. However Purjo tried to clinch on so many occasions that I expect the judges began to take points way from him for such a one-dimensional tactic that didn't work very often at all. Only twice during the fight did Purjo manage to get the clinch he was constantly looking for, and both times Hughs was able to get away quite quickly. The other times that Purjo went for a clinch and failed he was met by a hard counter kick from Hughs, and he mixed them up by landing head kicks, body kicks and leg kicks. The missed clinch/counter kick pattern was replayed over and over for almost the entire fight, and it ended up costing Purjo the match. Despite Purjo landing the more strikes with a higher accuracy the judges decided that Hughs had done enough to warrant winning all three rounds, giving him a unanimous 30-27 decision victory. Up next was a Heavyweight division contest that saw Ryan Evans (10-3-1) go up against Mana Oregan (13-5). This was another all stand-up fight, but much different from the previous bout as it was a far more brutal and entertaining affair. It was a fairly one-sided fight too, Evans dominating the final two rounds particularly in the clinch, after Oregan had showed good control of the fight during the first round. As far as the statistics go, Evans landed 89 strikes out of the 132 he threw for an accuracy of 67%. Evans landed 46 strikes outside of the clinch, almost exclusively punches to the head and body, and 43 strikes inside the clinch, again all punches. In comparison Oregan looked rather sluggish, he only landed 27 strikes during the 15 minute fight, and threw 82 of them giving him an accuracy of just 32%. During that first round Oregan was able to control the action from the clinch, and he threw a lot of strikes when they were tied up, however very few of the elbows and knees he threw from that position actually connected. Whilst he was able to win the round based mainly on controlling the action, but all those missed strikes meant the damage he was able to do wasn't nearly enough to cause Evans any problems. On the flip side, when Evans had the dominant position in the clinch he used accurate and powerful dirty boxing to simply beat Oregan up, particularly in the second round where he was successful both on the inside and striking on the outside. Two of the judges ended up giving the second round as a 10-8, and combined with winning the third round too it ended up that Evans received scores of 29-27, 29-27 and 29-28 to give him the unanimous decision victory. The fourth contest of the evening was between two debuting fighters in the Middleweight division, Rolf Jackson (19-2) taking on Peter Lynch (10-1). Jackson scored a takedown inside the first thirty seconds of the fight, but didn't do a whole lot of damage on the ground as Lynch did a good job of avoiding the attempted ground and pound from Jackson. Lynch eventually managed to sweep Jackson to the top position, and then stood back up to bring the fight back to more conventional striking. Jackson immediately secured another takedown, and this time did a lot more damage with his ground and pound as he was able to get through into side control. Lynch once again managed to sweep, but it was too late in the round to mean much. Round 2 gave Lynch more of an opportunity to inflict his strong striking game on Jackson, and Lynch proved his abilities by dominating the fight when it was on the feet. Jackson wasn't throwing many strikes, but when he did he missed them and allowed Lynch to counter. Lynch himself threw a variety of different strikes, and continuously landed them to keep Jackson in trouble. Jackson tried for more takedowns but Lynch was wise to them this time, he sprawled well to keep the fight standing and maintained his control. Eventually Lynch landed a head kick that left Jackson rocked, and knowing this was his opportunity he moved in for the kill. A straight right hand connected to the jaw of Jackson and left him out cold, falling to the floor like a tree being chopped to the ground. Lynch celebrated his victory, whilst Jackson... well he celebrated being able to stand up. The fifth fight of the night was a bout in the Welterweight division, Viktor Kowalczyk (10-2) who I believe was signed just to make my writing more difficult, took on the much better named Cormac McCarthy (17-7-1). The two fighters came out looking to strike early on, although the lack of technique on offer meant that few of the strikes actually landed. Kowalczyk did manage to land some good leg kicks, as well as some kicks to the body. McCarthy was swinging wildly looking to connect with bombs, but they all missed. Kowalczyk eventually scored a takedown and got into side control, however McCarthy showed some good defensive grappling skills to not only get back to full guard, but then managed to sweep Kowalcyzk and take the top position. McCarthy didn't do a lot on top and ended up falling victim to a sweep from Kowalcyzk, who managed to get straight into full mount. Kowalcyzk wasn't wasting any time, with a minute to go in the round he began unleashing as much ground and pound as he could, landing shots to the head and body of McCarthy as often as possible. Eventually he landed a hard shot that rocked McCarthy, before another series of rights and lefts from Kowalcyzk connected, and McCarthy began tapping out! He submitted to the strikes of Kowalcyzk with four seconds left in the round. A strange finish to the fight, but Kowalcyzk walks away as the winner. The second half of the show began with two very experienced fighters squaring off, Dane Hoy (19-1) taking on Damian Roshan (17-8-1) in the Middleweight division. Roshan was almost looking for takedowns during the ring introductions, and after two attempts in the opening fifteen seconds he got Hoy to the ground. There was very little action on the ground though, and the referee stood them up after less than a minute. Roshan was back looking for takedowns straight away, and even Hoy tried a couple now and then, but it was Roshan who got the fight to the ground and landed in side control before moving to mount. After landing some elbows Roshan opted for an arm triangle, but Hoy was able to defend it. Hoy got back to half guard and Roshan was content to stay there until the end of the round. It was Hoy that got the takedown early in Round 2, but Roshan was able to reverse the positions briefly, before going for an ankle lock and falling victim to the MMA Tycoon Leglock Reversal System. Hoy took the top position back and then fell victim to the MMATLRS himself, before the referee opted to stand the fighters up. Roshan then scored another takedown and once again got the mount, landing a significant amount of ground and pound in the final 90 seconds of the round. Hoy was able to hold on, although the round-ending buzzer must have been the best sound he heard all night. Roshan immediately took the fight to the ground again at the start of Round 3, getting into half guard and looking to be active, whilst Hoy looked to just control him. Roshan went for another leglock but thought better of it, so ended up retaining the top position. Halfway through the round Hoy was able to get a switch and take the top position in the mount, giving him the opportunity he needed to finish the fight. Hoy began landing some hard ground and pound before attempting a kimura, but Roshan was able to wriggle out of trouble. With thirty seconds remaining Roshan was able to get his leg under and get back to half guard, allowing him to see out the remainder of the fight with relative ease. The judges handed in their scores, and all three gave the fight to Damian Roshan with scores of 29-28 across the board. The seventh fight of the evening was a Heavyweight division contest between Vinnie Barbarino (12-2-1) and Leon Kaiser (11-2). Things didn't start too well for Barbarino, not only did Kaiser stuff an early takedown attempt but he caught Barbarino with a hook that opened a cut under his left eye. Barbarino landed a hard combination to set up a takedown, and he moved nicely into side control. Kaiser quickly got back to guard, and Barbarino couldn't do anything from there so they were stood up. Barbarino attempted three more takedowns in the space of a minute, the first two failed but the third got Kaiser back to the ground. In between takedown attempts Kaiser was landing hard kicks, but on the ground again Barbarino struggled to land any meaningful shots. Kaiser began to step up his game in Round 2, landing some hard kicks and repelling Barbarino's takedown attempts. However a missed hook allowed Barbarino to get another takedown, but after 2 minutes of very little action they were stood back up again. This allowed Kaiser to go back to landing good punches and kicks, spending the last sixty seconds of the round connecting with decent strikes, although Barbarino did land his fair share of strikes in response. A jab from Kaiser early in Round 3 made the cut under Barbarino's eye slightly worse, and the damage perhaps allowed Kaiser to worry less about what Barbarino could do. Kaiser began to really dominate proceedings, he stuffed four takedowns from Barbarino in the first 90 seconds of the round and landed several hard punches and good leg kicks. Barbarino did get another takedown, but again he did so little on the ground that it was no surprise to see the referee stand the fighters back up again after a minute. Kaiser went back to his striking and made Barbarino's cut even worse with a head kick that almost landed right in the wound, and Kaiser spent the final sixty seconds of the fight peppering Barbarino with strikes, as well as stopping some more takedowns. The fight came to an end and Kaiser ran out a comfortable winner, getting scores of 30-27, 30-27 and 30-26, the final round being scored as a 10-8. The eighth contest of the evening was a Middleweight division fight between Boba Fett (9-0) and Sunny Disposition (17-6). Fett came into the fight on the back of some entertaining interviews, however the time for talking had come to an end. A sloppy opening two minutes saw a lot of strikes thrown by both fighters, but a lot of them also missed their targets. Disposition found his range first and landed some good kicks to the head, body and legs of Fett, whilst Fett continued to struggle with his accuracy. Fett did manage to land a few punches but it was a head kick from Disposition that did the most damage, opening a cut under Fett's right eye. Disposition continued to look for kicks but Fett was able to catch one of them, before dragging Disposition down to the mat. However there was very little action on the ground, and the referee quickly stood them up for thirty seconds of circling, and the round ended. Round 2 saw the striking exchanges go at a less frenetic pace, which meant more of the strikes were actually landing. For three minutes both fighters connected with hard shots, Disposition still looking to kick away at Fett, whilst Fett was landing good right and left hands to the head of Disposition. Disposition initiated a clinch and got Fett back against the cage, and he scored with some decent shots on the inside as Fett looked to defend. Fett fought back though, landing some good punches of his own before breaking free of the clinch. If the two fighters were tired they didn't show it in the final round, again they both came out looking to strike, although Fett did attempt a couple of takedowns as well. Disposition's constant kicks to the body and legs had left Fett with some bruising and a limp, but Fett kept coming forward and tried to land some kicks of his own. Fett began looking to finish but his wilder strikes missed and allowed Disposition to respond with some counter strikes. Fett scored a takedown with a minute left in the fight, but could do nothing of note and couldn't get the finish he needed. The judges handed in their scores, and it was 30-28 from all three of them, giving the victory to Sunny Disposition. The co-Main Event of the evening was a Blitzkrieg Featherweight Title contest, the champion Rolando Garcia (18-3-1) putting the belt up for grabs in a match against Grimlock Jones (19-5). A flurry of punches at the beginning of the fight saw both men land some shots, but it was a head kick from Jones that did the most damage, opening a cut under Garcia's right eye. Garcia was looking to take the fight to the ground, but his first three attempts were comfortably stuffed by Jones, and the fight remained standing. Jones was probably the more aggressive fighter, but it was fairly even in terms of strikes connecting. Garcia finally got his takedown with 90 seconds remaining, and got through to full mount quickly. Garcia landed some nice elbows to the head of Jones, but Jones executed a perfect sweep and ended up in a full mount of his own. Jones landed some ground and pound whilst Garcia looked for a kimura from the bottom, but the round ended before either man could get a finish. Garcia scored another takedown early in Round 2, but once again Jones swept him and took the top position. For the remainder of the round there were submission attempts at every possible juncture, Garcia constantly looked to secure a triangle from the bottom, whilst Jones tried for an arm triangle from the top. Towards the end of the round the crowd were booing as these half-hearted submission attempts were the only action they were seeing, Garcia tried to get a kimura from the bottom on two occasions but he was always unlikely to get the hold locked in from that position. Round 3 began with about 45 seconds of striking, both men able to connect with some decent shots, before Jones scored a takedown into half guard. The ground and pound began before Jones went for a kimura, Garcia defended it well, but Jones used the opportunity to get through into full mount. The ground and pound began raining down on Garcia, landing punches, elbows and hammerfists to the head of Garcia who desperately tried to improve his position to get out of harms way. The strikes kept landing though, and eventually Garcia was left rocked by a hard punch to the jaw. Jones kept on pounding, landing a hard elbow to the skull and some more punches before the referee decided that he'd seen enough and called the fight off! We have a NEW Blitzkrieg Featherweight champion, and he got his victory with some devastating ground and pound. The Main Event of the evening saw the return of former Middleweight champion Harjan Varsi (20-7) to the BlitzCage, as he took on Fedor Belfort (18-4) in the Middleweight division. Belfort started out quickly, landing some good right hands before scoring a takedown into half guard. Unfortunately Belfort opted not to throw any strikes whilst on the ground, and as a result we just had some laying and praying until the referee stood them back up. When they were back on the feet Varsi was in control, landing good punches and stopping Belfort from taking him back down to the ground. Belfort did manage to get one more takedown right at the end of the round, but the five attempts that failed during a three minute period will probably count against him, and after this one worked he had no time to work on the ground before the round ended. Round 2 began with another Belfort takedown, despite Varsi tagging Belfort with a right hand beforehand, but again Belfort's lack of action and unwillingness to strike saw the fight get stood up. Belfort almost immediately got another takedown, and this time he was able to get into side control. Thankfully he was a bit more aggressive and landed some good ground and pound, this seemed to give him a boost of confidence as even when Varsi got back to full guard, Belfort was still active and continued to land punches to the head and body. Belfort remained on top of Varsi for the remainder of the round, meaning that the score was 29-29 at the end of the second round. It came down to the final five minutes and Varsi got off to a strong start by stopping Belfort from taking the fight to the ground. This allowed Varsi to take control of the fight standing up, landing some decent punches until Belfort shot in and got another takedown, his fifth of the fight. The scary thing is that Belfort attempted SIXTEEN takedowns throughout the fight. Belfort actively looked for submissions with sixty seconds left in the fight, a kimura couldn't get secured as he was only in half guard, and Varsi managed to defend an arm triangle. Varsi seemed happy to just stay on the bottom controlling Belfort and stopping him from getting out of half guard. The fight came to an end and the result was in the hands of the judges, who were unanimous in their scoring. All three judges gave the fight 29-28 to Harsan Varsi. -------------------------------------- Statistics Event Rating: 216.68 Attendance: 6,500 Fight of the Night: Ryan Evans vs. Mana Oregan KO of the Night: Grimlock Jones Submission of the Night: N/A --------------------------------------

This is the smallest issue in the history of this forum... I'm guessing that something's been changed in the game to prevent all capitalised fighter names, which I am all for. However two of my fighters are named CJ and LJ, meaning that this has changed their names to Cj and Lj, which isn't really what I'm after. Any chance the programming can be changed to allow two letter names to remain in caps?

Why don't we just get a private jet? That way the managers can sit in the deck, and the fighters can keep up their training in the hold. It works for everybody.

Blitzkrieg were back for their second show of the weekend, and boy was this a big one. The show was called Blitz 149: Number One, a title given because of the main event between the two biggest fighters in the game today, Aloha Hoi taking on Bubba KillsInWater, with the winner proving themselves to be the number one fighter in the world today. Although the fight was non-title, the importance of the match was enough that it was still a five-round contest. Also on the card, even if they were very much in the main event's shadow, was a Bantamweight Title match between the champion Whelan Mahoney and undefeated challenger Red Fox. In the first fight of the evening we saw two heavyweights collide as Mike Underhill (11-5) took on Alvin Campos (7-3). After a first minute where the fighters went in and out of the clinch three times, each time Campos initiated the clinch and also chose to break it the fight settled down into a brief exchange of strikes from a distance. Underhill shot in for a takedown halfway through the round and got the fight to the floor, but there wasn't much happening on the ground until Campos managed a sweep to take the top position, and stayed there until the round ended. Underhill scored a takedown early in Round 2, but Campos was able to get free shortly afterwards and get back to his feet. Not for long though as Underhill secured another takedown to get the fight back to the ground, and this time was able to keep Campos down and advanced to full mount. The ground and pound began to rain down on the head of Campos, and his face was taking an absolute beating with a cut opened up almost immediately. Underhill began dropping some hard elbows to make the cut worse, each one that landed seemingly doing enough to cause more blood to pump out of the gash. A couple more punches landed before the referee decided that the doctor should get involved, and the doctor decided that Campos shouldn't continue. One day he's going to surprise me and declare that the fight can continue. Underhill takes the TKO victory, albeit in the most unfulfilling of ways. In the second fight it was one of the Noonan family, Sheamus Noonan (12-4) taking on Shave Face (9-3) in the Bantamweight division. We had a very bizarre opening half of the first round, Face was able to score three takedowns, but every time he got the fight to the ground he did so little that the referee stood the fighters back up again less than a minute later. When they finally settled with just standing and trading strikes it was Face who had the advantage, landing a good number of punches and kicks, having particular success with counter-striking when Noonan missed strikes of his own. Noonan managed to land some punches of his own, but he was outscored in every aspect of the fight during the first round. Things got far worse for Noonan in Round 2 as Face came out and landed some hard shots right away, before a left/right combination from Face connected and left Noonan rocked. Within seconds Face dropped Noonan to the canvas with a straight left, and dived in to begin landing the follow-up strikes needed to finish Noonan off. The referee stepped in to save Noonan, giving Face the TKO victory. Up next was what turned out to be an horrendous fight in the Lightweight division, as Thomas Kirshaw (8-2) took on Roby Smith (12-5). The first round was mildly entertaining as Smith took the fight to the ground early on, but he did absolutely nothing with the position and the referee stood them up less than a minute later. Also during the first round Kirshaw connected with a head kick that cut open Smith, and I still have no idea how that works. If you are an MMA fighter who has been cut open by a head kick, please let me know. From then onwards the fight slowed down to the extent that if you were flicking through channels and saw this on TV you wouldn't know it was a fight. Both fighters seemed intent on just waiting for the opponent to make the first move and counter them after that, but if nobody makes a first move then there's nothing there to counter. That said, I have seen worse fights than this, but coming off two exciting fights earlier in the show this really looked bad. In the three rounds of "action" Kirshaw managed to land 20 strikes out of the 65 he threw (30%), whilst Smith landed 22 strikes out of 45 (48%), so even when they did attempt to throw a punch or a kick it missed over half the time anyway. Two judges ended up scoring the first round 10-10, I think because both fighters were inseparable due to a lack of fighting to judge. In the end the other two rounds were given to Smith, and the stats would back that up due to his higher accuracy and slightly higher number of strikes landed. Either way it was a fight that won't be on any highlight packages in the future. In the fourth contest of the evening we saw a Super Heavyweight division battle between John Franklin (11-5) and Aaron McSlugg (10-3). McSlugg scored a takedown almost immediately, but Franklin showed some good defensive grappling techniques to execute a sweep and take the top position. Franklin began landing some ground and pound that opened up a cut over the right eye of McSlugg, and even though Franklin was only in the guard he was still landing some good shots. Franklin continued to keep McSlugg pinned down and kept on landing strikes, McSlugg tried to sweep but couldn't do anything to get the very large man off of him. Franklin continued to pummel down strikes on McSlugg, and the damage was stacking up as that cut continued to leak blood. Eventually the referee decided that the cut was bad enough to warrant the doctor checking it out, and the doctor of course ended the fight. Two cut stoppages in one night? Aren't I the lucky one. Franklin takes the TKO victory, but will have to spend a lot of time washing blood out of his shorts. The fifth fight of the night was in the Featherweight division with Johnny Quid (12-4) going up against Gary Wade (9-1). Quid spent the first two minutes trying to clinch at almost every opportunity, which seemed surprising seeing as that whenever he was fighting from the outside he was in control of the striking.; Wade landed some good kicks but Quid was connecting with hard punches to the body and the occasional combination as well. Halfway through the round Quid landed a few hard straight punches in a row, leaving Wade rocked. Quid followed that up with a hard left/right combination, before another straight right hand knocked Wade out cold. There wasn't much to choose between the two fighters before the fight, but Quid utilised some very impressive striking skills to get the KO victory. Kicking off the second half of the show was a Lightweight division contest between Vernon Turner (14-5) and Elmer Montgomery (16-2). Turner got a takedown very early into the fight, it was his third attempt in the first thirty seconds though, and managed to control the fight from the guard for over two minutes. He wasn't particularly active but he did enough ground and pound to keep the referee from standing them up, however eventually the referee decided to bring them back to their feet. Montgomery was looked to land as many kicks as possible but Turner did well to keep him at bay, only taking the occasional kick to the leg or head. Turner got another takedown late in the round, but ran out of time to do anything of note. Turner got another takedown immediately in Round 2, and began looking for submissions with an arm triangle, a guillotine and an armbar. However the failed armbar attempt allowed Montgomery to get the top position, only for Turner to sweep him and get into full mount. Turner went for some ground and pound and a lot of strikes connected, before going for an armbar again and giving up the top position once more. Montgomery just about survived the round but took a lot of hard shots in the process. The damage was more than expected as when Turner scored another takedown immediately in Round 3, getting into side control right away and landing more ground and pound, Montgomery ended up rocked and was barely hanging on. Turner kept the pressure on by landing more strikes, pummelling away with the referee instructing Montgomery to intelligently defend himself. Eventually the referee decided that Montgomery was in no state to continue, and called the fight off. Turner took the TKO victory, whilst Montgomery has now lost three of his last four fights. Next up on the card was another contest in the Super Heavyweight division, this time Zeki Ata (16-3-1) took on Ryan Noonan (10-5). Both men came out looking to exchange strikes and landed some powerful blows, but when Ata went for a takedown he was caught on the jaw by a big right hand from Noonan as he moved in. Ata was sent crashing to the canvas but was still conscious, however he had Noonan on top of him ready to strike. Noonan began landing some hard shots from ground and pound until Ata was rocked, before a big elbow landed flush on the jaw and left Ata struggling to survive. Noonan landed a few more shots before the referee stepped in and called the fight off. I must say, I'm liking all these first round TKO stoppages. Long may it continue. The eighth fight of the night was in the Heavyweight division as one of the highest rated prospects in MMA John Farson (8-0) took on his toughest challenge to date in Aleski Borga (17-4). As you'd expect Farson came out looking to strike a lot early on, throwing some good punches, leg kicks and the occasional head kick, as well as staying out of range whenever Borga tried to strike himself. The body punches from Farson began playing havoc with Borga's energy levels, before a head kick landed and opened up a cut under Borga's right eye. Farson continued to show his incredible striking game with some more leg kicks, a nice uppercut, and some jabs that left Borga up against the cage. Farson continued his variety of strikes by landing another body punch, before landing two head kicks in quick succession that sent Borga crashing to the mat, but Farson allowed him to get back up to his feet. Farson continued to keep landing strike after strike, scoring with more leg kicks and head kicks before eventually connecting with a right/left combination that dropped Borga. Farson opted to follow up this time and connected with a diving punch right to the jaw of the fallen Borga that knocked him out cold! Another successful trip to the BlitzCage for Farson, it makes you wonder what the future might hold for this young man. The co-Main Event of the show was the only title fight of the evening, as Whelan Mahoney (13-3) took on Red Fox (13-0) with the Blitzkrieg Bantamweight Championship up for grabs. Mahoney showed his tactics straight away by getting a takedown inside the first minute, and had control of Fox for the first two minutes until Fox showed some good defensive grappling to sweep Mahoney and take the top position, before quickly moving to mount. Fox tried some ground and pound and occasionally landed a dangerous punch or two, whilst Mahoney could do nothing to get out of the difficult position that he found himself in. Fox landed a few more strikes in the dying moments of the round, but the bell sounded and Mahoney managed to survive. Round 2 began with the two fights exchanging strikes, although Fox tried for a takedown at one point that was blocked by Mahoney. Mahoney was countering Fox very well, Fox swinging a bit more wildly and lacking accuracy as a result, allowing Mahoney to step in after avoiding the shot and landing a hard one of his own in response. It reached the stage of Mahoney landing a very good right hand that Fox tried to shake off, but he was looking a bit unsteady on his feet. Mahoney perhaps sensed that and landed a leg kick, followed by a hook to the body and a big uppercut that sent Fox to the floor! Mahoney decided to let Fox get back to his feet, which just seemed to be more sadistic than anything else. It took just one more punch from Mahoney, an uppercut right to the chin, and Fox was backed up against the cage clinging to stay in the fight. Mahoney moved in and unleashed a barrage of left and rights until Fox fell to the ground, at which point the referee intervened and stopped the fight. Mahoney successfully defends his title, as well as putting an end to Fox's undefeated record. And then it was time for the Main Event of the evening, one of the biggest fights in Blitzkrieg history as the Blitzkrieg Heavyweight champion Aloha Hoi (15-2) took on Bubba KillsInWater (21-4) in a non-title, five round Heavyweight division contest. This fight was the subject of many debates beforehand, many people backing Bubba, many people backing Hoi. The ultimate reality of the fight turned out to be one of the most one-sided fights I've ever seen, something that came as a big surprise to me. There aren't actually enough words for me to describe everything that happened in this fight, but to put it in the simplest terms, Bubba KillsInWater unleashed furious anger upon Aloha Hoi for 25 minutes. KillsInWater landed 240 strikes during the fight, which would be nearly 10 strikes a minute, with an impressive accuracy rating of 78%. Of those strikes he landed 63 head punches, 63 leg kicks and 25 body kicks, and those were just the strikes thrown from a distance. KillsInWater also had a significant advantage in the clinch, landing 61 strikes on the inside, although his accuracy whilst in the clinch wasn't at the same level as outside. KillsInWater also went for three takedowns during the fight, as many people know Hoi's weaknesses are probably in the ground game, however as KillsInWater was dominating the stand-up game to such an extent it seems surprising to me that he'd want to take it to the ground. As you'd expect Hoi's statistics were nowhere near the level that KillsInWater managed to reach. Hoi only landed 16 strikes of the 70 that he threw during the fight, 11 of them on the outside and 5 in the clinch, for an accuracy rating of just 22%. Hoi was just beaten up for the entire fight and couldn't get his striking into any kind of rhythm, and things weren't helped when Hoi was caught by an elbow by KillsInWater that opened up a cut over the right eye. Thankfully the cut didn't end up causing the fight to be stopped, a fight of this magnitude shouldn't be ending in that way. KillsInWater's complete and utter dominance was reflected in the judges scorecards. Two of the judges scored the fight 50-42, giving Rounds 1, 3 and 5 as 10-8s, whilst the other judge went a step further and made Round 2 a 10-8 as well, giving his final score as a 50-41. KillsInWater secured the biggest victory of his career, a win that makes him the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Hoi will be looking to bounce back straight away in the next defence of his Heavyweight title. ----------------------------------- Statistics Event Rating: 258.54 Attendance: 5,787 Fight of the Night: Aloha Hoi vs. Bubba KillsInWater KO of the Night: John Farson (Fighters will receive $1 from Blitz, and $1,000 from my account) -----------------------------------

The poll title is just an example of a situation, here's the real question: Is there ever a time that you would ignore a signing bonus if your fighter already had more than enough money? It seems to be from my time as an org owner and fighter manager that signing bonuses start becoming pretty much redunant when a fighter reaches a certain level of wealth. I can't see how any fighter could spend more than $700 a week, assuming that you're paying the maximum of $600 for a gym, and then buying clothing or nutrition supplies. So I asked myself, why would people need an extra $20,000 more when they have more than enough money to cover their fighters expenses already? Is it for that 10% manager cut? I fear it will start really hurting the finances of fight orgs, say you offer a 20k/20k/20k for four fights contract to somebody, you're already forking out a possible $160,000 to this one fighter if they win all those fights, so why would that signing bonus be necessary? To give an example of something I've done recently, I had a fighter with $20,000 who was offered a new contract with a $7,000 signing bonus. It's a new fight org so I know how money can be hard to come by, so I declined the offer and asked for it to be re-sent without the signing bonus. However the same org offered another of my fighters the same contract, but as he only had $1,000 I accepted the signing bonus. To put it simply I'm just interested in your opinions and views regarding fighter pay, as it seems to me there's a whole lot of money with fighters that's never going to be spent.

Blitzkrieg were back on Friday 8th April for their show Blitz 148: One Vision, a show named after one of my favourite bands Queen. Highlighting the show was a Lightweight title contest between new champion Nkuku Ngbendu wa za Banga and Good Day, whilst the Main Event saw two heavyweights collide as Bael Adonael took on Merrimac Mjolnir. Just a disclaimer for any "fans" of my writing, unfortunately personal issues have intervened this week and left me with less time to write due to more time being spent driving to a hospital. I'll still be getting the shows done but they will be in much less detail, hopefully they will still be good enough though. In the first fight of the evening Leonid Kulminator (18-6) defeated Mariuz Taurosevicius (7-3) via unanimous decision in the Welterweight division. Despite suffering a cut in the early stages of the fight it was still a clear victory for Kulminator, not only was he in control of the striking game for most of the fight, but he also scored three takedowns during the fight and was actively looking for submissions on the ground. Taurosevicius showed enough ground skills to sweep Kulminator on a couple of occasions, but he failed to do anything noteworthy when he had the top position, even when he did enough to get into the mount. On the feet the fight completely belonged to Kulminator, he landed 79 strikes, 68 of them punches, whilst in response Taurovicius landed just 5. As you'd imagine from those statistics alone it was enough for Kulminator to win every round 10-9, giving him a unanimous 30-27 score from the judges. Next up in the Featherweight division we saw Al Swearengen (11-4) utterly destroy Mauri Pekkarinen (13-8) on his way to a unanimous decision victory. It was one of those vicious one-sided decisions that make you feel sorry for the loser, as by the end of the fight the fact that they're still breathing could be considered a miracle. Over the course of the three rounds Swearengen landed 149 strikes, 69 of them leg kicks, with a striking accuracy of 76%. Pekkarinen on the other hand only landed 8 strikes, with an accuracy of just 16%. The scary number of leg kicks that Swearengen connected with left Pekkarinen limping and bruised, barely able to put any weight on his front leg and leaving him a sitting duck for more punishment. In addition to the leg kicks Swearengen landed 37 punches to the head and body, 11 head kicks, 17 body kicks and 12 strikes inside the clinch, giving him a wide range of attacking options and leaving Pekkarinen with no idea what was coming next. The first two rounds saw such dominance from Swearengen that they were scored as 10-8s, giving him a 30-25 scoreline from all three Dana Whyte (13-7) emerged victorious from his Super Heavyweight contest with Antonio Malone (9-5), it was certainly a quick win even if it didn't finish in the most entertaining way. That said, Whyte absolutely dominated the fight from start to finish, taking Malone down almost immediately before unleashing a disturbing amount of ground and pound from side control. Well that was the plan, except Whyte only actually landed four strikes. The disturbing thing is that every single one of those strikes that connected opened up a cut on Malone, or made an existing cut even worse. Whyte looked for a kimura at one point but it wasn't going to be a submission that stopped the fight, it was the blood leaking out of Malone's face. The medical personnel at ringside opted to call a stop to the fight, and I think it would only be right that I re-iterate this: The fight was stopped for a cut after Whyte landed four strikes. FOUR. Either his elbows are made of barbed wire or Malone's skin is the same strength as a spider web. Either way it was an asskicking, just with more blood than usual. In the fourth fight of the evening Fist Fighter (14-5) overcame Dave Bautista (12-8) in a close Light Heavyweight division contest. It was an all striking affair as both fighters showed no intention of taking the fight to the ground, and the fight was moved into the clinch on several occasions. It was in the clinch that Fighter was able to do most of his damage, and he ended up outscoring Bautista in the clinch by landing 70 strikes in total compared to just 26 from Bautista. It was far more even when the two fighters were striking from a distance, Bautista landing the more of the two with 41 strikes compared to Fighter's 31. Most of these strikes were in the third round, the round where Bautista was able to stay out of the clinch for the whole round, despite Fighter's constant attempts to do so. Unfortunately for Bautista the other two rounds were much more in Fighter's favour, and despite his best efforts in Round 3 it ended up being a 29-28 decision victory for Fist Fighter. The fifth fight of the night was in the Bantamweight division as Johnny Quid (14-4) was able to finish off Paul Butler (7-2) after being in control of the fight from start to finish. The first round saw Quid score a takedown early in the round, and the fight remained on the ground from then onwards. Quid looked for several submissions from various different positions, but Butler was able to defend each of them successfully. Despite being in the mount for a while Quid didn't actually throw any strikes on the ground. Quid was able to control Round 2 on the feet by taking the fight into the clinch and out-striking Butler for three minutes on the inside. Quid continued this practice into Round 3 and was by far the better striker in the clinch, landing 29 strikes compared to just 2 from Butler. The strikes from Quid eventually did more damage than Butler was able to take, the hard rights and lefts took their toll and left Butler rocked, before another big right hand dropped him to the mat. Quid followed him down and began unloading hard rights and lefts until the referee stepped in to stop the fight. A strong performance from Quid that puts him back into contention for another title shot. The second half of the show kicked off with Ratrick Obeh (15-3-2) getting the victory over Zach Hainer (8-2) via decision. The fight was predominantly on the feet, except for a small part of Round 1 when Hainer scored a takedown, but didn't do enough to stay there so the referee stood them up. Hainer didn't try for any more takedowns at any point during the fight, which ended up being a poor tactic as Obeh did very well on the feet. As far as strikes go Hainer was the more active outside the clinch but his accuracy let him down, only landing 52 out of the 106 strikes that he threw. Obeh showed very good variety in the strikes he threw, landing all sorts of different punches and kicks as well as knees when they were in the clinch. Obeh landed 67 strikes over all in the fight, but did enough in each round to take the victory. He went for leg kicks more than anything else, landing 21 of them to cause Hainer some movement problems, and when they were in the clinch Obeh landed 10 knees to the body that took the air right out of Hainer. The fight was very close throughout but Obeh did enough in each round to outscore Hainer and leave the judges with no option but to give each round to him, even with the takedown in the opening round going against him. The judges ended up scoring it 30-27 across the board to give Obeh the victory. The quickest finish of the night belonged to Super Heavyweight fighter Heffo Klumpo (11-3) as he ripped through Pablo Morales (8-4) in a very quick time and in a brutal fashion. Klumpo had Morales on the ground early on when a vicious leg kick chopped Morales down, but he followed that with a takedown shortly afterwards. From there Klumpo began unloading with hard ground and pound to the head, each shot that landed causing problems for Morales. Eventually one connected right on the jaw and left Morales rocked, before Klumpo landed one more vicious shot that finished Morales off, leaving him out cold. A superb performance from Klumpo who certainly made a statement with the complete domination of this fight. In the Featherweight division we saw an exciting and close contest between two of the top fighters in the division, however it was Jake LaMotta (18-5) who emerged victorious with a decision victory over Hamish MacNab (13-6). The fight was on the feet for the most part, despite both fighters trying for takedowns on several occasions only one was successful, however when MacNab got the fight to the ground the referee quickly stood them up due to a lack of action. MacNab was cut open by a straight right hand from LaMotta, the cut didn't really affect the fight all that much but it was made slightly worse during the second round when LaMotta landed an uppercut. MacNab landed a significant number of leg kicks during the fight, 28 of them to be exact, but struggled with the remainder of his strikes, only landing 9 punches and 5 body kicks for an overall striking accuracy of 46%. LaMotta wasn't even more accurate himself, landing 30 strikes out of 70 for 42%, but by landing 21 punches to the head and three combinations he certainly seemed to do a lot more damage. LaMotta took the first two rounds by controlling the action even if he didn't land as many strikes, but as Cecil Peoples would agree with, leg kicks apparently don't score points. MacNab stepped up his game in the third round as he looked for the finish he needed to get a victory, but although he was able to prevent LaMotta from getting a takedown three times he wasn't able to land the big shots needed to get him back into the fight. As a result LaMotta took the fight 29-28 from all three judges to take home the victory. In the co-Main Event of the evening the Lightweight title was on the line as Nkuku Ngbendu wa za Banga (16-2) made the first defence of his title against Good Day (14-4-1). The fight went the full five rounds and was a contrast of styles, za Banga was looking to keep the fight standing and land as many strikes as humanly possible in the 25 minutes he had to work with, whilst Day was desperate to get the fight to the ground, but also landed some strikes of his own to help set his takedown attempts up. The statistics show a pretty big discrepancy in the striking game, za Banga landing 90 strikes out of 164 for an accuracy of 54%, landing 34 punches to the head and 33 leg kicks in total. Day only landed 55 strikes in total, with 30 of those being leg kicks, but he threw 134 strikes for an accuracy of just 41%. Despite the advantage for za Banga in the stand-up game Day was able to establish control of the fight at several different times, either by getting the fight to the ground with takedowns in Round 1, Round 3 and Round 5, or by getting the fight into the clinch to take away za Banga's opportunity to strike from a distance. At one point Day used the clinch to land a hard knee to the head that opened up a cut on za Banga, but thankfully the cut didn't play much of a role in the outcome of the fight. As you can imagine from the statistics above the fight was a very close one and very difficult for the judges to score. In the end they decided that Day had done enough to win the first three rounds, with takedowns in Rounds 1 and 3 and using the clinch to outscore za Banga in Round 2. Za Banga showed good conditioning and fought back during the final two rounds, and he certainly landed more strikes than Day did during the fight. However the scores handed in from the judges gave it to Day, 48-47 on all three of their scorecards to give Day the victory and the Lightweight title. Za Banga may well have grounds for a re-match, but as of this moment he's the former champion. The Main Event of the show was a Heavyweight division contest between Bael Adonael (13-2) and Merrimac Mjolnir (17-3). Mjolnir came out very aggressively in the early stages of the fight, swinging with some hard punches that didn't always connect, but when they did land Adonael certainly felt them. Adonael was seemingly overwhelmed by the striking of Mjolnir and struggled to find his range to land leg and body kicks, allowing Mjolnir to continue to move in and land kicks of his own. Adonael did manage to land one of those razor sharp head kicks that opened up a cut on Mjolnir, and I still don't know how that works. However that was the only real moment of success for Adonael during the fight as soon Mjolnir established completely control of the fight with some hard punches to the head. Three minutes into the round Mjolnir landed a hard uppercut and followed that with a vicious left hand that stunned Adonael. Mjolnir moved in and connected with a flurry of punches that knocked Adonael down, and followed that up with some more punches until the referee pulled him away. Mjolnir wins his second fight in Blitzkrieg and moves up to number 11 in the world Heavyweight rankings, could a title shot be next on his agenda? ------------------------ Statistics Event Rating: 198.78 Attendance: 5,635 Fight of the Night: Good Day vs. Nkuku Ngbendu wa za Banga KO of the Night: Merrimac Mjolnir ------------------------

Blitzkrieg were back in Hilo for their only show of the past week, Blitz 147: The Wall. 5,999 people were on hand to watch the show, shame on you if you're reading this and didn't attend, meaning it didn't reach the 6,000 mark. The largest bricks in this particular wall were the two men fighting for the Blitzkrieg Super Heavyweight championship, the defending champion Herman Holmes took on El Taquito Pantalones with the gold on the line. Also on the show was an interesting fight between the former Blitz Light Heavyweight champion Stringer Bell and promising newcomer Jonas Justice. The first fight of the night was a contest between two Blitzkrieg veterans in the Light Heavyweight division, Ian Noonan (9-6) taking on Ares Constantinides (12-8-1). The fight started out with a bang as Noonan connected with a hard kick to the head of Ares, knocking him down to the mat and cutting him open. Noonan quickly joined him on the ground and looked to finish, but Ares regained his senses and held him in side control. Ares managed to get Noonan back into his guard, before executing a sweep to take the top position. However he did nothing whilst on top, mainly looking to either lay and pray or half-heartedly advance his position, so the referee decided to stand them up. Ares was able to land a nice combination to cut open Noonan before the end of the round, and Ares was certainly ahead in the striking game. Round 2 saw Ares continue to have the advantage in the stand-up, landing good counter punches and avoiding Noonan's strikes, before taking the fight into the clinch. Ares began unloading a series of hard punches on the inside, with the body punches causing Noonan's energy levels to plummet quickly. The punches that landed to the head started doing a lot of damage to the cut that had been opened up in the first round, and two punches in particular made the cut worse in the space of sixty seconds. Thirty seconds later Ares landed a shoulder strike that made the cut bad enough for the referee to ask the doctor to have a look at it. As always the doctor decided that Noonan couldn't continue due to the cut, and called the fight off to give Ares the TKO victory. In the second contest of the evening we saw Tyrone Eastman (9-4) take on Oscar de la Hoya (8-2) in the Lightweight division. And what a fight this wasn't. In the first round Eastman got a takedown within the first minute, a minute later de la Hoya swept him, and they spent the next two minutes just lying there doing nothing. Round 2 was almost identical, Eastman got a quick early takedown, de la Hoya got a sweep and spent the next four minutes on top doing nothing, even though he was in the mount. Round 3 was almost identical, albeit with a bit more punching at the beginning of the round, but 90 seconds in Eastman scored a takedown, and this time actually managed to keep hold of the position until the end of the round, but still did nothing on top during that time. The Fight Rating for this was 19%, which is about 15% more than it deserved. To put it in statistical detail, Eastman landed 6 punches, de la Hoya landed 8 punches, none of which were on the ground. Eastman took the victory 30-27 on all the scorecards, those takedowns being the only thing the fight could be seemingly be judged on, and this fight should never be mentioned again. Next up was a fight in the Middleweight division with Melvin Manhoef (13-6) taking on Jacre de Booza (12-5). De Booza came out very aggressively, landing some hard punches to the head of Manhoef early on, but Manhoef accidentally caught him with a low kick to the groin. When they were back fighting it was again the punches of de Booza that outscored the kicks of Manhoef, until De Booza scored a takedown two minutes into the fight and was immediately in the mount. De Booza landed some decent ground and pound from full mount, before attempting a guillotine that didn't quite work. De Booza kept on landing strikes as Manhoef struggled to do anything about them, however in his efforts to defend himself he left an arm free. De Booza quickly capitalised and grabbed the arm, before twisting into a tight armbar. Manhoef struggled as best he could but couldn't get his arm free, leaving him with no option but to tap out even though there was just two seconds left in the round. On the plus side, at least Manhoef was able to walk away with his arm in one piece. The fourth fight of the night was in the Lightweight division as Jethro Rayner (12-4) took on Ted Mosby (8-3). Rayner scored a takedown almost straight away in the opening round, and got into side control in the process. Rayner landed some good ground strikes but Mosby took advantage of a wayward shot to reverse the positions and take the top. After attempting a guillotine from his back Rayner went for a sweep of his own and re-took the top position, allowing him to drop some hard elbows from the mount. Soon Mosby managed to get another sweep to get back to the top, however it was Rayner who put more effort in despite being on the bottom. Round 2 saw a brief moment of strike exchanging before Rayner got another takedown, only for Mosby to sweep him once more. Rayner again was far more active despite being on the bottom, Mosby just controlled him and didn't look for strikes or submissions, whilst Rayner was quite happy to go for submissions and land strikes, before getting another sweep to take mount. From there Rayner landed some decent ground and pound before an attempt at an armbar right at the end of the round was close to being locked in, just not close enough. Round 3 saw Mosby get taken down once more, but again he swept to take the top position. This time he actually kept the dominant mount position until the end of the round, but he was hesitant to go for strikes, attempting very few and often missing when he did. Rayner didn't go for many submissions this time, just a half-hearted triangle attempt late in the round, seemingly content with just riding out the clock after winning the first two rounds. The judges agreed, giving Mosby the third round but Rayner the fight, 29-28 on all the scorecards. The fifth fight of the show was a Bantamweight division bout between Satqiel Ayperos (9-1) and Frankie Pep (15-4). This was the first all stand-up battle of the show, so instead of going through every punch we'll go straight to the statistics. It was a one-sided fight as these stand-up wars so often are, and it was Ayperos who had the advantage. He landed 63 strikes during the fight, throwing 106 for an accuracy of 59%. Pep wasn't too far behind, but he only landed 22 strikes out of a possible 101, a terrible accuracy of just 21%. Ayperos's strikes ranged from lots of kicks on the outside, landing 16 leg kicks and 14 body kicks, to dealing out a lot of damage with elbows in the clinch, 17 of them landing in total. Despite all those elbows landing Pep wasn't cut open at any point, showing that if nothing more he has a solid layer of skin on his face. Ayperos would have had the opportunity to do a lot more damage but his bizarre tactic was to get the clinch, land some shots, and then break the clinch voluntarily, before moving back into the clinch moments later. Considering he had control of the clinch and was landing lots of hard shots it seems surprising to me that he would opt to break it, but then I'm not a very good manager. Pep's main success came with head punches, landing 12 out of the 39 he threw, but he struggled even more with the other strikes, landing just 2 out of 17 body punches. In the clinch he also struggled to land punches, only four out of 23 strikes connected, making Ayperos' decision to break the clinches even more surprising. Round 3 was Ayperos' most dominant round, enough to warrant the judges giving it to him as a 10-8, and meaning that he took home the victory 30-26 on all the scorecards. The second half of the show kicked off with a Light Heavyweight division fight, undefeated Ola Afolabi (9-0) taking on Pete Damato (6-1). Things didn't start off well for Afolabi, a combination from Damato landed and opened a cut over his right eye, and Damato landed several more hard shots to the head and body throughout the opening minute. Afolabi was landing the occasional punch or kick, but Damato was certainly outworking him and definitely winning the stand-up battle. The fight remained standing for the whole of the first round, and Damato continued to be in control, either by landing decent strikes or by avoiding the strikes that Afolabi threw and countering with shots of his own. The variety of strikes being thrown by Damato was keeping Afolabi on his toes, with several kicks to the body landing as well as punches to the head, whilst Afolabi seemed to be looking to connect with head punches more than anything else, making him a bit more predictable. The second round began with Damato landing a couple of good kicks to the body, before he unleashed a vicious head kick that caught Afolabi right on the jaw and knocked him down to the canvas. Damato moved in to finish him off but the referee intervened after seeing that Afolabi was already out cold, saving him from any further punishment. The seventh fight of the evening was a battle in the Bantamweight division as Buff Bagwell (17-10) took on the debuting Viktor Herzog (10-1). Bagwell was quick to get the fight to the ground, initially blocking a takedown attempt from Herzog and then securing a takedown of his own to get the top position. Herzog was active from his back, looking for a triangle which Bagwell defended, however Herzog held on with his legs and managed to reverse the positions to get on top. Bagwell was now the one looking for submissions from his back, two attempts at a triangle were blocked by Herzog who used the opportunity to land some decent ground and pound. Herzog then moved into half guard when Bagwell attempted a kimura, Herzog blocking the hold and taking advantage of Bagwell's lapse in concentration of maintaining guard. Half guard gave Herzog more of an opportunity to look for submissions of his own, and his first attempt was at a kimura. Despite only being in half guard Herzog was able to get the leverage he needed to exert a lot of force on the arm of Bagwell, bending it behind his back and getting the hold securely locked in. Bagwell tried to fight his way out but the kimura was on too tightly, and he was left with no option but to tap out. A quick and successful Blitzkrieg debut for Mr. Herzog. Up next was another bout in the Light Heavyweight division as Tota Lidel (9-1) took on Salvatore Assante (16-5). It was another all stand-up affair, but thankfully there were a couple of incidents to talk about other than the statistics. Lidel was by far the better striker during the fight, even if the actual striking from both fighters wasn't exactly the best you'll see. Lidel landed 40 strikes in total out of the 85 he threw for an accuracy of 47%, with the significant majority of those being punches to the head, 28 of those connecting with Assante. Assante wasn't too far behind Lidel, he landed 28 strikes during the fight out of 78 for an accuracy of 35%, his strikes were far more varied than Lidel's as Assante landed 8 head punches, 8 body punches and 7 leg kicks as his main weapons. Despite the proximity between the two in terms of strikes landed it could not be argued that it was definitely Lidel's fight. Early in the first round Lidel landed a hard left/right combination that opened up a cut under Assante's left eye, a cut that somehow managed not get any further damage despite the fight going on for another 14 minutes. Halfway through the second round Lidel landed a hard hook to the side of Assante's head that left him rocked, but Lidel couldn't follow up with any more damaging strikes to knock Assante down, and as a result Assante was able to weather the storm and regain his senses. During the third round Lidel didn't let up, continue to win the striking battle despite Assante being much more aggressive, it resulted in Lidel just waiting for Assante to miss and countering with good punches and kicks. The judges ended up giving the fight to Lidel with scores of 30-27 all around. In the semi Main Event we were treated to an intriguing contest in the Light Heavyweight division, former Blitzkrieg Light Heavyweight champion Stringer Bell (19-4) took on one of the brightest up-and-comers in the division Jonas Justice (9-1). The first round saw Justice come out as the more aggressive fighter, not landing all of the strikes but doing enough to cause Bell some problems. Bell was countering with punches to the body whenever possible but Justice was landing hard leg kicks, hard enough to chop Bell to the floor on one occasion. There were certainly a lot of strikes thrown by both fighters during the round, but a lot of them missed due to the high level of strike defence from both fighters. The fight followed a similar pattern in Round 2, again both combatants struggled to find their range and a lot of strikes were missed, and in this round Bell was able to counter with some good shots. Bell also landed some combinations, and he did a far better job than he had in the first round as far as striking went. Justice swung and missed at Bell for a lot of the round, only towards the end did he begin starting to land more often, connecting with a body kick and a hook, but Bell did more than enough before that to warrant him winning the round. The third round was again very similar, Justice landed a couple of good punches and went back to landing his vicious leg kicks, whilst Bell continued to look to counter Justice with punches if Justice left himself open. Halfway through the round Bell missed with a combination and Justice tagged him with a hard right hand, following that up with a head kick that Bell somehow managed to take in his stride. As the fight entered the final minute both fighters looked very tired and it was still a very close fight to call, until Justice landed a knee right to the jaw that dropped Bell to one knee. Bell got back up but was met with a hard uppercut, a big right hand and a second one that dropped Bell to the mat. Justice continued to land shots until the referee stepped in, deciding that Bell had taken enough punishment and stopping the fight. Justice celebrated his biggest career victory, at least as far as I'm concerned, and took away the lottery of going to the judges as well. Finally we came to the Main Event of the evening, a five round contest between two of the best big men in the sport today, Blitzkrieg Super Heavyweight champion Herman Holmes (15-2) defended his title against El Taquito Pantalones (16-7). The opening round was a close one as both fighters came out looking to land strikes as often as possible, and they both were swinging with the intention of knocking their opponents out quickly. The first piece of major damage was done by Pantalones, a nice straight left hand connected and cut open Holmes. Less than a minute late it was Holmes dishing out the damage, landing one of those razor sharp head kicks that cut Pantalones over his right eye. Despite getting a bit tired out by body punches during the round, it was Holmes who held the advantage at the end of the first stanza, he had been the more accurate of the two and had landed some big shots as well. Holmes began to up his game in the second round as his boxing skills began to overcome Pantalones, he threw and landed several good hooks to the head of Pantalones whilst also avoiding most of the strikes that Pantalones threw in retaliation. Holmes outstruck Pantalones significantly for the full five minutes, and it was only in the final sixty seconds that Pantalones began to show some fire, finding his range to land some shots to the body in the hope of wearing Holmes out a bit more. Round 3 began with Holmes landing some hard kicks to the legs and body of Pantalones, as well as continuing to use his punches to keep doing damage. A hard jab from Holmes ended up making the cut over Pantalones' eye worse, as well as some more leg kicks to make a visible bruise on the lower thigh of Pantalones. Holmes was moving forward with more aggressiveness, landing some hard body punches and another head kick, before a counter right hand caught Pantalones and made that cut even worse. Holmes landed a spinning back kick before deciding to move the fight into the clinch. Holmes landed an elbow and some hard punches to the head to leave Pantalones dripping with blood, causing the referee to intervene and call in the doctor. As always the medical personnel decided that Pantalones could not continue, giving Holmes the victory by TKO. Holmes taunted Pantalones by wiping the blood on his chest, and seemingly flicking any leftover blood at Pantalones' cornermen. Well, he's the champion, he can do what he wants. ----------------------------------- Statistics Event Rating: 198.70 Attendance: 5,999 Fight of the Night: Jethro Rayner vs. Ted Mosby KO of the Night: Pete Damato Submission of the Night: Viktor Herzog -----------------------------------

Blitzkrieg were back on Saturday 26th March for their latest show, Blitz 146: Bat Out Of Hell. This show highlighted one of the strongest divisions in the world today, the Blitzkrieg Welterweight division, of which I believe Meat Loaf is a big fan. Not only was there a Blitz Welterweight title match between the champion Waldorf Astoria and challenger Buck Naked, but in the semi main event we also had the former Welterweight champion Arthur Meighen take on another former champion Magnum PI. That's a lot of Welterweights. The first fight of the night was in the Bantamweight division, as Mark Berry (11-3) took on Richard Dawkins (7-1). They clinched early and Berry landed some good shots on the inside, before Dawkins ended up dragging the fight to the ground by pulling guard. Dawkins went for five submissions in the space of two minutes, whilst Berry just lied on top of him doing nothing but defending those submissions, before eventually standing up just before the round ended. Dawkins scored a takedown in Round 2 and we were back to the dull ground action, again Dawkins went for a lot of submissions but this time he had the advantage of being on top, he went for five submissions in the space of 90 seconds, but on the last one he lost the top position after an armbar went wrong. Dawkins then tried for two more submissions from the bottom before the round ended. For those keeping score, that's 12 submission attempts in the first two rounds. The final round was all on the feet, something that Berry was much more comfortable with and therefore Berry was in control of the final five minutes. Berry used solid, accurate shots to keep Dawkins at bay, whilst also stopping Dawkins from taking the fight back down to the ground. Berry continued to do well with his stand-up, landing over 20 shots during the round, whilst Dawkins showed no interest in committing himself to making the first strike, either countering Berry or not bothering to throw at all. The fight ended up with the judges, they all scored it 29-28 to Berry giving him the first and third rounds. Fight number two of the evening was a fight between Max Shinobi (12-4) and Silvio Riscatelli (14-5) in the Light Heavyweight division. The fight was almost exclusively on the feet except for one small portion of the final round, so I'll do a statistics check instead of a round-by-round analysis. Riscatelli landed far more shots than Shinobi during the fight, connecting with 67 strikes out of the 94 that he threw, an accuracy of 71%. Leg kicks and head punches were the option he went for more than anything else, hitting 19 head punches and 29 low kicks. Shinobi's accuracy was woeful throughout the fight, he only landed 15 strikes in 15 minutes, but threw 82 of them for an accuracy of just 18%. I can only assume that he was going for a lot of damage and Riscatelli was countering a lot for that sort of terrible accuracy rate. As I vaguely mentioned there was a takedown towards the end of the final round, Riscatelli shot in and secured the takedown into side control, however Shinobi quickly utilised a sweep to take the top position, but couldn't do anything and they ended up getting stood up by the referee. It was Riscatelli's third attempt at a takedown during the fight, whilst Shinobi didn't try a takedown at any point, preferring to just stand there and miss strikes. Despite the lack of strikes landed Shinobi did enough to just about take Round 2, more through being the more aggressive fighter than actual skill, however one judge still gave it to Riscatelli. As a result the scores from the judges were 29-28, 29-28 and 30-27 to give Riscatelli the unanimous decision victory. Next up on the decision train was a Middleweight division contest between Damian Roshan (17-8) and Adron Wright (7-1). The first round was all standing despite Roshan's best efforts to get a takedown, seven times he tried but seven times Wright stuffed him. This somehow didn't seem to help Wright much as Roshan had the advantage in striking, at one point landing a nice combination that opened up a cut under Wright's left eye, but also connecting with some good leg kicks. Roshan's combinations also landed quite a lot, and whilst Wright landed a few shots it wasn't really enough to win the round. Roshan finally got his long awaited takedown in Round 2, and kept the fight on the ground for the remainder of the round. In the four minutes they were on the ground there wasn't a whole lot of action. Roshan went for a couple of submission attempts and landed a few strikes here and there, but there was enough stalling to warrant the fight being stood up, the referee however opted not to do so, probably just to annoy me. Round 3 was all on the feet, they were mainly fighting from a distance for the first half of the round, but they went in and out of a clinch on several occasions as well, however the actual time they spent in the clinch was minimal. That all changed in the second half of the round as Wright managed to get hold of Roshan in a clinch, and this time Roshan wasn't able to get free. Wright proceeded to unleash as many punches to the head and body of Roshan as he could from the clinch, however only thirteen of them actually made proper contact as Roshan did a good job of avoiding them or covering up to absorb the blows. Wright kept it into the clinch until the fight ended, but would it be enough to win the fight? No, no it wouldn't, because nobody won the fight. The judges scored it 29-29, 29-29 and 28-29, making it a majority draw. The second round was given 10-10 by two judges, with the other scoring it 10-9 to Wright. The fourth fight of the show was a contest in the esteemed Heavyweight division, He Man (13-5) taking on Yoshi Sushi (17-7). Within the first twenty seconds Man landed a jab that opened up a cut on Sushi, but Sushi quickly took the fight into the clinch and used some hard elbows to cut open Man, so both men were bleeding inside a minute. Sushi used the clinch to land vicious elbows and knees, Man responded with some punches of his own but kept looking for takedowns that he couldn't get. Sushi eventually opted to break the clinch, and after a few strikes were attempted by both men Sushi secured a double leg takedown into half guard. After a couple of minutes of fighting for position it was Man who made the big move, he hooked a leg and managed to roll around take Sushi's back! Man waited for the opportunity and eventually went for the read naked choke, but Sushi managed to defend it well. Man landed some decent strikes from the rear mount, but time expired before it could amount to anything. Round 2 saw Man get a takedown early on but this time he couldn't get into as good a position as he had in the first round, and eventually the referee stood them up. Man kept on pursuing a takedown, failing on three attempts, before Sushi ended up getting a takedown into side control. Sushi was able to land a couple of short strikes, but other than that there wasn't much action as Man was able to keep Sushi under control. After two minutes of fairly equal stand up fighting, Sushi attacking with hard leg kicks whilst Man looked to land punches, Sushi shot in and secured another takedown. Both fighters then went to town with submissions, Sushi tried an arm triangle, but Man defended it and once again was able to get his back and started looking for the rear naked choke. On three occasions Sushi was almost caught but he managed to stay out of trouble, so Man went back to pounding on him with punches and elbows, until Sushi managed to turn back into his guard. The round ended with both fighters on the mat, both bleeding heavily from their cuts. The judges scored the fight 29-28, 29-28 and 30-27 to Yoshi Sushi, giving him the unanimous decision victory. The fifth fight of the night was in the Welterweight division, with Money Montell (15-5) taking on Seth Vandrel (12-4) in a rare "rhyming surnames" contest. The first four minutes of the opening round were spent on the feet, allowing Montell to use his impressive striking skills to overcome Vandrel's many, many takedown attempts. Montell used a variety of different kicks to do damage to Vandrel, hard leg kicks did enough damage to chop Vandrel to the floor, and some hard head kicks ended up opening a cut under Vandrel's right eye. Vandrel eventually secured a takedown at the sixth attempt, and quickly moved into the mount, only to do very little from that position until the round came to an end. Vandrel got another takedown very early in Round 2 but a leg lock submission attempt resulted in Vandrel losing the top position, and Montell held on until the referee stood them up. Vandrel then took the fight into the clinch and looked to land strikes as often as possible, however Montell did a good job of blocking them or getting out of the way. Vandrel tried some takedowns but Montell kept the fight standing, and landed some shots of his own from the clinch before the round ended. The final round was all on the feet despite Vandrel's best efforts to get it back to the ground, and even when Vandrel initiated a clinch it was Montell that had control, landing more strikes even though they didn't have a whole lot of power behind them. Montell began fighting for a decision, keeping Vandrel backed up against the cage until the end of the round whilst landing enough strikes to stop the referee from separating them. The judges ended up giving every round to Montell, securing him a 30-27 unanimous decision victory. The second half of the show started with a fight in the stacked Welterweight division, Sunny Supernova (13-1) taking on Osama Robins (19-9). As the fight began both fighters showed what their tactics were, Supernova began landing hard strikes, leg kicks and punches mainly, whilst Robins shot in for a takedown that Supernova stuffed easily. Supernova also countered Robins very well, Robins leaving himself open when he missed a leg kick or failed with an attempt to clinch. Supernova landed some hard punches to the body leaving Robins gasping for air, before a big left hand connected with the jaw of Robins and dropped him to the canvas. Supernova was quickly on him and unleashed a series of hard punches as Robins lay more and more motionless as each shots landed. Eventually the referee intervened to call the fight off, giving Supernova a very impressive victory in just 69 seconds. The seventh fight of the evening was a contest in the Heavyweight division, with Reinhard Galt (13-3) going up against Starship Pain (14-4-1). After a brief exchange of strikes early in the round the fighters ended up in the clinch, and they spent about a minute there with Pain landing far more strikes than Galt, several body shots causing problems to Galt's energy levels as well as damaging inside punches to the head. Despite his advantage standing up Pain decided to pull guard to take the fight to the ground, and the submissions attempts started flowing like a broken tap. In their time on the ground, which was just over three minutes, Pain attempted 8 individual submissions, mainly triangles and guillotines, and Galt did what he could to stop the holds being locked in. However as with anything the more you try, the better your chances of success. Pain's eighth submission attempt was a guillotine choke, and this time he got his arm securely around the throat of Galt and pulled with all his might. Even though there were only ten seconds left in the round Galt couldn't hold on, he had to tap out or he was going to sleep. I like these first round finishes, shame there aren't more of them. Fight number eight of the night saw one of the many Noonan family members, this time Mickey Noonan (12-3), take on Uncomfortable Positions (15-7) in the Welterweight division. Positions shot in for a takedown early in the first round, and immediately was in the mount. From there he landed a lot of ground and pound, although there didn't seem to be an awful lot of power behind the ground strikes. Noonan tried his best to get out from the dominant position but he couldn't do it, allowing Positions to control the fight from the mount for almost the entire round. Positions didn't use his advantage to go for any submissions, and at the last moment in the round Noonan managed a sweep, but it was too little too late. Positions did almost the exact same thing in Round 2, scoring a takedown almost straight away, however this time he could only get to half guard. Positions continued to throw and land some strikes on the ground, however Noonan managed to use a missed elbow strike to counter Positions and switch into the top position. This turned out to be a bad idea. Positions was immediately looking for submissions from his back, first an attempted guillotine choke which Noonan was able to defend, but then Positions tried a triangle and got it locked in despite Noonan's efforts to struggle out of it. Positions cranked back and pulled down on Noonan's head until Noonan had no choice but to tap out. Positions takes the submission victory, showing that being on the bottom is sometimes better than being on top. Now there's a euphemism for you. The semi-main event of the show was a battle between two former Blitzkrieg Welterweight champions, Magnum PI (19-3) taking on Arthur Meighen (15-2). They came out looking to fight on the feet, Meighen looking to connect with both punches and kicks, whilst Magnum aimed for just kicks to the legs and body before looking to clinch. Magnum tried to pull guard but just fell to the floor, but once they were standing again they were back clinching straight away. The two fighters worked away in the clinch but it was Meighen who probably had the advantage, landing a lot of shots to the body of Magnum to wear him down, whilst also scoring with an occasional uppercut. Towards the end of the round Magnum was able to score a takedown, but ran out of time before he could do anything of note on the ground. The first half of round 2 was on the feet, allowing Meighen to take control and use his striking skills to get the advantage. Magnum was trying to take the fight to the ground but Meighen kept it standing as long as he could, connecting with some good jabs right to the nose and sometimes looking to land a head kick. Magnum finally got a takedown and tried to go to work, but Meighen quickly swept him to take the top position. Magnum tried for submissions off his back but Meighen was able to keep him at bay, however Meighen didn't look too interested in moving from half guard, seemingly more comfortable just controlling the position. Round 3 began with Magnum getting a takedown literally straight away, and the ground is where the fight stayed until it's conclusion. Magnum was trying his best to move from Meighen's guard into a more advantageous position, but Meighen did a good job of controlling him and stopping his transitions. Magnum very occasionally tried to land some ground and pound, but when it did land it lacked power. Magnum took the final round purely through being in control through the entire thing, but it wasn't enough for him. Meighen took the first two rounds on the judges' scorecards, giving him a unanimous 29-28 victory from all three judges. And so we came to the Main Event of the show, a Blitzkrieg Welterweight Title match between the champion Waldorf Astoria (20-4) taking on the challenger Buck Naked (18-4-1). Normally with Main Events, particularly title fights, I try and do round-by-round details due to their importance, but this time I just can't do it. This was one of the most one-sided fights I have ever seen in this game, just a complete and utter destruction, and if I did it round-by-round it would just be the same thing over and over again for all five rounds. So instead I'm going to look at the statistics which will fill in more details than I ever could. During the fight Astoria landed an astonishing 237 strikes, TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN, which is over 9 strikes per minute. He threw 313 in total, meaning he had an accuracy of 75%, which is also pretty damn good. Of those strikes Astoria landed 112 punches to the head, 59 punches to the body, 10 combinations and 38 leg kicks. He spent most of his time landing strikes from a distance, but also landed 48 strikes in the clinch. Naked on the other hand... didn't do so well. He landed just 12 strikes in five rounds, 0.48 strikes per minute, and nearly 20 times less strikes than Astoria did. To put it simply, for every strike Naked landed, Astoria landed 20 in return. His accuracy wasn't great, but he also didn't throw many strikes, 72 strikes were thrown in total for an accuracy of 16%. Despite the beating he was taking on the feet Naked never went for a takedown, nor did he try to take the fight into the clinch, he seemingly decided that standing opposite Astoria and getting punched in the face until Astoria got tired was the best option to take. Astoria did not get tired though, so Naked just ended up being beaten to a pulp. The two most destructive rounds for Astoria were Rounds 3 and 4, rounds that one judge scored 10-8 for both, whilst Round 3 was given as a 10-8 by all three judges. That left the scores as being 50-44, 50-44 and 50-43 to Astoria, giving him the victory and meaning he successfully defended his title. Blitzkrieg may have the most stacked Welterweight division in the world, but they also have the most dominant champion as Astoria moved up to the #1 P4P fighter in the world after this victory, and deservedly so. ------------------------------- Statistics Event Rating: 214.12 Attendance: 6,027 Fight of the Night: Waldorf Astoria vs. Buck Naked KO of the Night: Sunny Supernova Submission of the Night: Uncomfortable Positions (All bonus winning fighters will receive $1000 from my manager account, and $1 from the Blitzkrieg account)

Blitzkrieg were back on Friday 25th March for their show Blitz 145: Revolver. This is the first show named by yours truly, and to celebrate all things British I went for a Beatles album name. This one seemed easier to manage than Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Main Event of this show was a fight for the Blitzkrieg Light Heavyweight title, with Phil Hellmuth making the first defence of his newly won title against the number one contender Ryan Larkin. Also, former Welterweight champion James Tobin made his return to action after an extended break for more training. Knowing what I've got in store for me in these shows (16 three round fights out of 19, plus a 5 round fight) you'll understand if my enthusiasm is a bit lacking this week... The first fight of the show was a Featherweight division contest between Robert Mongo (9-4) and Vim Fweigo (11-5). The entire fight was spent moving in and out of the clinch, as if they had some contractual obligation to do so for the whole fifteen minutes. As a result it came down to who landed the most strikes inside the clinch during the fight, so let's just look at the statistics and get this over with. Mongo landed a total of 52 strikes in the fight, with 42 of those coming in the clinch. It was Muay Thai he opted for, landing 21 elbow strikes and 21 knee strikes to keep things nice and equal. Unfortunately for Mongo his accuracy was a bit lacking, he threw 152 strikes to give him an accuracy of just 34%. Fweigo was way behind though, he only connected with 24 strikes during the fight, with only 15 of them landing from the clinch. His accuracy may have been higher, he threw 57 strikes for an accuracy of 42%, but he was outstruck for pretty much the whole fight. The only time things were going Fweigo's way were late in the third round, with Mongo happy to go for a decision it allowed Fweigo to land a few more strikes than he had been able to during the remainder of the fight, with his own aggression rising as he looked for the finish he needed. He didn't get it though, and Mongo ended up taking the fight 29-28 on all three judges' scorecards. I hate decisions. The second contest of the night was a Light Heavyweight division fight between Buer Eremiel (6-1) and Jimmy Russo (11-3). Thankfully this fight had a bit more to write about than the last one, and it began with Eremiel looking the far more accomplished stand-up fighter. After landing a lot of hard leg kicks early in the first round Eremeiel took the fight into the clinch to land some elbows and stop Russo from taking the fight to the ground. Russo did eventually get a takedown with just over a minute remaining in the round, but he didn't get much of an opportunity to advance from the guard or land any strikes. In the second round Russo got a takedown almost straight away giving him over four minutes of time to work on the ground. He landed a significant amount of ground and pound, even more so when he advanced from half guard into full mount. Russo only went for one submission during the round, an attempted kimura that he wasn't able to get locked in as Eremiel defended it well. Russo's ground and pound easily won him Round 2, and he managed to carry out a similar strategy in Round 3. He immediately countered a low kick with a double leg takedown into half guard, before quickly moving through into the mount again. Russo began landing vicious ground and pound from the top as Eremiel tried his best to wriggle around to either avoid the strikes or get Russo off him. This didn't work, and Russo continued to land hard shots until Eremiel was rocked. From there it took just a few more punches and elbows until the referee intervened and waved the fight off, giving Russo the TKO victory. Up next was a battle in the Super Heavyweight division, with Brad Rogers (13-7) taking on Jack Campbell (17-4). This was quite the strange fight with around 95% of the first two rounds taking place inside the clinch. It was Campbell who initiated the clinch on all these occasions, and you could see why with the amount of damage he was able to do from that position. During the fight Campbell landed 71 strikes in the clinch, 35 of them elbows and 27 of them knees, although it could have been worse for Rogers as Campbell threw 159 strikes in total, so whilst his aggression was certainly there the accuracy wasn't. As you'd expect from being hit by so many elbows Rogers' face became a bloody mess, a cut above his right eye was leaking all over the place. Rogers was overwhelmed by Campbell's striking in the clinch, he only landed 10 strikes when they were in the clinch and spent most of his time trying to avoid the constant flurry of Muay Thai from Campbell. Things changed in the third round when Rogers was able to get the fight to the ground, something he had tried to do in each round but Campbell had been able to keep it standing. When the fight was on the ground it was obvious that Rogers knew he needed something big to get the victory, so he went for six submissions in the space of just over two minutes. None of them worked though, Campbell easily shrugged off the many guillotine attempts until the round ended. The judges all scored the fight 30-26 to Campbell, with the first round deservedly being given a 10-8 considering this was the round where the clinchwork did most of the damage. The fourth fight of the evening was between Kai Watanabe (11-2) and Barich Fendsor (12-3) in the Welterweight division. The fight was almost over in the first minute as an aggressive Watanabe came out and immediately rocked Fendsor with a hard jab, but couldn't quite land the strikes he needed after that to finish the fight, allowing Fendsor to recover his senses. Fendsor fought back by taking the fight into the clinch and landing some good elbows that cut open Watanabe, and Fendsor began to take control of the stand-up for the remainder of the round with some good punches and kicks. Fendsor cemented his winning of the round with a takedown late on, Watanabe looked to try and secure a guillotine as the two fighters were heading to the mat but Fendsor managed to get his head out of danger and complete the takedown just before the round ended. Things went badly for Fendsor after that as the start of Round 2 saw Watanabe land a hard left/right combination that dropped Fendsor to the mat. Watanabe was quickly on the ground with him but Fendsor managed to recover enough to stop any further strikes from landing. Watanabe went for the occasional submission, an armbar and a kimura were attempted, but eventually the referee decided that there wasn't enough action and stood them up. Fendosr looked to take the fight into the clinch again but Watanabe did well to break free before Fendsor could do much damage. Watanabe continued to land good strikes from a distance until he connected with a strong left hand that knocked Fendsor down again, before Watanabe pounced and began unloading hard punches on the ground to his fallen opponent. Fendsor took quite a few hard punches to the head before the referee decided to call it off, and was probably knocked out by the time Watanabe was stopped. Watanabe celebrates the TKO victory, and I celebrate one of the only early stoppages I get this weekend. The fifth fight of the show was another contest in the Super Heavyweight division, this time with Harry Hill (14-6-1) taking on Musashimaru Koyo (14-2-2). The first round was mainly on the feet as both men seemingly wanted to cause a lot of damage to the other, Hill landed a hard jab that cut open Koyo, whilst Koyo took the fight into the clinch for a moment and landed some good knees. Koyo scored a takedown halfway through the round and landed in full mount, allowing him to begin crushing Hill with some hard ground and pound. Hill had a cut opened up from the punches quickly, and the cut was made worse as the strikes continued to land until the end of the round, a round which Hill somehow managed to survive. They fought from a distance for a while in Round 2, allowing Hill to take control of the the fight with good punches whilst Koyo opted to go for leg kick after leg kick. Hill was certainly limping a bit after the constant attacks to his legs, but it didn't stop him moving forward and looking to strike. Koyo eventually took the fight back into the clinch and things went down hill rapidly for Hill. Despite Koyo's attempts to get the fight to the ground he still managed to land a number of hard shots that made Hill's cut even worse. When an uppercut connected and blood flew everywhere the referee stopped the fight to have the cut checked, and of course the doctor decided to call the fight off. Koyo wins via the always annoying Medical Stoppage, I still think that fights finish far too often this way, but my opinion is not exactly worth a lot. The second half of the show was kicked off with a Lightweight division match between Flavius Aetius (13-3-1) and Victor Reinhardt (13-4). Quite a topsy-turvy fight but in the end it was all pretty one-sided. Reinhardt dominated the stand-up to begin, not connecting with much but certainly being far more aggressive than Aetius. Two minutes in Aetius countered a kick with a takedown to get the fight to the ground, and after working away for a bit he looked for an omaplata which didn't quite work, it ended up in Reinhardt reversing the position and spending the remainder of the round on top in side control. Round 2 had Reinhardt landing a lot of good kicks to start off, before missing a body kick and Aetius countered to get another takedown. Aetius wasn't particularly active on the ground though, for one minute they did absolutely nothing, and eventually the referee decided enough was enough and stood them back up. Reinhardt landed some more good strikes before it was his turn to score a takedown, a single leg into guard, but time expired in the round before he could do anything. Round 3 began with Aetius desperately shooting in for takedowns, but Reinhardt was able to stuff all three of his attempts in the first 90 seconds. Reinhardt landed some good punches and kicks, and on one occasion a flying knee, before taking the fight into the clinch. Reinhardt used some good dirty boxing to cause some problems, whilst also stopping Aetius from dropping down for a takedown or pulling guard. Eventually it was Reinhardt who scored a takedown to move the fight to the floor, and began to overwhelm Aetius with some decent ground and pound from half guard. As time ran down Reinhardt became less aggressive and seemed hapy to just stay on top until the fight ended, Aetius was stuck underneath him and could do nothing to get into a better position. The judges scored the fight 30-27 across the board, giving the victory to Victor Reinhardt. Fight number seven of the evening was a Welterweight division match between Para Normal (5-0) and Kasper Kessler (16-3), certainly a tough introduction to Blitzkrieg for Normal. Kessler scored a takedwon almost immediately, but could only get to guard and the referee stood them up after about a minute of very little action. Back on the feet Kessler landed some good strikes as Normal struggled to keep up with Kessler's pace, but Kessler secured another takedown into half guard. Kessler moved into side control and stayed there for the rest of the round, spending most of his time trying to move into mount but getting blocked by Normal. He landed some punches occasionally but didn't attempt many, and thankfully the time ran out before anyone fell asleep. Kessler got another takedown early in round 2, and this time he made an effort to try and do something on the ground. He went for several different submissions in the first couple of mintues, mainly targeting an arm triangle that he couldn't quite lock in. He ended up getting stuck in half guard for quite a long time, the referee gave him every opportunity to be active but was left with no choice but to stand them up. So Kessler just took him down again and finished the round on top. The fight was on the feet for the first half of the final round, but it was still Kessler who was in control, even though Normal was doing a good job of blocking Kessler's attempts to take him down. Kessler eventually got what he wanted when Normal missed a big uppercut, Kessler getting a trip takedown into half guard. The referee wasn't taking any crap this time and stood the fighters up after a lack of action in just under a minute, giving Normal the opportunity to land some strikes in the final minute. Kessler continued to try and get one last takedown but Normal kept it standing, however his leg kicks were never really going to be the shot he needed to score the victory. The judges all gave the fight to Kessler, two of them 30-27 and one 30-26, giving the second round as a 10-8. The eighth fight of the night was another Welterweight division match as James Tobin (18-2) took on Jake Young (13-6) in Tobin's first fight since losing the Welterweight title in Decemeber. We had an all stand-up war, good news for the company as it scored a 100% rating, bad news if you're a writer, or a reader for that matter. Let's look at the statistics! Judging from the number of strikes landed there was only one winner in this fight, and that man just so happened to be the guy who won it. Tobin only landed 20 strikes during the fight, and his accuracy was very poor as he threw 60 strikes in total, an accuracy of 33%. Meanwhile Young just battered poor Tobin, landing an astonishing 153 strikes during the fight, throwing 201 of them for a strong accuracy of 76%. As you can see it was a case of Young being far more aggressive in throwing over three times more strikes than Tobin, and far more accurate as he landed 7.5 times as many strikes during the fight. With that number of strikes connecting it may be surprising that Tobin stayed on his feet, however only 33 of the strikes that Young landed were to the head of Tobin. He landed 40 punches to the body, 20 kicks or knees to the body, and 51 leg kicks. Tobin may have only landed 12 punches to the head, but during the first round one of them did enough to leave Young rocked. However Tobin could not take the opportunity to follow up on his advantageous situation and Young managed to regain his senses and land some more punches before Young could finish him off. From that point onward it was all Young, the final round was mostly in the clinch as Young kept Tobin tied down and stopped him from breaking free to land strikes from a distance. As you'd expect with such a difference in the strike numbers this wasn't a straight 10-9 round fight, in fact Young ended up taking the fight 30-25 from all three judges, giving rounds 2 and 3 to Young as 10-8s. Not a great return to action from Tobin, hopefully he can pick himself up from this loss and get back on track. The co-main event of the evening was a bout in the Middleweight division as Sunny Disposition took on Dawson Hopkins. And what a strange fight this turned out to be. The first round was complete domination by Disposition, he took the fight into the clinch early in the round and kept it there for at least three minutes. Whilst in the clinch it was clear that Disposition was in control, he landed hard knees, elbows and punches to Hopkins without stalling or resting at any point. The strikes were certainly doing damage to Hopkins, not only was he cut open by a hard elbow to the temple, but the shots to the body left Hopkins running low on energy as well. Round 2 was going in a similar manner, however Hopkins managed to stay out of the clinch for the early parts of the round, allowing him to land some good low kicks and the occasional punch to the head. When Disposition got the fight into the clinch again normal service was resumed, the knees, elbows and punches kept landing and eventually did enough to make the cut on Hopkins' head worse. Hopkins managed to free himself from the grasp of Disposition with just over a minute elft in the round, and began to put his kicks to good use with some more low kicks and a kick to the head. A few moments later Hopkins connected with a hard head kick that dropped Disposition to the canvas! Disposition was rocked by that but Hopkins let him back up and looked to try and finish the fight, however Disposition did well to avoid the follow-up strikes from Hopkins and managed to regain his senses and see out the rest of the round unscathed. Round 3 was the complete opposite of the first round, Disposition not only didn't get the fight into the clinch at any point, he landed just a single strike during the entire round. It's likely being rocked in Round 2 was probably still affecting him, but Hopkins came out in the final round and just outstruck Disposition for the whole five minutes. He landed head punches, body punches, leg kicks and head kicks, many of them connecting hard with Disposition. Disposition was never in any real possibility of being finished in this round, but Hopkins' constant aggression and determination somehow got him the points he needed. We ended up with the bizarre score of 28-27 from all three judges, they gave Round 1 a 10-8 to Disposition and Round 3 a 10-8 to Hopkins. It came down to Round 2 which they gave as a 10-9 to... Hopkins. That head kick knockdown proved to be the deciding factor in the fight. Finally we had the Main Event of the show, a battle for the Blitzkrieg Light Heavyweight title between the champion Phil Hellmuth (15-3) and his challenger Ryan Larkin (14-4). Larkin started out the more aggressive of the two fighters, landing some good leg kicks early on as well as some decent punches. Hellmuth came back with a good right hand but his attempts to take the fight into the clinch were rebuffed by Larkin. Larkin landed some hard body shots that took the wind out of Hellmuth, Larkin spent a lot of time aiming for the ribs of Hellmuth and it worked as Hellmuth seemed to be lacking energy early on. Larkin continued to be the aggressor by landing some good low kicks, but Hellmuth seemed to work out the rhythm of Larkin's strikes and avoiding several shots as the round moved on. Hellmuth missed a head kick allowing Larkin to counter with a hard uppercut, before Larkin moved in and hit a hard right hand to the temple of Hellmuth, leaving him rocked! Larkin followed up with a hard body shot, then a vicious left hook that sent Hellmuth spiralling to the canvas! Larkin moved in for the kill and began unloading some hard ground and pound to the barely conscious Hellmuth, the referee gave Hellmuth every opportunity to defend himself but eventually called it off to give Larkin the victory! We have a NEW Light Heavyweight champion (again), Ryan Larkin wins his first career championship with this impressive TKO victory. ------------------------------------- Statistics Event Rating: 214.40 Attendance: 5,748 Fight of the Night: Jake Young vs. James Tobin KO of the Night: Ryan Larkin (Bonuses will be $1,000 sent from myself rather than the Blitzkrieg account) -------------------------------------

Hoi by 1st round submission

Blitzkrieg were back for their only show of the last week, Blitz 144: Rock Of Ages. I personally can't wait for the first Rebecca Black inspired Blitzkrieg show name, afterall one of the shows each week takes place on a Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday. Anyway, the Blitzkrieg Middleweight title was on the line when Harjan Varsi makes his first defence of his Middleweight belt against the man he defeated for the title exactly one month before this fight, Manny Baddabing. This was the third fight between the two, with the score currently at 1-1 both fighters no doubt wanted to win the rubber match and get the superiority over the other. The first fight of the night was a contest in the Middleweight division as former Blitz Light Heavyweight champion Dane Hoy (18-1) made his Blitzkrieg return against Kalib Koscheck (7-3). Hoy looked to clinch straight away but Koscheck blocked his punches and got away from the grapple. Koscheck's plan was takedowns, takedowns and more takedowns, unfortunately for him Hoy stuffed his first three attempts relatively easily, and landed some hard leg kicks when they were striking. Koscheck finally got the takedown he was so desperate for at the fourth attempt, getting into half guard. After a few moments of stalling Hoy managed to get the position back to full guard, and as Koscheck went to try and land an elbow strike he grabbed hold of a guillotine choke! Hoy wrapped his legs around Koscheck and began choking with all his might, until Koscheck finally broke and tapped out before he went to sleep. A superb victory for Hoy in his first Blitzkrieg match for 18 months, and that's also his 10th victory in a row. The second fight of the evening was in the Featherweight division, with Nikola Tesla (11-3) taking on Hanz Titties (11-2). This was one of those three round stand-up wars with lots of punches being thrown and very little for me to work with for my writing, so as always I'll look at the statistics instead. Tesla was by far the better stand-up fighter, landing 82 strikes during the fight with an accuracy of 61%. Titties on the other hand was far less accurate and suffered quite a beating as a result, he only landed 31 strikes with an accuracy of just 33%. With that amount of difference between the two fighters it would be easy to think that the fight would have been a walkover for Tesla, but Titties made it difficult for him in Round 2. He scored a takedown, the only one that worked out of the six he attempted, and held the dominant position for a couple of minutes. Apparently this was enough for him to be given the round despite not landing any strikes or going for any submissions when the fight was on the ground. Both fighters mixed their strikes up well, Tesla connected with punches to the ribs of Titties almost as often as he punches him in the head, whilst Titties was inaccurate with a wide variety of both punches and kicks. Despite greatly outscoring Titties for most of the fight the judges didn't feel Tesla did enough to warrant a higher score than a 10-9 in either of the rounds that he clearly won. As a result the scores he received at the end of the fight were all 29-28, but to me the close scoreline doesn't represent how the fight actually went, with Tesla looking very impressive throughout. Next up was a fight in the Lightweight division, BJ Penn (15-7) taking on Joe Hughs (13-1). Hughs came out kicking, landing with a few leg kicks but nothing particularly devastating, before Penn moved in and used a trip takedown to get the fight to the ground, landing in side control. Penn landed some good shots from side control, a few elbows causing Hughs some problems, before he moved on to trying for submissions. He first went for an Americana which didn't work, and only allowed Hughs to get back into half guard. But things didn't get any better for Hughs as a few moments later Penn applied a kimura, got the hold synched in and cranked away, giving Hughs no option but to tap out! Hughs has now lost his first two Blitzkrieg fights after arriving 13-0, it just goes to show how the talent level of Blitz is getting higher and higher. Somehow this fight only got a 35% rating, which seems a bit harsh. The fourth fight of the show saw Rick Thomas (13-3) take on Steve Nieve (14-5) in another Middleweight division match-up. This was quite the brutal fight, both fighters came out looking to inflict some serious damage on their opponent, swinging wildly with punches and kicks in the opening two minutes, some connecting, most missing. Nieve then took the fight into the clinch for around a minute, and from there he was able to land a series of hard knees right to the head of Thomas. Somehow a knee to the jaw ended up cutting Thomas above his right eye, but I won't argue with the PBP. Thomas was able to break free of the clinch and they went back to striking from a distance, this time Thomas did much better as he countered several missed Nieve leg kicks and landing hard punches in response. Nieve became gassed after several shots to the body, but still came back to land a few more kicks before the first round ended. Thomas came out in Round 2 with even more focus, he landed a lot of hard punches to Nieve, whose lack of energy was causing him to struggle to retaliate. Thomas seemed able to land any type of strike he wanted, particularly landing body shots to Nieve, whilst Nieve looked to throw combinations but caught nothing but the air surrounding Thomas. Halfway through the round Thomas landed a hard right hand that left Nieve rocked, and from there it was just a matter of time. Nieve did manage to stay on his feet for nearly a minute but he never looked like he had his legs working properly, Thomas then landed a hard combination that knocked Nieve out before his body hit the floor. The referee intervened before Thomas could land any more strikes, but Thomas knew he was out and wasn't intending to strike again. Take note Mr. Schaub. Up next in the fifth fight was another Middleweight division contest, this time it was Scott Spade (17-5-1) taking on Akio Takada (13-6). Once again we had an all stand-up decision fight, leaving me with no option but to be lazy. Sometimes the statistics can be a bit misleading, and at first glance these seem to be. During the fight Spade landed 79 strikes out of a possible 120, an accuracy of 65%, whilst Takada landed only 31 strikes out of 123, just 25% for accuracy. However the statistics got swayed quite significantly by a very dominant second round for Spade. He took the fight into the clinch early on and began unloading punches to both the head and body. During the second round Spade landed an astonishing 47 strikes out of 49, whilst Takada landed 2. The other two rounds were fought at a distance, despite Spade's attempts to clinch and the occasional takedown attempt from Takada. During the first and third round it was Takada who had control, certainly being the more aggressive fighter even if only 1 in 4 of them actually connected with Spade. The shots that did land seemed to have quite a bit of power behind them, but neither fighter looked to be in any danger of being stopped during the fight. When it came to the scoring of the fight it came down to how the judges viewed Round 2, obviously it was given to Spade, but by what score? I personally would have scored it a 10-8 as it was quite the battering, but the judges opted to score it 10-9. As a result we were left with three 29-28 scores from the judges, each one of them giving it to Akio Takada. From looking at the stats it seems like an unfair result, but in the simplest terms it was Takada that won 2 rounds, and Spade that won the other. Into the second half the show we went, and kicking it off was a Featherweight division contest between Grimlock Jones (18-5) and Gaia Ky (13-4-1). The first 90 seconds of the fight was on the feet, as Ky came out looking to strike and strike hard, landing a series of hard leg kicks and the occasional body punch. Jones eventually went for a takedown, and got it into side control. Ky quickly got himself back to guard and held on to Jones until the referee stood them back up. Almost immediately Jones got another takedown, but again he did nothing on the ground and the referee stood them up once more after less than a minute. Jones tried for a couple more takedowns before the end of the round, but Jones held him at bay with some good punches and takedown defence. Jones landed a good combination to start Round 2, but again it was probably Ky who had the advantage in the stand up. Jones quickly stopped that with a double leg takedown into guard, but Ky quickly swept him and took the top position in the mount. Ky then sat in mount for the rest of the round, just controlling and not trying to land any strikes or go for submissions. The time in the round drifted by with nothing happening, Ky just stayed in the mount and that was it. Round 3 began with some more decent striking in the first minute, both fighter landed a few punches whilst Jones went back to his takedowns. Jones got the fight to the ground again and got to full mount, where he was a lot more active than Ky was. He landed some elbows and some decent ground and pound as Ky tried his best to either avoid the strikes or get out from underneath Jones, but Jones had him pinned down until the round ended. The judges scored the fight 30-27 to Jones, giving him all three rounds. I have no idea how you can win a round where your opponent is in the mount for three minutes like in Round 2, but then I'm not a judge. The seventh fight of the evening was a bout in the Light Heavyweight division, as Kurokawa Kenji (10-3) took on Bang McGee (15-6). This was another three round all-stand-up decision fight, but far more one-sided than the others so far on the card. Kenji viciously outstruck McGee in all but one area, McGee landed a lot of good head shots but they didn't have as much power as those landed by Kenji. During the fight Kenji managed to land 117 strikes out of 181, an accuracy of 64%, whilst McGee only landed 43 strikes out of 111, an accuracy of 38%. In fights like these with such a dominant performance from one fighter it is clinchwork that makes a significant difference, and this fight was no exception. Kenji got the fight into the clinch on several different occasionss throughout the fight, and also McGee was able to break free quite often, the number of punches that Kenji was landing made things very difficult for McGee. Kenji landed 78 strikes in the clinch, McGee responded with a less flattering number of 3 strikes in the clinch. One of those strikes just happened to be a solid knee to the head that opened up a cut on Kenji in Round 3, but later in the round Kenji got his revenge by landing a hard hook that opened a cut up on McGee. When the two fighters were striking from a distance it was almost completely even, Kenji landed 39 strikes whilst McGee just edged him with 40, and it was an all punching affair with not one kick being thrown or one takedown attempted by either fighter. The judges decided that the final round was where Kenji was particularly dominant and gave him a 10-8 for it, giving Kenji a 30-26 score from all three of them. McGee landed a lot more shots than most losing fighters do in a 30-26, but inside the clinch he was just overwhelmed by Kenji's dirty boxing. Up next was a fight between John Keynes (16-3) and Jason Moon (18-4) in the Light Heavyweight division. For the first three and a half minutes the fight was on the feet, and Keynes had the better of the stand-up in the early going. He was more aggressive than Moon, whilst Moon seemed happier to sit back and counter Keynes if he missed. There was certainly a lot of action as both men were happy to exchange strikes, but later on in the round Moon changed things up by scoring a takedown, driving through into side control. Keynes showed some good defensive grappling skills to get back to half guard, then full guard, and then get back to his feet, making it look much easier than it was. Round 2 was all on the feet despite both fighters attempting several takedowns throughout the round, however it seemed the takedown defence of both men was strong enough to repel each one. As far as strikes go it was Keynes who had the advantage, landing several good kicks to the legs and body of Moon, as well as some good punches. Moon was still looking to counter and landed a lot of decent leg kicks to the thigh of Keynes during the round, but struggled to land any meaningful shots to the head. Round 3 saw Keynes come out far more aggresively than the tiring Moon, Keynes landed a good number of shots in the opening 90 seconds whilst Moon barely threw anything back in response. However Moon did manage to get another takedown, again landing in side control, but it was Keynes on the bottom who was more actively looking to finish the fight with submissions. A guillotine and an armbar from Keynes couldn't get locked in, Moon responded with a kimura attempt but Keynes blocked that, and Keynes tried for one more triangle just before the end of the round. Other than the failed submission attempts there wasn't much action on the ground, in fact I don't think a ground strike was thrown at all. The judges all gave the fight a 30-27 score to John Keynes, and it would be difficult to argue that scoreline. The Semi-Main Event was a fight in what is unofficially being called the "Blitzkrieg Welterweight Grand Prix" as two of the world's best 170 pounders squared off, with Olli Jokinen (19-4-1) taking on Alpha Male (16-2). It seems to be a common theme tonight of three round stand-up wars going the distance, and we have another here for me to browse through the statistics of. Whilst there was no complete domination the stats show that Male was by far the better striker of the two during this fight, landing 114 strikes out of the 196 he threw for an accuracy of 58%. Jokinen on the other hand only landed 40 strikes out of 105 attempts, an accuracy of 38%. Male did most of his damage with punches, landing 43 strikes to the head and 25 punches to the body, whilst also causing a lot of damage to the legs of Jokinen by landing 33 low kicks. The variety of strikes that Male threw seemed to keep Jokinen guessing throughout, which is probably why Male was able to be so accurate throughout all three rounds. Jokinen also went for a variety of different strikes but just not enough of them. Male's aggressiveness really paid off as by constantly moving forward and looking to strike he was able to beat Jokinen to the punch on many occasions. There was no one round that Male dominated more than the others, but he certainly won every round convincingly. As you'd expect from a fight like this neither man went for a takedown at any point during the fight, and the only time they were fighting in the clinch was for a matter of seconds in Round 2, Jokinen initiated it and Male was quick to break it again. The judges all scored the fight 30-27 to Male, giving him the unanimous decision victory in one his most important fights to date. And so we came to the Main Event of the show, the third contest between two of the top Middleweights in the world with the Blitzkrieg Middleweight title on the line. Harsan Varsi (20-6) made the first defence of his title against the former champion Manny Baddabing (20-3). Baddabing came out quickly looking to land some punches, but despite connecting with some decent shots early on Varsi was quick to start avoiding the strikes. After a minute Baddabing shot in and scored a takedown, landing in Varsi's guard, and whilst on the ground Baddabing began trying to posture up and land some ground and pound. Baddabing soon moved out of the guard and into side control, where he was able to begin looking for submissions. An Americana didn't quite work but allowed Baddabing to get into full mount, from there he attempted an armbar but Varsi stacked him up and quickly used the opportunity to get back to his feet. Baddabing managed to score another takedown just before the end of the round, but also failed with three takedown attempts during the first round. Round 2 saw Baddabing being agressive with his stand-up again in the early stages, landing some decent strikes to the head of Varsi before shooting in to get another takedown. This time Baddabing went for a kneebar, but fell victim to the MMA Tycoon Leglock Reversal System, allowing Varsi to stand back up. The fight remained standing for the rest of the second round, this allowed Varsi to finally get some control as he began to dominate the striking game. He became far more accurate, landing good jabs and hooks that didn't do a lot of damage but kept Baddabing at bay, particularly as Baddabing was shooting in for takedowns more than throwing punches. Varsi sprawled or avoided on all the takedown attempts, I counted eight but I could be wrong, and eventually Varsi connected with a hard left hand that opened up a cut on Baddabing's eyebrow. Vrsi continued to strike well and avoid Baddabing's punches until the second round ended. They came out striking in Round 3 again, Varsi once again looked like he had control of the stand-up but that was quickly nullified by a Baddabing takedown a minute into the round. Baddabing took side control and looked for an Americana straight away, but ended up losing the position back into half guard. Baddabing wasted little in time in advancing his position though, this time moving into mount and beginning to land some ground and pound. An attempted kimura didn't quite work but Baddabing kept the mount, landing some hard ground and pound to the head of Varsi that ended up leaving Varsi rocked. Baddabing kept on raining down punches as Varsi struggled to defend the strikes, and soon the punches were landing fully and Varsi was as good as knocked out. The referee pulled Baddabing away to give him the victory, he reclaims the Blitzkrieg Middleweight title and takes the rubber match against Varsi to win the "series" 2-1. Will these two have a fourth fight in the future? Only time will tell... ----------------------------------------- Statistics Event Rating: 222.79 Attendance: 6,359 Fight of the Night: Manny Baddabing vs. Harsan Varsi KO of the Night: Rick Thomas Submission of the Night: BJ Penn -----------------------------------------

Blitzkrieg were back on Saturday 12th March for their latest show Blitz 143: Moving Pictures. I believe that is an album name from the band Rush, which is where Georges St. Pierre gets his nickname from. The real one, not one the 20,000 Georges St. Pierres that fight in Montreal in Tycoon. Main Eventing the show was a Blitzkrieg Lightweight Title contest that saw the undefeated and greatly feared Shock N Awe put the title up for grabs against his latest challenger Ngbendu wa Za Banga. With so many victims having fallen to Awe in the past he came in as a heavy favourite, but would Za Banga be the first man to defeat the champion? The first fight of the night was in the Welterweight division as Leonid Kulminator (17-5) took on Cormac McCarthy (16-7-1). The two fighters exchanged jabs early on, but aside from that the action was a bit limited with neither fighter seemingly wanting to make the first move. Kulminator landed a punch to the body, McCarthy landed one of his own but missed a head kick. McCarthy tried to clinch but Kulminator kept him away, only to get caught by a combination from McCarthy that opened up a cut under Kulminator's right eye. We had sixty seconds of big punches being thrown by both fighters, but each one missed it's target. McCarthy landed a cross, then followed that up with a hard combination that backed Kulminator up against the cage. McCarthy swarmed on Kulminator and landed a series of hard punches, each one connecting, and Kulminator dropped to the mat. McCarthy kept on landing shots once Kulminator hit the ground, and it didn't take long for the referee to intervene and call a halt to the contest, so McCarthy took home the first round TKO victory. The next fight saw Mike Underhill (11-4) take on Anton Chigurh (11-3) in the Heavyweight division. I'm not great at predictions, but I reckoned that somebody would win their 12th fight in this contest. Both fighters came out looking to be more aggressive than the previous bout's combatants, Underhill landed a good jab, whilst Chigurh looked to land spectacular head kicks. Underhill kept on landing his jab whilst Chigurh continued to struggle to land his kicks, Underhill taking the much safer approach and landing more shots as a result. Underhill shot in for a takedown that Chigurh was easily able to block, and he quickly took the opportunity to bring the fight into the clinch. From there Chigurh was definitely in control, landing hard punches and knees to both the body and head of Underhill, with one knee to the head powerful enough to open a cut over Underhill's right eye. Chigurh kept on going for his knees to the head, a lot of them didn't connect but those that did certainly dealt out a lot of damage. Underhill was eventually rocked when a knee from Chigurh connected right on the eye socket, before a second knee to the jaw put him down to the canvas. Chigurh began hammering away with ground and pound until the referee told him to stop, pulling Chigurh away from the fallen Underhill to give him the TKO victory. Our third fight of the evening took place in the Middleweight division, as Richard Bennett (10-3) took on Shachlo Popyachtsa (17-10). There was more blood right at the start of the fight, Bennett moved out aggressively and landed a hard jab that opened up a cut over Popyachtsa's right eye. Bennett continued to land some good shots, both punches and leg kicks connecting with Popyachtsa, whilst Popyachtsa struggled to do anything in response. Bennett landed a straight right hand that made the cut on Popyachtsa even worse, before following up with a leg kick, then a head kick that sent Popyachtsa down to the canvas. Bennett followed Popyachtsa down, and with Popyachtsa barely able to think straight it didn't take long for Bennett to roll him over and take his back. Bennett quickly went for a rear naked choke and got his arm under the chin, before flattening Popyachtsa out and squeezing away! Popyachtsa was left with no option but to either tap out or go to sleep, and he opted to tap out and save himself for another day. A superb performance from Bennett to take the first round submission victories, these first round stoppages are making my life easy, and I do appreciate it. The next fight was between Aleksi Borga (16-4) and Ara Vahaber (18-6-1) in the Blitzkrieg Heavyweight division. A tentative period of striking early in the first round saw both fighters look to connect, but it was Vahaber with a leg kick and a body kick that did the most damage early on. Vahaber continued with his tactic of chopping away at Borga with low kicks for the first half of the round, before changing things up by shooting in and securing a takedown into half guard. Vahaber attempted to advance his position but Borga kept it at bay, so Vahaber opted to just stay in half guard and look for submissions. An arm triangle attempt didn't work, nor did an attempt at a kimura, or a second attempt at an arm triangle. At least he was trying to do something, but Borga managed to stay out of harms way until the end of the round. Borga went for a different strategy in Round 2, looking to try and clinch with Vahaber and land strikes on the inside. Vahaber was able to stay at a distance for the first minute, but he looked to be a bit tired and Borga moved in to do some damage. He landed a lot of good punches on the inside, several hard uppercuts and hooks connecting with the jaw of Vahaber who couldn't break free of the clinch no matter how hard he tried. Borga kept the pressure on with more shots to the head and occasionally the body, leaving Vahaber rocked up against the cage. Borga continued to land strikes, until a hard uppercut connected and knocked Vahaber down. A beaten Vahaber offered little resistance to the blows Borga was landing, and the referee intervened to call a halt to the fight. Wow, four fights, four finishes. YAY BLITZKRIEG. Borga did well to overcome losing the first round to utterly dominate the second round and take home the victory. The fifth fight of the evening was in the Heavyweight division, as one of Blitzkrieg's brightest prospects John Farson (7-0) took on Ryan Evans (10-2-1). This may not come as much of a shock to many people, but Farson is a dangerous man. He proved this by cutting Evans open almost straight away with a right hook, before delivering some hard leg kicks and body punches. Evans tried his best and was swinging hard but Farson has a tough chin, taking the shots in his stride and landing a couple more hooks. Farson then connected with a vicious head kick that landed right on the jaw of Evans, Evans crumpled to the mat and was out cold. 46 seconds was all it took for Farson to add another name to his list of victims, and I for one can't wait for Farson to start mixing it up with the Kaisers and Hois of the Blitzkrieg Heavyweight division. The second half of the show kicked off with a fight in the Lightweight division, with Paul Cicero (9-2) taking on Ratrick Obeh (14-2). It took just thirty seconds for Cicero to shoot in and get a takedown, and he stayed on top of Obeh for the entire first round. There was the occasional movement from half guard, to guard, to side control, to half guard, so the referee didn't have the opportunity to stand them up. Cicero did go for a couple of submissions, an attempted kimura came closest to being locked in, but Obeh was able to hold on until the end of the round. Round 2 was almost identical, except the fight was standing for a lot longer in the early half of the round despite Cicero's attempts to get a takedown. Cicero was probably the better striker as well, meaning Obeh was getting beaten in pretty much every aspect. Cicero got a takedown halfway through the round and once again he started going for submissions. In all he went for four submissions in the space of two minutes, there was an Americana, an arm triangle and two kimura attempts, but each time Obeh was able to get his body out of trouble. Cicero scored a takedown very early in Round 3, shortly after landing a head kick, always a good way to set up a takedown attempt. This time the referee stood them up after a lack of action, and back on the feet Obeh came out looking to land a lot of strikes, one of which happened to be a low kick to the groin of Cicero. After the recovery break for Cicero he shot in and got another takedown, but Obeh used some good ground skills to reverse the positions and take the top. Cicero was active from the bottom, looking for submissions and eventually sweeping Obeh to retake the top position and kept it until the end of the fight. All three judges scored the fight in favour of Cicero, two of them scoring it 30-26 with the second round being given as a 10-8. Next up was a contest between two of the biggest names in the Lightweight division, as Good Day (13-4-1) took on Elmer Montgomery (16-1). Day was looking for a takedown early on but Montgomery was able to keep it standing whenever Day shot in, but both men were landing decent shots on the feet. Day caught Montgomery with a kick to the groin, and when Montgomery had recovered Day took the fight into the clinch. Both men worked hard on the inside but Day was probably the more aggressive, landing some impressive knees to the head of Montgomery before they separated. With 90 seconds left in the round Day scored a takedown, and immediately started looking for submissions on the ground. A kimura and an arm triangle were not successful though, and the round came to an end shortly afterwards. Round 2 began with a brief striking exchange from a distance, before Day moved in and initiated another clinch. Again both fighters landed a lot of strikes inside the clinch, but Day probably connected with the more powerful strikes, landing elbows, knees and punches to the head of Montgomery. Day was still trying to take the fight to the ground and failed with three takedown attempts, before he landed another kick to the groin of Montgomery, which probably helped set up his successful takedown attempt very late in the round. They were on the ground for only thirty seconds before the round ended. Montgomery started Round 3 by landing a good combination that opened a cut under the right eye of Day, and Montgomery was certainly doing better in this round with his striking than in the previous two. Unfortunately for Montgomery it didn't last long, Day shot in and got another takedown, and after a brief struggle he got through into full mount. Day landed some hard ground and pound, several elbow strikes in particular looked pretty fierce, before Day isolated one of Montgomery's arms, and twisted in into an armbar. Montgomery struggled but he was forced to tap out or have some arm ligaments snapped in two. Day got the victory with the late submission, he would probably have won a decision had the fight gone another 19 seconds. The eighth fight of the night, which ended up being the semi Main Event for reasons that shall be explained later, was a Middleweight division contest between Hulohot Yokohama (18-6) and Victor Kowalczyk (8-1). The first three minutes of the fight took place on the feet and it was an entertaining slugfest, Yokohama came out kicking and landed several hard shots to the legs and ribs of Kowalczyk, whilst Kowalczyk was struggling to find his range and wasn't connecting with very many of the punches he was throwing. Kowalczyk got a takedown three minutes in and got straight into full mount, but despite such a dominant position he couldn't land enough ground and pound to put Yokohama in a lot of trouble, and Yokohama managed to last out until the end of the round without taking much damage. Round 2 was very similar, it started off with Yokohama throwing all sorts of strikes early on and landing quite a few of them, Kowalczyk was looking for takedowns but Yokohama did well to stuff them and keep the fight standing. It couldn't last forever though, and halfway through the round Kowalczyk got a double leg takedown into guard. The fight remained on the ground for the rest of the round, there wasn't a whole lot of action as Kowalczyk's attempts at ground and pound from the guard weren't very successful, and neither fighter could advance their positions into somewhere more productive. It came down to Round 3 and Yokohama seemed determined that this round was going to be his, again he came out aggressively with hard kicks to the legs of Kowalcyzk, and stuffed any attempted takedowns that Kowalczyk went for. Yokohama moved the fight into the clinch for a bit and landed some hard punches to the head and body of Kowalczyk, before deciding to move back to striking from a distance. Yokohama continued to dominate the stand-up with some hard strikes that Kowalcyzk couldn't do anything about, Kowalczyk wasn't very aggressive at all during the fight as he only threw 24 strikes, landing just 8. Yokohama kept it standing for the whole round and was relentless in landing his strikes, even if they never Kowalczyk to be rocked or knocked down at any point. The fight ended up going to the judges, and we had a bit of a strange outcome. All three judges scored the first round a 10-10, then the second round a 10-9 to Kowalczyk. The third round was given to Yokohama, but two judges scored it a 10-8, meaning he took a majority decision win, 29-28, 29-28 and 28-28. Unfortunately the fight between Kel Varnson and Bael Adonael did not take place as intended, as Varnson was not in Hilo for the event. I expect that this did quite a bit of damage to the event rating, although I'm not entirely sure if the score is calculated from the previous match or not. Either way, it's a shame that the fight didn't take place, hopefully Varnson's manager will be back soon as he's not logged in since March 3rd. And then we came to the Main Event, a battle for the ages for the Blitzkrieg Lightweight title as the undefeated champion Shock N Awe (22-0) took on the challenger Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga (15-2). And boy did these two come in to put on a show. The first round was all action, all the time as both fighters decided to just swing for the fences, although the accuracy of the fighters wasn't great the crowd were certainly entertained by their aggression. In the first minute Awe connected with a spectacular spinning back fist, whilst Za Banga landed a low kick to the groin of Awe. Za Banga was trying for a lot of kicks, landing lots to the leg of Awe, whilst Awe was a bit more varied in his strikes, looking for both kicks and punches. Za Banga's leg kicks were hard enough to chop Awe down to the ground on one occasion, whilst Awe's strikes caused a cut to open up under the left eye of Za Banga. Both fighters continued to land strikes until the end of the round, and in a close call the first round was given to Shock N Awe. Awe started Round 2 by chopping za Banga down to the floor with a leg kick, and as he progressed through the round he continued to land good shots whilst avoiding za Banga's strikes at the same time. The second round was probably Awe's best of the fight, Za Banga landed some shots but he was out struck by Awe overall. Awe was landing a lot of good strikes to the head of Za Banga, but Za Banga was showing how tough he was by not letting either the repeated shots to the head or the blood running down his face get the better of him. Things changed in Round 3 though, Za Banga's accuracy became much better as he landed a lot more of his kicks, and even countered a missed Awe strike with a flying knee. Za Banga's kicks to the ribs and legs were really starting to take their toll, it wasn't hard to see that Awe had began to limp a bit and his ribs seemed to have a visible mark on them. Into the championship rounds they went, and Za Banga continued to be in control with his leg kicks. Every time one of them landed it seemed that Awe was wincing with pain, and without his full range of movement due to the damage done to his legs, Awe was struggling to move out of harm's way whenever Za Banga threw another kick. Awe managed to connect with a good uppercut but the number of strikes he was throwing had slowed down considerably after his domination of the first two rounds. The final round came and both men looked tired, but both were still out to fight as they were told by their corners that this was the decisive round. Awe tried his best early on in the round but Za Banga was keeping him at bay with some good punches, usually countering whenever Awe went for a big punch or kick and missed his target. Za Banga's leg kicks continued to be brutally connecting with the thigh of Awe, a lesser man would probably have collapsed in a heap by now, but Awe still there and still fighting back. Za Banga landed a head kick and a good right hand as the time began to slip away, Za Banga seemingly the better conditioned fighter as he was able to keep on throwing strikes right up until the final bell. Overall the statistics showed that Awe landed 92 strikes, 47 of them head punches, with an accuracy of 35%, Za Banga landed 147 strikes with an accuracy of 55%, 75 of those strikes were leg kicks with another 30 kicks connecting to the ribs. It was the very definition of a stand-up war, a fact made all the clearer by the 100% fight rating. The judges all scored the fight the same, 48-47, giving the win to... Za Banga! We have a new Blitzkrieg Lightweight champion, Shock N Awe has tasted defeat for the first time, and I've just spent quite a long time writing about this one fight. -------------------------------------- Statistics Event Rating: 197.21 Attendance: 5,790 KO Of The Night: John Farson Submission Of The Night: Richard Bennett Fight Of The Night: Shock N Awe vs. Ngbendu wa Za Banga