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  1. SPFT #9 - Review (03 September 2023 - Big Kahunarena, Hilo) Prelims Fight 1 - Heavyweight Division (0-0)(13-65, 230 lbs) (0-0) (7-6, 270 lbs) Mariusz “Pudzian” Pudzianowski VS Sophus “Clever” Antias I love seeing Pudzianowski make his entrance. He comes in in a wheelchair drooling all over himself. Fighting 79 times and being knocked out 29 of those at only 29 years of age does some things to a man. His opponent Antias was a bit more traditional, entering without any drool and a sense of excitement. Both fighters were making their debuts with the SPFT organization this evening with something to prove. Pudzian had to prove there was still a human in that shell of his while Antias wanted to show that his early QFC success wasn’t a fluke. Antias gave a classy performance, electing not to go for his opponent’s head in any of his 7 strikes (perhaps worried he’d kill him if he did). However, that didn’t stop him from taking away the victory when, on only his second takedown attempt, he took Pudzian down and summarily submitted him 1:58 into the first round. Antias had little he could prove with a win over this opponent, but winning that quickly could mean something for the fighter. We will have to wait and see how his next fight goes to truly know what we have on our hands with him. Pudzianowski can at least be happy he leaves the fight having taken no more head blows. Say what you will, but he is a determined mentally tough fighter, maybe one day his skills can match his mentality. Fight 2 - Heavyweight Division (0-0)(6-9, 267 lbs) (0-2)(5-8, 220 lbs) Andonicus “BoogeyMan” Unimanus VS David Nikora Next we witnessed a fresh face who came to us from WFC in disgrace to take on Nikora who we have witnessed lose on two occasions. We were treated to a short, but eventful fight which was to be expected with the fighters stylistic match up. We saw a lot more activity out of Unimanus and he looked like the better fighter early on, dodging and countering some shots. However, as the fight went on he got more and more active and less and less accurate with Nikora being the one looking on top. However, in a head scratching display Unimanus clinches then shoves Nikora, breaking the clinch he initiated. He followed this by immediately cracking Nikora across the face, knocking him down where he finished the fight at 4:41 into the first round. Unimanus had a successful debut with little struggle, but beating Nikora can only be the beginning for him if he wants to go anywhere in the heavyweight division. Nikora’s woes in the SPFT continue. A third straight loss has to be demoralizing, but people have recovered from worse so let's see where his future goes. Undercard Fight 3 - Lightweight Division (0-1)(14-2-1, 169 lbs) (0-0)(8-8, 162 lbs) “The Holy Ghost” Christ Benoit VS Randy Graham Benoit may have started off his SPFT career with a disappointing loss, but he is still one of the most highly skilled fighters in the lightweight division. Taking him on is Randy Graham who, like many of our fighters, is in a major slump winning only 1 of his last 5 fights. The fight itself was rather on the short side. Benoit came out ready for some action, but Graham was content to kick Benoit’s face off. All it took was 3 landed head kicks, with the last being a vicious feint into a head kick, to put Benoit on the map unconscious only 57 seconds into the fight. Graham Made his entrance into our lightweight division in style. Not often you see someone not land a single punch and knockout his opponent. At only 27 he has many fights left to go so maybe we can hope for more excitement from him. Benoit finds himself on the losing end for only the 3rd time in his career, but every single one of his losses have been via (T)KO. Has he finally revealed the chink in his armor opposing fighters can attack, or is it just a minor set back? Fight 4 - Heavyweight Division (0-0)(6-0, 235 lbs) (0-0)(2-2, 285 lbs) Lalo “The Lion” Jimenez VS “Biggy” Paul Mandeville We haven’t had this many people making their debuts since the early days of the SPFT. Jimenez is a weird fighter if you look at his history. He went many years without fighting, before finally at 40 deciding it was time to start back up. Now a win later he decided to challenge himself by entering the SPFT cage. His opponent is only slightly over half his age and has thus far only fought in the QFC. He is making his organizational debut against a very wily and troublesome opponent. The fight itself was short, but eventful. Jimenez attempted takedown after takedown, while Mandeville was more passive, but looking for his own counter takedown attempts. After stuffing many attempts Mandevill eventually found himself on his back and from there it wasn’t too hard for Jimenez to lock in the armbar and take home the W. Its hard to see Jimenez continuing to go undefeated, but the 41 year old should be happy with his performances so far. We will have to see how he fares against stiffer competition to truly know where he lies at 41 years old. Mandeville will hopefully shake off this defeat. He went up against an undefeated much older fighter and didn’t make a bad showing of himself. Hopefully he can bounce back with a good performance in his next fight. Fight 5 - Middleweight Division (1-0)(4-5, 194 lbs) (1-0)(6-8, 196 lbs) Tuur Carlier VS Kajulik “Vicious” Van Dorner Our mid card fight pits Carlier who was the person who Began SPFT’s resurgence as the person who won the opening fight of SPFT #1. He faces up against Van Dorner who had a decent showing, winning via decision at SPFT #4. Neither of these fighters can be considered among the frontrunners in the middleweight division, but you can’t call them bottom of the barrel either. Carlier, especially at 22 years old, could make improvements in the future. The fight itself was very one sided. Carlier took Van Dorner down early on and from there he was allowed to do whatever he wanted. Van Dorner looked like a turtle on his back flailing around until eventually Carlier locked in the armbar forcing Van Dorner to tap. Carlier with another solid fight in the SPFT. At the moment he is a very one dimensional fighter, but if he can develop the other parts of his game he could eventually make waves in the SPFT. Van Dorner looked absolutely hopeless off of his back. If he wants to be a regular victor he is going to need to shore up that weakness sooner rather than later. Fight 6 - Light Heavyweight Division (1-0)(23-16, 215 lbs) (1-0)(15-9, 210 lbs) Patrick “The Titan” Thomas VS Davon Davis Our last fight of the undercard pits two fighters returning after successful debuts in SPFT #5 and 6 respectively, against eachother. Thomas with the win over Marius via decision and Davis beating Ascheulov via TKO. It feels like we have had a lot of short fights lightly in the SPFT as we learn each fighter’s relative level slowly, but surely as a young org. However, this fight was not a short one, nor was it one sided. The first round was a lock for Davis, he looked by far the cleaner of the two fighters, seeming to land more strikes and avoiding many of Thomas’. However, the second round was the real deciding round. It was a very tight round with both fighters seeming to land equal amounts of punishment. What may have tipped the round in Thomas’ favor was the cut he managed to open up on Davis. The third round was just as close as the second, but the judges ultimately gave it to Thomas, making him the winner via unanimous decision. Thomas may have to fight Davis again to prove he truly is the better fighter. He looked solid, but he was the less active fighter and landed less strikes throughout the match. Many of Davis’ fans may protest this result, but at the end of the day he was the losing fighter. If he had continued the tempo and accuracy from the first round in even one of the two following rounds he would have been the easy winner. Main Card Fight 7 - Heavyweight Division (0-0)(5-12, 231 lbs) (1-0)(7-1, 263 lbs) Torsten “The Hammer” Mjolnir VS “The First Emperor” Fyodor Dmitriev Onto the main action Mjolnir makes his SPFT debut after a poor run in DC. His opponent Dmitriev impressed in his debut at SPFT #4 and will hope to continue with his already successful career. This fight you could not tell who was the more experienced fighter. Mjolnir came in hot, but inaccurate while Dmitriev calmly handled everything thrown at him and returned in kind. The calm was short lived, however. Once Dmitriev locked in the clinch he exploded into a whirlwind of action, rocking Mjolnir with an uppercut then finishing him with a huge right 1:16 into the first round. Others in the heavyweight division better watch out. Dmitriev looks downright terrifying. Two knockouts in 3:40 cage time is an impressive feat and at only 25 years old he could become an SPFT heavyweight staple. A disappointing showing from Mjolnir as the misery just piles onto the down on his luck fighter. I don’t want to go doom and gloom on the new fighter given the strength of his opponent, but he needs to make a better showing of himself in the next one for sure. Fight 8 - Welterweight Division (1-0)(11-7-1, 175 lbs) (1-1)(12-12, 180 lbs) Toe Jam “Und Earl” VS “Steel Penn” Chrysanthos Xanthopolous Wow! This isn’t a main event fight? Jam is entering the SPFT cage for the 2nd time after an impressive knockout of the night performance at SPFT #4. Running up against him is Xanthopolous fresh of his defeat in the championship fight in SPFT #5. For the first round you could see Jam came out with a strategy of just sheer activity. He was by far the more active fighter, accuracy be damned. This strategy however, carried him well through the first two rounds, very clearly the leading fighter, opening up a cut on Xanthopolous as well. However, the third round is where things got a little spicy. Xanthoplous looked like a different fighter. He came out swinging and boy was he landing just about everything he threw. Jam was always on the back foot unable to muster up a whole lot in return. Unfortunately, or fortunately if your Jam, it was too little late. Xanthopolous had already lost the two first rounds cleanly and was unable to finish jam, sealing the decision victory for Toe Jam. Jam looked great, but one has to wonder if the gameplan from Xanthopolous contributed more to this victory than his own performance. However, sitting 2-0 after two fights in the organization is exactly what he needs to make a name for himself. Xanthopolous held his shot for too long, but he can hopefully learn from this performance and maybe push his next opponent a little harder. He has already proven himself as a contender, having gone the distance against the champ as well. He just hasn’t quite been able to swing those decisions his way just yet. Co-Main Event - Welterweight Championship Fight (2-0)(17-10, 180 lbs) (0-0)(26-2, 180 lbs) (C)Nicholas McDonald VS Nyrkki “SISU” Rauta What a treat tonight. We get not one, but two title fights to cap off an exciting showing from our wonderful SPFT fighters. Each title fight carries the added pressure of the fact, so far none of the people defending their belts have lost yet. Who will be our first champ to fall from power? McDonald definitely doesn’t want to be the first and he definitely showed he wasn’t unbeatable when he won the belt via decision. If anyone can take the belt it's got to be Rauta. You're talking about a man who has spent 19 of his 28 fights in a title fight. He carried the WFC belt up until joining our organization, and no one batted an eye when he was given an instant title shot upon joining. The fight was exactly what one would ask from a title fight. Both fighters showed very diverse skillsets, and were very active, not resting within clinches like we some fighters do in 5 round fights. From a striking standpoint both fighters looked very equally matched, with McDonald throwing and landing more kicks, but Rauta throwing and landing more punches. It was within the clinch where the true difference lied and the fight was ultimately decided. Rauta was always the one to initiate the clinch, and it showed why. McDonald just did not hold up against Rauta and while he managed to break out of the clinch fairly well, he just couldn’t match Rauta’s effectiveness there. It was a rather one-sided decision as Rauta won every round, but the rounds themselves were decided by paper thin margins and a few more strikes here or there could easily have swung this fight in McDonald’s favor. We finally have a champion dethroned!!! However, Rauta being the one to take up the mantle makes it a very daunting task to ever see the Welterweight belt change hands again. McDonald will be disappointed to have been the first champ to lose his belt, but he did not put on a bad show. He could very easily have won this fight and it would not be a shock to see him earn his way back to a rematch in the near future. Main Event - Lightweight Championship Fight (0-0)(21-12, 165 lbs) (2-0)(18-10, 164 lbs) Dick “Armbar” Niaz VS “The Ringworm” Erasmo Bezerra Our final bout of the evening sees us finally crowning a lightweight champion. Niaz makes his debut in spectacular fashion, with the chance to earn a belt in his first fight. Don’t take this to mean he was being given anything for free. He earned his right to this instant shot with his past performances in both the DC and DMMA organizations having held both belts. His opponent is someone we have already seen fight twice and many were calling for him to get a shot at the belt. Now after two straight TKO’s he gets his chance to prove his proponents were correct. Bezerra vs Niaz!!!! Oof! This fight felt like a repeat of Bezerra’s fight against Schlong. An early takedown with some impressive ground and pound mixed in. Where this one differed is that Niaz was able to take the abuse from the ground and pound, even attempting a submission here or there. Not to be deterred, Bezerra decided to go for his own takedown, eventually locking in a Kimura forcing Niaz to tap. Another strong showing from Bezerra and we finally see his performances culminate in a belt around his waist. He has looked very strong since coming to the SPFT, who will manage to unseat this man now that he is at the top? Niaz didn’t look completely helpless in this fight, but it's definitely not what a former champion expects. He will have to recover his standing in the org for another shot, but I expect to see more from this strong fighter.
  2. (After a surprise visit from family here is yet another late Event review, I swear I'll eventually catch up.....) SPFT #8 - Review (27 August 2023 - Big Kahunarena, Hilo) Prelims Fight 1 - Light Heavyweight Division (0-2)(18-18, 213 lbs) (0-1) (11-25, 210 lbs) Roy “Full Tank” Gaston VS Daniel Pawlikowski Gaston just can’t seem to find his form, having lost 5 straight fights. Hoping to pile on the misery is Pawlikowski who at least earned fight of the night honors in his SPFT debut. It was a very scandalous fight. Pawlikowski seemed more interested in touching his skin to Gaston’s than actually fighting. It was a lot of clinches followed by takedowns, which Gaston seemed completely unable to stop. However, Gaston definitely dealt more damage over the fight; perhaps this fact is why the judges scored it a draw. Gaston with higher damage and Pawlikowski being the one to control all grappling. Gaston did nothing to put himself as the clear winner, but all the same….a draw isn’t a loss? Given his slide he may be happy with this result. Pawlikowski will most likely be screaming for a rematch after this fight. He didn’t look terrible in his debut, but a fight like this does not give confidence in his SPFT future. Fight 2 - Middleweight Division (0-2)(11-13, 185 lbs) (0-2)(5-8, 198 lbs) Eli Vieira VS Miguel “Rokka” Garces The second fight of the evening pitted 2 time loser Vieira against another 2 time loser, in Garces. Both fighters are at absolute empty morale levels off the back of many poor performances. The good news is that one of these men had to win. Or did they…..? Ha just kidding they didn’t tie. If you look solely at the scorecard you will be very confused by the actual result. Garces was able to clinch at will throughout the fight and even showed some activity within the clinch. Vieira was the more active fighter standing, but did little in the way of damage or even a significant amount of strikes. Yet somehow the judges gave the match to Vieira in a consistent 29:28 fashion. Vieira may have won, but the way in which he won leaves a lot to be desired. This win does little to convince me he will turn around his career at 32, especially against someone else who is 0-2 in the SPFT. Another fight, another disappointing result for Garces. At 22 he has plenty of time to turn his career around, but with his morale in the dumps it will take a serious win spree to salvage the fighters confidence. Undercard Fight 3 - Light Heavyweight Division (2-0)(6-0, 218 lbs) (0-1)(3-7, 215 lbs) Scotty T Bone VS Marcus Wheeler Coming into our third fight I came in wondering now who would win, but how long it would take T Bone to win. He has looked amazing in both of his SPFT fights, winning “of the night” honors in both. His opponent Wheeler on the other hand lost his debut, albeit in a very tightly contested affair. The only surprise in the first round was the fact both fighters ended it on their feet. It was a very dominant showing by T Bone, but Wheeler really showed some grit as he stuck in there after all the abuse. The second round was more of the same, failed takedown attempts by Wheeler and some decent striking from T Bone. However, Wheeler’s toughness eventually ran out and he went down with a perfect right straight from T Bone. KO 3:20 into the second round. T Bone continued his dominance in the SPFT. While he might not be one of the top fighters in the division, age is really the only thing keeping him from mucking it up with those at the top. He is developing really nicely and I could see him in the upper echelon in a couple years. Wheeler Showed Grit and Heart, but little else. He came in apparently with only the plan of taking this fight to the ground. When that failed he never changed strategies, despite being a decent striker himself. At 25 he isn’t much older than T Bone so maybe as he enters his prime he can wise up and show more of what he has to offer. Fight 4 - Middleweight Division (0-2)(25-32, 194 lbs) (0-1)(16-14, 199 lbs) Shaun “Brundong” Brownie VS Ilya Muromets In our fourth fight of the evening two of Wick’s victims face off against each other. Both of these guys, despite their record, are in the upper tier of our middleweight division. Brownie, at 42 has had a long storied career, but seems to have begun showing his age. On the other hand Muromets is 31 and has quite a few good years left in the tank. The fight itself took less time than it did me to enter their records into this document. Brownie took the fight to the ground, but almost immediately regretted it as Muromets locked in his first submission attempt at 44 seconds, promptly ending the fight. Muromets has his eyes on the prize. Another win and he may just earn himself a rematch against Wick to truly cement himself in the SPFT middleweight division. Brownie just can’t seem to shake his late career slump. He has now lost 6 straight fights with no end in sight to his troubles. He has lost his last 4 within the first round leaving little doubt as to his career’s trajectory at this point. Fight 5 - Welterweight Division (0-0)(1-2, 177 lbs) (0-0)(23-21-2, 187 lbs) Esteban “Flamingo” Mondragon VS Mr Spar In our fifth fight of the evening Mondragon comes in with a wealth of Grappling experience, but only 3 mma bouts. He has not looked nearly as capable of competing in mma, but is still one of the most skilled fighters in the SPFT welterweight division. His opponent Mr. Spar is equally skilled, but has a lot more experience in mma, even reaching 70th at one point in his career. The fight itself was high level, but largely uneventful. Each fighter concentrating on control instead of actual damage. The tipping point for this fight seemed to be down to takedowns. Mondragon went 7/7 while Spar went 0/2. It of course went the distance and Mondragon’s hand was raised in front of some largely unimpressed fans. If he keeps fighting like this, the only way he will ever finish an opponent is through sheer boredom. He takes a deserved, but lackluster victory in his SPFT debut. Spar can’t really fault his opponent’s strategy when he seemed to have come in with a similar idea of how to win. I hope this was just a blip and we will see some more excitement from the man in his future fights. Fight 6 - Heavyweight Division (0-2)(11-12-1, 254 lbs) (0-0)(24-12-1, 261 lbs) Xavier Washington VS Demir Kocak As we round the halfway point Washington tries to get over his slump thus far in the SPFT against a fighter I am truly excited to see. Kocak is an ex Enigma, HFC, and Madness champion. I can’t wait to see how well the former #1 heavyweight in the world performs now at 36 years old. After the prior snoozefest this fight was a real heart thumper. Washington looked good dodging many of Kocak’s early strikes, but once he started throwing strikes of his own Kocak showed his pedigree. It only took him 1:27 to put out Washington’s lights with a strong counter right hand. Kocak lived up to all the expectations I had on him ahead of time. His next fight against Steele who fought later in this same card should put him in line for a title challenge if he can win it. Washington yet again shows that he is just barely outside of being a contender in the heavyweight division. While he is most definitely one of the most skilled fighters in the division, he just can’t quite seem to win against the true top level in the SPFT. Main Card Fight 7 - Featherweight Championship Fight (0-0)(12-4, 135 lbs) (2-0)(9-6, 145 lbs) Amakusa Saneuji VS (C)Kittisak Saetang Our main card begins in style. The Featherweight division title is once again up for grabs as Saetang works to avoid being the first champion to lose his belt. The challenger Saneuji is not used to being a challenger. He was the HFC champion and successfully defended his own belt 5 times before winning the WFC belt, successfully defending it, then joining us here in the SPFT. Our belt holder is fresh off an easy victory over Walcott looking his toughest test to date in the face. The first round was a real doozy, but a rough start by Saneuji that left him rocked by a vicious head kick, really set the tone. It looked to be a bit of a mistake to follow up the knockdown, but Saetang’s impressive defensive grappling combined with highly accurate, effective ground and pound, completely disabused anyone of the fact Saetang can’t grapple. He fended off a whopping 13 submission attempts while simultaneously landing 11 of 11 strikes on top. Then the second round started the same as the first, but this time Saetang’s hook ended things with no need to follow up. 20 seconds into the second round Saetang defended his belt for the first time. Saetang vs Saneuji could be one of those fights we see multiple times in the SPFT featherweight division. Saetang is only 25 and has much of his career in front of him. He is slowly, but surely gaining hype and we could see his name becoming widespread within the mma world. Saneuji didn’t get to show us much other than failed submission attempts. One has to wonder how this fight would have gone if he had not made such a big mistake early on in the fight. Fight 8 - Heavyweight Division (1-1)(13-9, 265 lbs) (0-1)(27-26, 255 lbs) Daniel Steel VS Inspektor Gee In Steel’s first fight since his defeat at Steve’s hands in the SPFT #4 heavyweight championship bout, we see him pitted against an older fighter who himself has both won and lost title fights. Gee looked poor in his debut fight against Dmitriev, but it's hard to tell whether that is due to his own inadequacies or Dmitriev’s strength. The fight itself was pretty one sided. Gee seemed to be showing his age, ceding all control to the younger Steel. It looked like Gee was going for a more controlled slow paced fight, but Steel was frenetic, but accurate. He landed a majority of his shots, proving to be too much for Gee and ending the fight 3:48 into the first round with a crisp combination. Steel Showed more of what got him the title shot in the first place. He has to be considered one of the top fighters in the heavyweight division and I can’t wait to see him take on Kocak in a battle between two very closely matched individuals. Gee has now lost 7 straight fights and has to be staring retirement in the face. You have to wonder just how much more abuse the 40 year old can take. Co-Main Event - Heavyweight Division (0-0)(29-4, 224 lbs) (0-0)(14-3, 265 lbs) KT Failure VS Conrad Cartwright An already stacked Heavyweight division rears its ugly head as two champions from other organizations butt heads in the co-main event of the evening. KT Failure was an impressive 25-1 in his KT career, with 10 straight title defenses in the TFC. His opponent Cartwright boasts an impressive 14-3 record having won the ICE championship and defending it once. Cartwright definitely comes in the hotter fighter with 6 straight victories, but Failure (despite his name) is a very impressive fighter in his own right. It was a short, but eventful fight. Cartwright came out like a maniac throwing strike after strike at the more measured Failure. Despite landing almost everything he threw, Failure eventually succumbed to the inaccurate onslaught from Cartwright after a nasty uppercut sent him to the mat for a referee stoppage at 3:43 into the first round. Cartwright made up for what he lacked in “skill” with sheer energy. He wasn’t particularly accurate, but he was more active and apparently more powerful. His fight against Werewolf Night should be just as exciting as this fight was. Failure lived up to his name in this fight. His lack of activity bit him big time as he looked like the more technical fighter he just didn’t do enough. Main Event - Middleweight Championship Fight (2-0)(15-10-2, 185 lbs) (0-0)(19-0, 196 lbs) (C) “Pisces” Nelson Biederman VS Stinky Stonk We entered the final bout of the evening knowing we would see a first. Either Biederman would be the first SPFT fighter to fail his title defense, or we would see Stonk lose a fight for the first time. Biederman joined the SPFT highly hyped and has completely lived up to expectations, giving us a spectacle in both of his fights thus far. His opponent Stonk joins us after an insane 19-0 start to his career. He participated in WFC title fights in 9 of his 19 fights so you can’t even say he has taken easy fights to pad the record. Both fighters are in their prime so we can also hope to see these two start a rivalry in the middleweight division for years to come. The fight itself wasn’t nearly as exciting as we hoped. We had yet another example of frenetic pace versus a slightly more measured pace. Biederman dominated the fight from start to finish, only allowing a single body punch, on his way to a victory via rear naked choke 3:25 into the first round. Biederman has continued the string of successful defenses in the SPFT, and he did it with apparent ease. Eventually one of our champions will have to let go of their belt, but I’d be shocked if Biederman was the first to do so. Stinky Stonk will definitely see his stocks fall from this one. We could tell going in that he seemed to be the less skilled fighter, but given the similar ages, and Stonk’s crazy record, we hoped for the intangibles to make up for the skill difference. How he recovers from his first ever loss will be important to what his future holds in the SPFT.
  3. SPFT #7 - Review (23 August 2023 - Big Kahunarena, Hilo) Prelims Fight 1 - Welterweight Division (0-2)(5-16-1, 180 lbs) (0-0) (0-1, 170 lbs) William “The Promise” Smyth VS Luca Li Citra Smyth’s SPFT career has picked up where his prior stint in the GC went. He really needs some help to turn this around. Citra has only a QFC loss to his name, but will be both excited and disapointed to be starting his organizational career off against Smyth. He has to show that he is a much higher caliber fighter and belongs outside of the Prelims. The first round was a mudfight where Smyth dragged Citra down to his level and completely dominated. However, the 2nd round was eye opening. Citra came in like a completely different fighter with a burst of activity. A nice cross rocked Smyth. After a sloppy takedown attempt by the shaken Smyth Citra knocked him down with a big right, but learned from his mistakes in the first round and waited for Smyth to get back up before finishing him with a head kick. If we get more of second round Citra we will definitely have a good fighter on our hands, but if first round Citra rears his ugly head it could be a disappointing career for the 25 year old. His next test comes up against Diaz whose only win is against Smyth and should provide a nice scale of where in the welterweight division Citra belongs. More of the same from Smyth. Early on in the fight it looked like he may pick up his first SPFT win, but once his opponent forced Smyth to fight standing Smyth’s weakness showed. He is scheduled to fight another promising young fighter, Peterson next. Fight 2 - Featherweight Division (0-0)(5-8, 148 lbs) (0-0)(8-8, 134 lbs) Cristiano “The G.O.A.T” Messi VS Killer “Machine” Kid In our second fight of the evening we see two new faces looking for a redemption arc after poor performances in their previous orgs. Messi comes to us from HFC having gone 0-6 there losing to (T)KO every fight. Kid was 1-5 in the WFC having started his career there with a title fight, but getting nowhere near another. The fight started with an instant clinch by Kid as we expected. What we didn’t expect was Messi to panic and concentrate solely on getting out of the clinch while eating blow after blow from Kid. The early cut ended up being negligible, because only 30 seconds later Messi was on his knees and Kid was raising his arms. An impressive 56 second TKO for Killer Kid. This one ended about how most would have expected it to end. Kid had to be the favorite going in, but I don’t think anyone expected him to be this dominant. Hopefully his next opponent, Buakaw, can test him more. Undercard Fight 3 - Light Heavyweight Division (0-0)(6-6, 218 lbs) (0-1)(5-5, 205 lbs) Tater Salad VS Takashi “Certified Genius” Minoko SPFT’s new fighter Salad makes his debut in fight 3. He is a pure wrestler who likes to get on top of someone and pound them into submission. Matching him is a fighter with a similar style, but much more well rounded. Minoko has largely relied on his wrestling, but likes to mix it up between strikes and submissions. Specialized bruiser vs ground all rounder who will win? Well we had to wait what felt like ages to get this answer. There was a lot of nothing in this fight with almost a full minute of….wrist control. (why the hell did the announcer call it exciting action?) However, Salad was not to be denied as he brutally ended Minoko with a rush of shots, earning a TKO victory at 4:58 of the first round. Salad was the better fighter, but he will have a tough time getting past the middle of the pack in this stacked Light heavyweight division. His one dimensional style may eventually be punished. Minoko has now lost in both of his SPFT fights in the first round. Something has to change or he will quickly find himself on the outside looking in. Fight 4 - Lightweight Division (1-1)(10-14, 162 lbs) (1-1)(30-25, 166 lbs) KJ Hoodwell VS Micah Hawk Our fourth fight shows us more of the same. Hoodwell is a varied fighter who seems to have had trouble finishing fights outside of the QFC. Hawk on the other hand has only won via decision twice out of his 30 victories. This one didn’t take long either as Hawk played around with Hoodwell for a a little bit before getting a takedown and summarily ending the fight with a kneebar at 52 seconds in. Hawk showed us more of the same. He looked okay standing, but once he got the fight to the ground it was a quick easy victory for the American. He has no fights as of this moment, bur despite being 36 I’m sure we can expect some more fights out of him. Goodwill with his 2nd straight submission loss in the SPFT. It seems the division is clear on the fact going to a decision with him is much riskier than just ending him. If he can work out how to drag fights out better maybe he can get something going at 25 years old. Fight 5 - Featherweight Division (0-0)(6-7, 140 lbs) (0-2)(12-8, 138 lbs) Ozaki Buakaw VS Rafael “El Chappo” Soto We find ourselves past the halfway point of our evening and Buakaw takes on Soto. Buakaw is a kickboxer turned mma fighter which is obvious from his fighting style. Soto is the opposite. All 12 of his victories came via submission, meaning this fight will boil down to whether Buakaw has the wrestling to stay on his feet or not. The answer was a resounding no! Soto imposed his will on Buakaw and ended the fight on his 2nd submission attempt at 58 seconds into the first round. Yet another quick finish for our evening. I guess third time's the charm for Soto. He will be unhappy to have taken 3 fights to get his first victory, but hopefully this is something he can build upon as he continues with his SPFT career. Buakaw unfortunately proved his doubters right. He couldn’t do anything against his opponent’s wrestling and will have to hope his next opponent isn’t so quick to abuse him in that aspect. Fight 6 - Welterweight Division (1-1)(18-21-1, 179 lbs) (0-0)(4-2, 179 lbs) Dick “The Stockton Slapper” Diaz VS Phoenix “Primetime” Peterson Age is no barrier in our next one as Diaz enters the fight more than double his opponent’s age. Although losing his last fight in 19 seconds dampened a lot of the hype around the fighter, Diaz still has what it takes to fight at a high level. Peterson will have his work cut out for him to beat someone with this much experience. The first round, while exciting, was rather one sided as Peterson was landing many more of his shots than Diaz. His mix of punches and kicks is throwing Diaz for a loop and in the second round it came to a head. Diaz was rocked by a surprise overhand right, Peterson seized the moment and rained blow after blow onto the dazed fighter until the referee was forced to stop the fight. A nice debut from Peterson, and given the fact he is facing someone Diaz beat, in his next fight we should see him sitting pretty at 2-0 in the SPFT. Diaz started off with hope after a nice decision win. However, he has no been knocked out twice in a row and what momentum he had has faded away. At 47 you have to wonder how many fights he still has left in him Main Card Fight 7 - Lightweight Division (2-0)(5-4, 161 lbs) (0-1)(1-9, 155 lbs) Mae “The Magician” Joon VS Michael “Golden” Manchester On paper this looks like a mismatch as Joon has started off with two victories while Manchester is sitting on 9 straight losses. Ultimately, though, this fight will rely completely on wrestling. If Joon gets Manchester to the ground he will surely win. If Manchester can keep the fight standing then he will win. You didn’t have to be prophetic to see this result coming. Joon with an easy takedown followed up by a locked in triangle 50 seconds later. Joon can’t take much from this fight. The black belt still has more to prove, but it won’t take many more fights like this for him to really climb the Light Heavyweight division ladder. Manchester is just not quite getting it down out there. We hoped for a turnaround in his career after coming to the SPFT, but everytime he fights those hopes get fainter and fainter. His fight against Ginters should be the best shot he has for earning a win. Fight 8 - Light Heavyweight Division (1-1)(14-25, 205 lbs) (0-0)(19-7, 220 lbs) Hristo Borisov VS Stevo “Cake” Caruga Our last fight before we get to the main events should have people just excited as the main show. Borisov is a very talented jiu jitsu artist with multiple submissions of the night. Facing up against him is Caruga, the island champion. Both fighters pretty much only win via submission so get ready for a TWGC fight. Wow!!! I did not expect a fight that looked pretty well matched to end so quickly. 30 seconds in and Caruga locked in his armbar like his opponent was a white belt. Caruga looked great out there. Winning this quickly really sends a statement as to his intent in the SPFT. Borisov has looked pretty strong so far in his SPFT career. To start it off 1-2 will not sit well with him and I hope he uses the disappointment to motivate himself in his future fights. Co-Main Event - Featherweight Division (2-0)(3-0, 140 lbs) (0-0)(10-5, 150 lbs) Jonathas Araujo VS Rogerio “Scythe” Yamamoto Finally onto the co-main event of the evening. Araujo tries to continue his hot streak and move to 3-0. Here to dash his hopes is ex WFC champion, who is fresh off winning a championship a month ago, Yamamoto. This match played out like a turn based game as each fighter would explode into activity, then catch their breath while the other exploded into action. Unfortunately for Araujo, Yamamoto definitely came off the better in this round, really laying into him and gashing him in the same spot 3 times. The second round went very similarly, except the bell never rang. Right before the end of the round a doctor was called in and the cut was just too bad to continue. Yamamoto with the win 4:57 into the second round. Yamamoto came in with a very clear strategy to clinch, clinch, clinch until he locked one in. Once in the clinch his concerted effort on Araujo’s cut is ultimately what led to the victory. His next opponent Saneuji will definitely have to watch himself against Yamamoto. Araujo will have to leave the cage disappointed tonight. I’m sure he will have plenty of training time while he waits for cut to heal, and hopefully he can get himself together to restart his win streak. Main Event - Heavyweight Championship Fight (1-0)(34-11, 270 lbs) (1-0)(8-6, 280 lbs) (C) “Overthrower” Yago Steve VS Olaf Frost Finally we get to our main event of the evening. Our heavyweight champion (and ex #2 fighter in world) joins us to defend his belt against the Englishmen from Manchester. Both of these fighters are extremely powerful with a high proportion of their matches ending in knockout, so make sure you don’t blink. The fight started with a missed body shot from Steven followed up by a nice cross from Frost. Steve then punished Frost's missed combination by bringing it into the clinch. Frost quickly broke the clinch, only to be met with a body shot then a front kick, winding Frost. Steve jumped on the winded Frost with a nice overhand right, cutting him in the process before also landing another body blow. Then Frost, perhaps unlucky, walks right into an amazing straight right and is out immediately. Our winner and still champion Yago Steve takes the knockout victory at 1:13 into the first round. Steve once again looks like arguably the strongest fighter in the organization. Given his track record no one was surprised he got the instant title fight and he has now defended it in style. There aren’t many fighters who can stand up to the experienced brawler, but we can expect more excitement in his next fight. Frost should keep his head up after this loss. Despite it ending early he still showed his class and this fight, win or lose was never going to go the distance with these two going at it. A win against Akerfeldt in his next appearance would put him back in the top tier of the weight class, but he definitely can’t sleep on the 31 year old.
  4. SPFT #6 - Review (20 August 2023 - Big Kahunarena, Hilo) Prelims Fight 1 - Heavyweight Division (1-0)(7-14, 265 lbs) (0-0) (3-7, 276 lbs) Harris Benn VS “Wekinky” Tony Halme We begin our evening with Bennfresh off the back of his submission of the night victory in SPFT #2, facing down Halme who is trying to snap a two fight loss streak. It was a red hot start as Benn retaliated against Halme’s leg kick with an immediate takedown. Unfortunately for Benn, Halme quickly reversed his way back into a better position. From there it was a back and forth of submission attempts culminating in a Benn cut from some ground and pound. Finally, Halme tired of the back and forth and stood up with seemingly little effort. This proved to be disastrous for Benn as 20 seconds later he found himself being rescued by the ref as Halme takes the TKO Victory. Benn will be disappointed to not build upon his success from the last time he fought. He currently has a fight on offer so we will see what comes of it. Halme starts his SPFT career off right. An impressive victory where he showed both facets of his game and definitely looked the better fighter. He also has a fight under offer so we can definitely expect to see him again. Fight 2 - Lightweight Division (0-0)(2-6, 155 lbs) (0-0)(5-5, 160 lbs) Gatis “Kick” Ginters VS Nathan Cruz Our follow up to an impressive all around fight brings us to the SPFT lightweight division. Ginters returns to the SPFT cage after a disappointing decision loss in his debut. Meeting him is Nathan Cruz who has had brief stints in a few organizations to very mixed results. Hopefully he can show more in the SPFT as he hits his prime. Unfortunately, this fight ended before Ginters arrived. He didn’t land a single strike or takedown before going down after a big right, just 48 seconds after the bell rang. Cruz definitely showcased his power, taking out a fighter who hasn’t been knocked out since he was 18 years old. While he didn’t look particularly skilled doing it, we can hope to see more from the debutante. Ginters, starting off with two defeats will be far from what he hoped to find in our wonderful org, but he already has a fight set up with Michael Manchester in a fight between the winless. Undercard Fight 3 - Featherweight (0-1)(5-10, 145 lbs) (0-0)(4-5, 147 lbs) Perov Yelisey VS Kabelo “The King” Nyambe Now we head from the Prelims to the undercard where Yelisey tries to come back from his defeat at SPFT #3 against Nyambe who fought in the…..Money organization. This was yet another quick one. Yelisey immediately took down Nyambe, who proved completely unable to put up any sort of fight from his back. Yelisey landed 9 out of 9 shots on the ground with a particularly vicious elbow being the shot that forced the ref to jump in. Yelisey completely redeemed himself in this fight, but much of that probably had to do with targeting his opponent’s apparent weak spot. If he can continue to target his opponent’s weakness maybe we could see him string together some wins. Nyambe won’t like starting his career here with a fight like that. His mediocre wrestling and blue belt were not enough to do anything against Yelisey. Fight 4 - Heavyweight Division (0-1)(5-9, 280 lbs) (1-0)(3-2, 250 lbs) Kimbo Wahwah VS Aqissiac “The Cherokee” Jacira Kimbo Wahwah put on a show in his last fight earning fight of the night honors albeit in a losing fashion and I hope he can show us more of the same here. Hoping to pile on the misery is Jacira fresh off an amazing first round first minute knockout at SPFT #2. Two of our younger fighters in the heavyweight division I can’t wait to watch these two talents go at it. It was a weird fight from the opening bell as Jacira looked wild, but was somehow landing all of his shots, while Wahwah just looked downright sluggish, but was still the more active fighter. Craziness did end up reigning supreme this evening as just like in our previous fight Jacira was able to land everything he threw, eventually taking out Wahwah with a nice right before finishing the job in the mount. An impressive TKO 1:18 into round 1. After a great showing previously, Wahwah looked much less impressive in this one. Very concerning is the fact he has now lost via (T)KO 9 times. He will have to go to lengths to play around his weak chin, something that shouldn’t be too much concern against his next opponent Telegin. Jacira with another very fast first round finish has got to be one of the higher ranked heavyweights in the SPFT. His next fight against Kakuto should be a solid test as he fights someone almost double his age. Fight 5 - Lightweight Division (0-0)(3-4, 161 lbs) (0-1)(21-19-1, 148 lbs) Astrid Commesary VS Long Schlong “Steel Penn” For the fifth fight of the evening we saw Commesary make his SPFT debut against the red belt holder Schlong. Both of these fighters are very skilled in their own right with Schlong at 39 probably in the twilight of his career while Commesary hits his prime. Despite the apparent equality of their respective skills, it was a relatively one sided affair as Schlong dominated from beginning to end. While this fight went the full 3 rounds it was not close at any point. Schlong took Commesary down at will and dominated from there, content to control with his jiu jitsu and wear down his opponent. Eventually he managed to sink in an impressive Kimura but only 5 seconds before the match ended. In a submission of the night performance Schlong definitely showed that age is no barrier and should the man who beat him(Bezerra) win the title fight, he will be right there asking for a rematch. Unfortunate showing from Commesary, especially given the fact that his manager dropped him after this performance. Word is he was picked up by another manager almost immediately so hopefully we can see a new Commesary upon his return to the SPFT cage. Fight 6 - Featherweight Championship Fight (1-0)(8-6, 145 lbs) (2-0)(37-25-3, 144 lbs) Kittisak Saetang VS “Gypsy Prince” Tommy Walcott Weirdly enough, our last fight before we enter the main card is also our championship fight. Both of these fighters have looked great in their fights so far in the SPFT and seeing them in a title fight is no surprise to anyone. If Walcott doesn’t win it here you have to wonder if he retires given the fact he is 45. Saetang at 25 has his whole career ahead of him and could become an SPFT goat if he can cement himself as the champion for the future to come. Regardless, it's early on and this speculation is longer than the fight itself. Both fighters made a good showing of themself with impressive back and forth stand up. It was Sawtang who proved to be the victor as he rocked Walcott then poured on the blows, ending with a spinning backfist. He becomes our first SPFT Featherweight champion 1:30 into the 1st round. Saetang has me excited for this weight class as a whole. He has showed a lot in only two fights and as long as he stays here, anyone in the featherweight division knows this man is looming above them. Walcott will not be happy to have ended his title fight this way. He can at least take the positives from this fight and take solace that he lost to such a great fighter. He already has another fight scheduled against Paulo Roberto so we will see how he bounces back. Main Card Fight 7 - Middleweight Division (0-0)(23-19-1, 190 lbs) (2-1)(8-6, 195 lbs) Slugger “Slugmaster General” Dunes VS “Babayega” John Wick Its always rough to follow up a championship fight, but Wick is fresh off a defeat for the middleweight title so he is no stranger to energetic arenas. Making his SPFT debut against Wick is Dunes who came to the organization off a string of 5 straight defeats in the WVT. Like many of the fighters in our young organization he is looking to rekindle his early career success in his latter years. It was a short, but eventful fight as each fighter threw a slew of punches with Wick paying particular attention to body shots. Dunes was not to be denied an opening victory and 58 seconds into the fight he dropped Wick like a bad habit with an overhand right. Dunes will be happy to shrug off his losing streak and it has even been confirmed that the aging fighter will meet Biederman for the title in his next fight. Wick finds himself sliding further down the hierarchy in the SPFT middleweight division, but given most of the people above him are far older he can take solace in the fact there is still plenty of room at the top. His next fight against Adrian Galnis from Sucker Punch should be a good chance for him to right the ship. Fight 8 - Light Heavyweight Division (0-0)(16-14-1, 215 lbs) (0-0)(22-16, 215 lbs) Gaius “Maximus” Marius VS Patrick “The Titan” Thomas We get to see SPFT’s draw power here as two fresh fighters make their debuts. Both are coming off of fairly successful careers with each having been in title fights in other organizations. They may be a bit over the hill, but these are definitely fighters we can be excited to see in the SPFT cage. The fight itself was a fun one to watch. The first round was spent largely in the clinch where Thomas easily dominated. Our second round was more of the same with the end result of little apparent damage done other than a gash on Thomas’ face. Finally we enter the third round wanting to see more from Marius who was obviously behind on the scorecard, but other than managing to avoid Thomas’ attempts at a clinch he did nothing to overturn the first two round’s results. Thomas with the clearly deserved unanimous decision. Thomas’ debut went exactly as one would expect other than failing to account for Marius’ toughness. He landed shot after shot both in and out of the clinch, but was unable to bring the fight to a close on his terms. He has already agreed to a fight against Davon Davis and I can’t wait to see these two go at it in SPFT #9. Marius did not look bad in this fight at all. He was definitely up to the challenge against Thomas; he just wasn’t quite active enough to take any rounds. Co-Main Event - Featherweight Division (0-0)(13-8-2, 149 lbs) (0-1)(12-9, 152 lbs) Paulo “The Hatchet” Roberto VS Cody Evans After more than 20 fights with enigma Paulo Roberto brings his knockout power our way. Introducing him to the organization is Cody Evans who lost a controversial decision against the now champion Saetang. The first round started off with an easy takedown by Evans, something we would get a lot of in this fight. Roberto definitely held his own from his back, but showed much better results while standing. His stronger striking and ability to stave off most of Evans’ ground and pound gave him the opening round. The 2nd round most likely went to Evans as he continued with his ground and pound heavy gameplan, but Roberto wasn’t ever able to get to his feet without referee help. Finally in our third and final round it was a clear advantage from Roberto, because Evans only managed a single takedown while Roberto was able to bring the fight into the clinch and was clearly the better striker. The judges scored the fight 30:28, 30:27, 30: 27 for our winner Paulo Roberto. Roberto executed his gameplan well, perhaps expecting, the fight to go to decision. His ground game definitely looked like less of a weakness than one would expect from a fighter who favors striking as heavily as he does. His next fight is slated to be against Tommy Walcott (who just lost the title fight) and should give us a clear view of where he stands in the SPFT featherweight division. Evans continues to fall just short of cementing himself in the top tier of the featherweight division, but given the nature of his losses he has to be considered among the top 8 fighters. Main Event - Heavyweight Division (1-0)(9-2, 278 lbs) (1-0)(8-6, 280 lbs) Werewolf “By” Night VS Alex Steel Iii At last we arrive at our main event of the evening, both fighters having won their debut fights within the organization. Night has to be one of the SPFT’s most hyped fighters with all of his fights having ended via his own knockout or his opponent’s. Steel definitely comes in as the underdog, but given Night’s rather obvious gameplan maybe he can sneak a victory. This fight most definitely did not disappoint! Both Night and Steel Iii landed blow after blow, but Night’s power proved to be too much, knocking Steel Iii out with a storm of strikes 57 seconds into the match. You can’t help, but respect Night. He has a grand total of 1:32 spent in the SPFT cage, and has left the cage with two straight knockouts in that small span. If he wins his next fight against Cartwright you have to expect him to appear in the next title fight. Steel Iii gave as many as he got, but apparently going blow for blow against Night is not something just any fighter can do. Fans will be glad to see him again after a showing like this and he should hold his head high for sheer entertainment factor. We will see him again against Mineiro and this time he should go in as the favored fighter.
  5. I'm way behind on the write ups had an unexpected "vacation" that derailed my plans, but I'll hopefully have #6 up tonight
  6. HA! my man is 15 shy of genius..... and lowest entry hype of any fighter......
  7. SPFT #5 - Review (13 August 2023 - The Underground, Hilo) Prelims Fight 1 - Heavyweight Division (5-7, 220 lbs) David Nikora VS (5-9, 270 lbs) Lysander Pollio Our evening begins with two very similar fighters. Both 22 years old, both sitting on 5 wins, and both coming off a string of losses. Pollio is making his SPFT debut tonight while Nikora is returning to us after a disappointing loss in SPFT #2 against Benn. Right off the bat Pollio looked like the lesser fighter as Nikora landed his first couple of strikes even managing to cut pollio. However, Pollio’s troubles soon ended with a takedown then subsequent knockout via vicious ground and pound. Knockout only 55 seconds into the fight. Pollio’s debut could not have gone much better. While he struggled a little in the stand up, people will have to pay attention to that ground and pound.Hopefully he can show just as much in his next bout. Another day, another loss for Nikora. Four straight losses and his hope to recreate himself in the SPFT seems shattered. As long as he is fighting there is always hope to pick up the pieces and at 22 Nikora has plenty of time to do so. Fight 2 - Light Heavyweight Division (3-6, 215 lbs) Marcus Wheeler VS (0-2, 215 lbs) Miles Knox Next the TWGC 265 pound champion Marcus Wheeler takes on Miles Knox who also comes from a TWGC background. Both are fighting in the SPFT cage for the first time looking to show what they have to offer the organization. Unfortunately it looked like they weren’t notified it was an mma fight not a TWGC affair. The fans were left booing after a first round where basically nothing happened. The 2nd round was a lot busier as they grappled incessantly, but not much more exciting. FInally the third round we were all waiting for had our first attempts to end the fight, but they came to naught as Wheeler was unable to lock them in. Knox came out the accidental winner via a 29:28 decision. Boooooo. Sorry, but Knox did nothing to give confidence and I hope he isn’t satisfied with this victory. Wheeler hopefully regrets not attempting anything resembling a finish until right before the end as I don’t want to watch another fight with him in it if they all go this way. Undercard Fight 3 - Heavyweight Division (6-12, 270 lbs) Francisco Hernandez VS (11-16, 255 lbs) Peetu Tam Now, Hernandez a newcomer from DC takes on Tam trying to shake off his lost to Jacira at SPFT #2. Lets get right into the action! The first round was an instant takedown by Tam followed up with complete control combined with a good amount of flailing ground and pound. The round ends with Tam in complete control, but unable to do any lasting damage due to poor accuracy. Our second round is the opposite as Hernandez gets an impressive takedown followed up by some ground and pound. His ground and pound was much more effective cutting Tam very quickly. Finally after a concerted effort on the cut area Hernandez eventually forces the doctor to end the fight. Hernandez wins at 1:59 into the second round by way of TKO. A very savage victory from Hernandez. The moment that cut opened up he focused hard on it and never looked back. I’d be scared to show any weakness against him, because Tam is leaving this one looking like someone who just went through a zombie apocalypse. Tam Had a very dominant performance in the first, but he surely regretted not doing any lasting damage with his control. His history of losses via TKO is concerning as its not something that improves as one ages. Fight 4 - Heavyweight Division (8-12, 224 lbs) Bjorn “Big Bear” Akerfeldt VS (11-11-1, 254 lbs) Xavier Washington Yet another bout that pits a debutante against someone who lost their SPFT debut. One could almost call this event redemption….if not for the fact that the Debutantes appear to be winning every fight. Akerfeldt comes to us after a lot of recent struggle, but early on in his career he was almost a lock to get submission of the night. While Washington comes in having been submitted in his SPFT debut. Lets kick er off! We start off with some action as they go back and forth with strikes. A devastating overhand right clobbering Washington then a follow up right from Washington sending Akerfeldt to the mat and cutting him in the process. This strike apparently scared Akerfeldt as he decides to take the fight to the ground, where the fighters stayed for all, but the opening 45 second excitement. In the 2nd round Akerfeldt showed that he had shaken off the early fear. As he goes shot for shot, landing more than his opponent in the opening minute then once again taking his opponent down. However, it was shortly after the 4 minute mark where an impressive uppercut rocks Washington. Going into the third round after 2 dominant rounds, it looked like his cut was the only thing that could possible stop Akerfeldt from taking this one. However, Akerfeldt was not to be denied. Instead of coasting to his easy decision victory he went at Washington. Eventually knocking him out 2:07 into the round. Akerfeldt shakes off all the lethargy from the last fight in this one. He put on a display against Washington, landing 28 strikes to Washington’s 5. I can’t wait to see him back in the cage. Washington continued the trend of fighters going on a 2 game SPFT skid. Hopefully this has more to do with solid recruitment from management and not regression of SPFT fighters. Fight 5 - Light Heavyweight Division (1-2,220 lbs) Pavel “Goose” Ascheulov VS (14-9, 210 lbs) Davon Davis We hit the midway point on our evening as Davis, an ex Enigma champion, takes on Ascheulov who has only had a short, but disappointing stint in RISE. The first round was a good showcase of evenly matched strikers as each fighter landed and threw a similar amount of shots. However, , once they entered the clinch it was like Davis exploded into activity. Attempting elbow after elbow, missing 24 of 25 attempts. This didn’t deter the judges from giving Davis the slight win in the round, citing sheer activity as the reasoning. In the 2nd round we saw more of the same with each fighter managing a decent amount of strikes and Ascheulov managing to cut Davis. The part that really mattered in this round was Davis finally landing a head kick. He proved the ages old adage of third times the charm as it looked lights out and the referee was forced to end it after he followed up the knock down with some ground and pound for good measure. Davis via TKO at 1:18 of the 2nd round. If you weren’t excited to see another ex champion in the SPFT before, I hope you are now. A wonderful fight by Davis, showing he still has what it takes in one of the few divisions left without a title fight set up. The 2 month hiatus from Ascheulov appears to have done no good for the man. This makes 3 straight losses for the 24 year old after starting his career with a promising win. Most concerning about the defeats is that they were all via knockout. Hopefully he can adapt a safer style and play to his strengths in the future, or his career may end before it begins. Fight 6 - Light Middleweight Division (11-12, 185 lbs) Eli Vieira VS (5-5, 189 lbs) Khabib “The Eagle” Nurmagomedov Our next one should prove to be an exciting one. Between these two fighters 33 career fights they have a cumulative 5 decisions. Boy did the fight not disappoint. They gave us an action packed 2:26 as Vieira landed a bunch of good shots before Nurmagomedov went crazy after the 2 minute mark. With a nice one two rocking, knocking down, and cutting Vieira. Then weirdly enough, letting him stand up before being clinched, breaking the clinch and then ending Vieira’s night with a huge head kick. Nurmagomedov gets his 6th knockout in stunning fashion. Win or lose we can expect this man to put on a show everytime we see him in the cage. Vieira leaves the SPFT cage in defeat once again. This fight will be even more disappointing for him as it was against arguably a worse opponent than his debut fight. His manager is going to have to pull off a miracle to get his morale out of the dumps. Main Card Fight 7 - Lightweight Division (17-10, 164 lbs) “The Ringworm” Erasmo Bezerra VS (14-1-1, 169 lbs) “The Holy Ghost” Christ Benoit Here we are finally to the main card and it starts off with a doozy of a fight. Bezerra returns to the SPFT cage hot off of his victory over Schlong in SPFT #2. Meeting him is Christ Benoit who absolutely slaughtered the Grunge organization and looks to continue his success in the SPFT. The first round started off hot as Benoit managed to rock Bezerra with a huge uppercut before the minute mark, but Bezerra was definitely giving back almost as hard as he was taking. Perhaps worried about accumulating more damage from Benoit, Bezerra looked for the takedown, eventually sinking one in where he had full control. The Round ended firmly in Benoit’s favor after the hot start to the round. Our second round ended almost before it began as Bezerra came out and landed a huge counter right, rocking Bezerra, then dropping him with a beautiful left hook. After one more shot from mount Benoit was motionless and the fight was over 24 seconds into the 2nd round. Bezerra has to be happy with this performance, taking down a very good fighter and making his case for a possible title fight. His mixed game should favor him if he can sustain his success in all fields. Benoit won’t be happy to have started his SPFT career this way, but I doubt a fighter with a career such as his will be too daunted by a rough start. He still has to be one of the best fighters in the lightweight division and maybe a rematch could be in his future some day. Fight 8 - Welterweight Championship Bout (16-10, 180 lbs) Nicholas McDonald VS (12-11, 180 lbs) “Steel Penn” Chrysanthos Xanthopoulos Our 8th fight of the evening is our first of two title fights for the evening. Both these fighters impressed so much in their first fights that they instantly got title fights to become the second belt holder in the organization. Hoo boy were we in for a long one. McDonald came in with complete confidence in his stamina. He was by far the busiest fighter, throwing blow after blow and kick after kick. He heavily favored trying to wear down his opponent with 109 leg kicks and 41 body punches. His superior agility meant he completely dictated the fight and received the unanimous decision, becoming the first Welterweight Champion of the SPFT with a cumulative point total of 149:137. Mcdonald completely dominated this fight from beginning to end, floating like a butterfly stinging like a bee. I can’t wait to see him defend his title belt from the rather hungry Welterweight division. Xanthopoulos didn’t embarrass himself in this one. His opponent came out with a very solid gameplan and Xanthopouls just couldn’t quite overcome the difference in agility. There is no doubt he is still one of the top Welterweight contenders. Co-Main Event - Heavyweight Division (13-10, 240 lbs) Elinho Mineiro VS (22-8-1, 243 lbs) Tsuyoi Kakuto It's tough to follow up a title fight with no belt on the line, but these two fighters are both successful in their own right. Mineiro is an ex champion from RISE while Kakuto hasn’t lost in 11 straight fights. In a fight that was black belt vs black belt we knew it was going to be a matter of time before they ended up on the ground and Kakuto didn’t make us wait, taking Mineiro down seconds into the fight. Once their Kakuto continued to dominate, succeeding in blocking almost all of Mineiro’s transitions while seamlessly pulling off his own. After almost a full 2 rounds of jiu jitsu action Kakuto managed to get a tap with only one second to spare in the 2nd round. Kakuto managed to defeat the man who looked to be cut from the same cloth and one has to wonder if this fight was a showdown between the two best grapplers in the SPFT heavyweight division. Coming out on top in this one should springboard him ahead of others to a position in the upper echelons of the division. Mineiro can at least take solace in the fact that his opponent had 17 years of experience over him and still managed a decent showing of himself. We will have to see him in another fight to find out whether it was tough opposition or a poor performance from Mineiro. Main Event - Middleweight Championship Bout (8-5, 195 lbs) “Babayega” John Wick VS (14-10-2, 185 lbs) “Pisces” Nelson Biederman Now our final event of the evening pits Wick who already has two SPFT wins under his belt against Biederman who earned a split decision victory over Khan in his SPFT debut. We know it will be an exciting one as Wick already has two knockouts in the division and will be hungry for a third against an opponent who wants to prove his split decision should not reflect poorly on him. And Boy did it start off hot as Wick managed to Cut Biederman almost instantly before being taken down. Wick then proved to be up to the task, pulling off a reversal before getting back to his feet. From there this cycle continued as Biederman would take Wick down, then he would summarily escape back to his feet. Eventually Biederman tired of the game and cracked Wick with a nice shot, rocking him, then finishing the job with a huge left hook to become our first SPFT Middleweight Champion. Biederman gets to validate the judges for picking him in his first fight in style. He looked like the better fighter throughout and can leave knowing he deserved the shiny belt around his waist. Wick will be disappointed to have come this far, but to fall just short of the belt. He landed almost as many shots as Biederman and will leave wondering if he could or should have been the one ending his opponent.
  8. SPFT #4 - Review (06 August 2023 - The Underground, Hilo) We finally get our first SPFT Title fight in this one so you better stick around till the end. Prelims Fight 1 - Middleweight Division (5-8, 196 lbs) Kajulik “Vicious” Van Dorner VS (5-7, 198 lbs) Miguel “Rokka” Garces Our night begins with Kajulik making his debut against Garces who we saw lose in the SPFT’s opening night. Garces got off to a fairly hot start controlling the first round through sheer quantity of actions. However, you could see the sweat roll off of him with very little earned other than a 1st round point lead. In the second round Van Dorner made use of the fact Garces now had to conserve his energy, to take dominant control, easily winning the round. This put us at a tie going into the final round. A resurgence by Garces made it feel like this one might go the same way as the first round, but he ran out of steam with 2 minutes left in the round and Van Dorner made him pay. While he never looked to be a threat to finish Garces, he definitely did enough to take the round. Giving Van Dorner the 29:28 decision victory. A decent debut for Van Dorner, but I’m sure he will face steeper competition in his next fight and will need to show more or risk dropping to 1-1. Garces Starts off his SPFT with two straight defeats and his hopes in a new beginning have soured. However, he is still a young fighter and he has many more fights to come in his career. Fight 2 - Welterweight Division (1-4, 178 lbs) Kass Drago VS (1-3, 175 lbs) Lance Walker Our 2nd fight of the evening is a fight between snoozers. The best thing that can be said about this fight is that one of them has to win as each only has a single victory in their career to date. The performance did not disappoint as the fight was about as inactive as one would expect between two sleeper fighters. Drago didn’t land anything the entire fight and Walker only succeeded in 2 out of 9 takedowns, but easily achieved a submission victory with only a single attempt. Drago needs to show some desire, some activity, or even if he does manage a victory no fans will actually care. We will have to see in his next fight if he can do more. While Walker got a nice submission victory(submission of the night), there probably aren’t many with high hopes for the 26 year old. Hopefully the chip on his shoulder will drive him to perform and maybe even string a few wins together in the SPFT. Undercard Fight 3 - Light Heavyweight Division (18-17, 213 lbs) Roy “Full Tank” Gaston VS (8-9, 205 lbs) Robert “Caulk Master Flex” Brown Meeting in the third fight of our card are two fighters who lost in SPFT 1. Gaston the ex Galaxy champion takes on Brown. It was a relatively active fight, with each fighter making a decent showing of themself. Gaston despite being 41 years old was able to go blow for blow with Brown. However, very strong showings in the 1st and third rounds as well as taking a most likely lead in the 2nd round, showed Brown was just flat out better. He landed a higher percentage of shots and threw more shots as well, for an easy 27:30 unanimous decision victory. Gaston didn’t quite do enough to take the win, but he didn’t look bad in this fight. He definitely still has more to give in the SPFT, but he just came up short on this night. If I had told you one of these two fighters would retire after winning this fight you would have thought I was talking about Gaston. However, Brown apparently decided to hang up his gloves after going 9-9 in his career. Fight 4 - Light Heavyweight Division (5-0, 218 lbs) Scotty T Bone VS (11-23, 210 lbs) Daniel Pawlikowski Now is when things start to get spicy. T Bone is coming off of a KO of the night victory in SPFT #1 and is carrying some high expectations in the Light Heavyweight division. Meeting him in the cage is Daniel Pawlikowski making his SPFT debut, but who also knocked out T Bone’s last opponent in the QFC. The gameplan from Pawlikowski was obvious from the start, he came out to try and clinch abuse his opponent to earn a decision victory through sheer control. However, T Bone showed he was more than up to the challenge. In the first round he immediately broke every clinch Pawlikowski initiated while proving to be the more effective fighter outside of the clinch. In the 2nd round it was more of the same, but this round it was more T Bone dodging the clinch attempts as opposed to breaking out of them. Finally in our third round the desperation for Pawlikowski was showing and T Bone took advantage to finally net the 30:27 decision in our fight of the night. T Bone is looking like one of the frontrunners in the light heavyweight division. Two of the night performances in a row, both ending in victories for the 20 year old and the sky is the limit for this young man. Pawlikowski will be disappointed to start off his career in the SPFT with a loss, but losing in the fight of the night is arguably the best way to lose and he shouldn’t leave too disappointed with his own performance. Fight 5 - Middleweight Division (20-12-1,185 lbs) Luka “The Mark” Marka VS (25-31, 194 lbs) Shaun “Brundong” Brownie As we head towards the midway point Marka makes his SPFT debut against Brownie who lost his fight against Wick in SPFT #1. Marka had decent runs in Sucker Punch and WVT, but never managed to get himself a title fight. The fight started out with a flurry of activity from Marka culminating in a takedown from Brownie. However, they then got summarily stood up until at 2:48 Marka drops Brownie with an impressive combo. A very impressive greeting from Marka, introducing himself to the SPFT in style. He could be a contender in the middleweight division with that much power at his disposal. Brownie is another member of the SPFT old member’s club and won’t be happy to have lost in this one. He doesn’t have a lot of fights left in his career and every fight counts. Fight 6 - Light Heavyweight Division (17-5, 222 lbs) Early Grayce VS (5-3, 209 lbs) Kekoa Ali’i We enter the latter half of our card with two fighters searching for the second victory in the SPFT. Both fighters managed to finish their opponent in SPFT 1 and we can hope for more of the same tonight. The fight started out with a lot solid tit for tat, dodge this hit that, striking until Grayce gets a nice takedown into side control. From there Grayce explodes into action, trying to improve his position or making a submission at every moment. Eventually Grayce manages to get Ali’i’ s arm for an arm bar victory at 3:53 of round 1. Another submission victory for Grayce, and given he looked solid standing as well, he looks like his two straight victories are no fluke. Ali’i still looked decent in this one, but Grayce was just that much better. This result doesn’t temper my expectations for Ali’i and I expect to see more from him in the future. Main Card Fight 7 - Welterweight Division (10-7-1, 175 lbs) Toe Jam “Und Earl” VS (5-15-1, 180 lbs) William “The Promise” Smyth We enter the main card where former GFC champion Toe Jam tries to return his early career form against William Smyth who lost via decision in SPFT #1. We didn’t have to wait long in this one, because Smyth looked helpless as Jam overwhelmed him with a combo and 27 seconds into the fight he walks away with the TKO victory and knockout of the night. Jam showed exactly why he earned his way to a belt in a different org. If he can keep performing like this he could take a stab at one here. Smyth with another disappointing fight. It's not looking good for him if he wants to go anywhere in our young organization. Fight 8 - Featherweight Division (9-6, 135 lbs) Jefferson Christ VS (9-4, 150 lbs) Jamal Hudak In our last fight before the main events Christ enters the SPFT cage for the first time, up against Hudak, who gave a good showing of himself in SPFT #1, but ultimately lost via decision to Walcott. Christ started off looking nice with a great takedown. However, from there it looked more like Hudak wanted to be on the ground as he threw submission after submission at Christ. Eventually the referee stood them up until Christ with yet another takedown and a dominant first round win after making all of Hudak’s submission attempts look toothless. However in the second round after another Christ take down, it only took one triangle attempt from Hudak to end the fight 1:25 into the 2nd round. Not a bad showing from Christ as he took the round and seemed to be able to impose his well with takedowns. However a moment’s carelessness and he has nothing to show for his scorecard victory. Hudak was not to be denied, throwing submission attempt after submission attempt until finally locking one in. However, as his fight against Walcott showed, you can’t always get away with ceding control to your opponent. He will have to do more to win consistently. Co-Main Event - Heavyweight Division (27-25, 255 lbs) Inspektor Gee VS (6-1, 263 lbs) “The First Emperor” Fyodor Dmitriev Our Co-Main event of the evening pits two fighters in completely opposite form. Gee comes in after 6 straight losses while Dmitriev has won 6 straight. However, it looked rocky early on for Gee as Dmitriev almost immediately cut him and locked in a clinch. From there he completely dominated the match landing 19/20 head punches and 12/12 body blows, until at 2:14 into the first round. Gee started off even, but it quickly went south after he was cut. 7 straight losses has to be demoralizing for a fighter and we can only hope he can turn it around and be competitive for the SPFT. Dmitriev now has 7 straight victories with only one of them not via knockout. This exciting fighter could be a long time staple for the SPFT as the sky's the limit for this 25 year old Russian. Main Event -Heavyweight Division (33-11, 270 lbs) “Overthrower” Yago Steve VS (13-8, 265 lbs) Daniel Steel Finally we enter the main event! Steve the former World #2 takes on Steel who won at SPFT #2. The winner takes home the first SPFT belt handed out. The heavyweight championship belt! The early going was rather one sided for Steel until he made the mistake of clinching with Steve. Resulting in a nice short right from Steven and a nasty cut.Then more domination from Steel as he handily takes the first round with nice striking. Unfortunately for him his success was shortlived. In the 2nd round it only took to the 1:32 mark before Steve knocks Steel out with a massive uppercut earning himself the SPFT Heavyweight championship belt. Steve showed why he was considered one of the best fighters in the world with an impressive victory over a similarly impressive opponent. It's hard to see him losing this belt to someone else and it will be interesting to see how long it stays in his capable hands. Steel showed that he belonged in the title fight. He was controlling and dominant throughout, but it only takes one to end a fight when someone like Steve is your opponent. After recovery I’m sure we will see Steel back in the cage, impressive as ever in the near future.
  9. Randy Turpin avatar approved and ready to go : )
  10. Randy Turpin Haven't lined up a custom avatar yet tho
  11. SPFT #3 - Review (30 July 2023 - The Underground, Hilo) We are back with another exciting card in the SPFT, and our streak of only SPFT debutantes ends. Lets get Right in! Prelims Fight 1 - Lightweight Division (4-4, 161 lbs) Mae "The Magician" Joon VS (10-13, 162 lbs) KJ Hoodwell We start off our night with two fighters who walked away from SPFT #1 with victories, looking to continue their good form. Joon managed a submission victory over Hawk while Hoodwell managed to eke out a decision win over Ginters. We knew what to expect coming in with Joon having an obvious advantage on the ground and boy did he act fast as Hoodwell flails around with some wild hooks Joon punished him with an easy takedown. Four submission attempts later Joon managers to lock in a triangle, ending the fight 1:58 into the 1st round. The magician continues to look like a solid threat in the lightweight division and will be happy to take home his 2nd submission victory. Hoodwell will be less pleased with his performance, and I hope the organization drops him as I’m tired of autocorrect trying to force me to type in “Goodwill”. In all seriousness, Joon has looked like a frontrunner so far in the lightweight division and he should be more upset with how quickly he lost and not with the loss itself. Hopefully he can recover in his next bout. Fight 2 - Featherweight Division (2-0, 140 lbs) Jonathas Araujo VS (5-9, 145 lbs) Perov Yelisey In our second bout of the evening we have an exciting undefeated youngster in his 2nd SPFT appearance taking on a more experienced, but not much older fighter who recently arrived from RISE. In his first fight in SPFT we saw Araujo go the distance against Soto in a unanimous decision that might as well have been a TWGC fight. Whoops I liked away for a second and suddenly Araujo’s hand is being raised. What an impressive Kimura to end the fight 37 seconds into the first round. Another impressive showing by Araujo, this time ending it on his terms. There is a lot to be excited for with this fighter and I can’t wait to see him in the SPFT cage again. Not the way Yellsey wanted his SPFT debut to go. Hopefully he can come back and show something in his next fight as we saw very little of the 24 year old in this one. Undercard Fight 3 - Featherweight Division (4-2, 145 lbs) Damian “Snake” Drago VS (12-7, 138 lbs) Rafael “El Chappo” Soto Now entering the Undercard we see a new face as Drago, a 26 year old TWGC stalwart makes his way into the SPFT cage for the first time. He takes on Soto who managed to take Araujo the distance in his first bout, hoping to end up on the winning end this time around. In what seems to be the recurring theme tonight we pretty much start with a solid takedown as after failing his first two takedown attempts Drago finally gets an impressive takedown into side control. He followed this up with two quick submission attempts that Soto managed to get out of, before following up with a slew of submission attempts of his own. After 4 attempts by Soto ending with a pitiful kimura attempt, Drago decides it's his turn again, ending the fight with his 4th attempt of the night with an impressive Kimura at 1:45 into the first round. Drago announces his presence in the SPFT division with an impressive early submission victory over a stubborn opponent. Soto once again finds himself on the losing end of a predominantly grapple heavy bout. Considering this is the strong point of his game, it is not looking good for the 32 year old Colombian, who is now 0-2 in the SPFT. Fight 4 - Light Heavyweight Division (13-25, 205 lbs) Hristo Borisov VS (5-4, 205 lbs) Takashi “Certified Genius” Minoko Aaaaand we already find ourselves in the fourth fight of the evening. So far the longest fight lasted a mere 1:58 will these fighters continue the streak of fast finishes? Brosiv will look to shake off his knockout defeat last time out while Minoko wants revenge after being submitted in the QFC by Borisov. Deja Vu! Borisov starts our fight off with a quick takedown as history repeats itself once again. Wow! Minoko is definitely trying to avoid a repeat defeat. An impressive scissor sweep, but Borisov was up to the task and maintained control. After a minute of wrestling around Borisov feels comfortable enough and begins attempting to end things via submission. However, it wasn’t enough for the referee as he stood the fighters up. Only for Borisov to sink in a takedown once again. After more rapid fire submission attempts by Borisov he finally locks a kimura in and ends this fight just as he did in their previous meeting. Borisov will be happy not to slide further after losing his first SPFT fight and we can hope for more from the 29 year old Bulgarian as he tries to establish himself in the young org. Minoko won’t be happy to start his SPFT career this way, but maybe Borisov is just his kryptonite and he can show off more against a different opponent. Fight 5 - Middleweight Division (7-5,195 lbs) “Babayega” John Wick VS (16-13, 199 lbs) Ilya Muromets We are now at the midway point of our night and we got a doozy of a fight. Wick will try to keep up his winning streak under new management while Muromets makes his SPFT debut after lengthy runs in the DMMA and DC organizations. I have it under good authority that if Wick can win this fight he is a shoo in for the title fight. Finally! Some fireworks as both competitors come out fighting. Eventually Wick manages a clinch, but after a shout from his corner immediately disengages. Both fighters are throwing blow after blow, but neither seems to be able to land one. Until finally an impressive leg kick takes Wick off his feet, but is then allowed back up. He immediately gets revenge with a thudding kick into Muromets thigh. After more near misses and dodges a lovely counter right from Muromets gets the crows going. Finally an earth shattering uppercut by Wick lands, rocking Muromet, until Wick finishes with a massive right to put Muromets out on his feet. After all the grappling this evening it was refreshing watching two fighters go at it mano y mano. I can’t wait to see Wick in the title fight as he has definitely earned his shot. Muromets gave a good showing of himself, but definitely has work to do in the accuracy department if he wants to take on Wick again. Fight 6 - Welterweight Division (18-20-1, 179 lbs) Dick “The Stockton Slapper” Diaz VS (15-10, 180 lbs) Nicholas McDonald Our sixth fight of the evening pits Diaz, coming off of a decision victory over Smyth in his SPFT debut, against Mcdonald who just joined us from SMASH where he had mixed results. Wow!!! The intro took longer than the fight as Diaz gets countered by a one two knocking him down. After standing he eats a left hand before McDonald hits him with a massive head kick knocking him out. McDonald introduces himself to the SPFT in style! He deserved his knockout of the night award and I can’t wait to see him in his next fight! Diaz will definitely regret this one. A win here could have seen him in the upper echelon of SPFT fighters, but instead he has to muck it around the middle with the rest of the 1-1 fighters. Main Card Fight 7 - Middleweight Division (29-25, 166 lbs) Micah Hawk VS (1-8, 155 lbs) Michael “Golden” Manchester We finally enter the main card as Hawk, hoping to recover from his submission defeat at the ends of Mae Joon, meets Manchester in his SPFT debut. Manchester has had a rough career to date with only one victory in 9 fights. Hopefully he can recreate himself in the SPFT. Impressive takedown by Manchester, but Hawk immediately gets the arm bar tap out and this one ends before it even really begins. This one managed to ends even quicker than the previous one. Hawk wins his sequel match in style, using the technique that ended him in SPFT 1. A worthy submission of the night for sure! Manchester showed more of the same as he moves to 1-9 overall. Something major is going to have to change or he will be the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons. Fight 8 - Featherweight Division (7-6, 145 lbs) Kittisak Saetang VS (12-8, 152 lbs) Cody Evans In our first Debutante vs debutante fight of the evening, Saetang takes on Evans. Both will be trying to introduce themselves to the SPFT with a strong showing. Of all the fights on the evening this one definitely showed MIXED martial arts and it was great to see diversity of technique. They started us off with high level striking before Evans landed an impressive counter takedown. After which Saetang’s submission attempt was well defended by Evans. After some ineffective wrestling the referee stood them up. Eventually after Saetang once again got the better of the striking, Evans dove into another nice takedown. After another referee stand up and some more back and forth striking, the round came to an end too close to call. The fight continued in a similar vein the rest of the way through, with Saetang seeming to get the best of the striking, but Evans taking impressive takedowns and landing significant ground and pound. However, neither fighter ever threatened with a finish and we eventually went the distance in a very close fight. In a Majority decision Kittisak Saetang’s hands were raised in a very tough decision that was going to leave someone mad. Saetang’s striking definitely showed promise and he seemed fairly good at stalling on the ground. However, he was one decision away from walking away with a tie and will have to show more if he wants more than just a majority decision in his next bout. Evans could easily have come away with the result in this one, and I personally had him tagged as the winner. But at the end of the day the judges appear to have valued striking more heavily than ground game and he will leave with a disappointing loss in his first fight with the SPFT. Co-Main Event - Featherweight Division (36-25-3, 144 lbs) “Gypsy Prince” Tommy Walcott VS (10-4-2, 150 lbs) Dino Ebedi “Steel Penn” In what has been a rather quick night we make our way to the Co-Main Event of the night as Walcott tries to follow up his SPFT debut victory with another. Trying to stand in his way is Dino Ebedi who comes in having won 5 straight matches in the QFC. This one started off pretty hot. Walcott being the pace setter throwing strike after strike, but Ebedi seeme content and landed a decent amount of counters in retaliation. The difference on the judge’s scorecard for the first round probably came down to who was on the front foot, and that had to be Walcott as Ebedi was rarely the aggressor. Going into the second Ebedi continued to lean more towards the counter. However, Walcott was once again coming off better in the trades through sheer quantity. Once again Walcott being the pace setter probably put him ahead on the scorecards despite being the less accurate fighter. Finally we head into the third knowing Ebedi is going to need to end the fight or lose on the scorecards. Despite having a better performance in this round as he picked up the pace, Ebedi couldn’t do anything to bring the fight to close. So after three rounds of a tit for tat fight Walcott has his hands raised 29:28 after 3 rounds. Walcott definitely came into this one with the goal of controlling the pace and taking it to his opponent. His history of winning mainly by decision seems to be a gameplan and it could set him up for a late career resurgence at 44 years old. Ebedi looked like the better fighter in this one. However, he let his opponent take the pace and suffered for it on the scorecards. I’m excited to see what he will do in the next bout as he tries to shake off the disappointing loss. Main Event -Heavyweight Division (7-6, 280 lbs) Alex Steel Iii VS (5-8, 280 lbs) Kimbo Wahwah After sprinting into the Main card the fights seem to have slowed down, culminating in this, our main event of the evening. Alex Steel and Kimbo Wahwah remake their acquaintance as Wahwah tries to avenge his loss to Steel in RISE 141. Wow! Both fighters come out swinging failing to land everything, but Steel sees the opening for a lovely double leg takedown. Steel, not one to waste a chance, bursts into a flurry of activity, but it appears to be more flailing than anything as he didn’t land anything other than a single headshot before the referee stood the fighters up. After the stand up they go at it once again. This time landing some good shots, but each fighter seems to be able to shake it off. After another Steel takedown we bring the round to a close with a slight lead to Steel. The next round starts the same as the first with some impressive striking from both fighters. Steel appears to be the one setting the tone in this one even bringing the fight into a clinch at one point. However, shortly before the four minute mark Wahwah landed a huuuuge head kick rocking Steel off of his feet. Wahwah, not one to grapple, just waved his opponent back up, but Steel managed to regain his feet, even landing a nice counter right hand. Once again close to the end of the round Steel took the fight to the ground again and there it stayed until the round ended with a winning round (most likely) from Wahwah. That takes us into the third round dead even. After the last round Steel has to be nervous. Or not almost right away Steel lands a very nice uppercut, knocking Wahwah to the ground. Steel immediately pounced on him and spent the next 2 minutes of the fight in complete control, landing a little ground and pound, before the referee eventually stood the fighters up. From there it was more back and forth, with Steel appearing to be the one coming off slightly better. Until, after a dominant round three we finish with a unanimous decision for our victor Alex Steel Iii. Its obvious why this was fight of the night. Steel looked impressive against an impressive opponent. While he was unable to get the finish this time around Steel definitely showed he was still the better fighter. Two fights, two defeats for Wahwah against Steel. He looked much better in this one, managing to go the distance, but a defeat is a defeat. Hopefully the 24 year old isn’t too disheartened as he has shown a lot of potential to be a contender in the heavyweight division.
  12. SPFT #2 - Review (23 July 2023 - The Underground, Hilo) Prelims Fight 1 - Heavyweight Division (6-14, 265 lbs) Harris Benn VS (5-6, 220 lbs) David Nikora Round 1 Kicking off our night Harris Benn takes on David Nikora in a Heavyweight fight from down under. Both fighters out of Sydney however, Benn looks to uphold the aussie pride against Nikora the New Zealander. The bout was barely underway before Benn took the fight to the ground as anyone who has seen him fight knew he would. Fairly quickly Nikora managed an impressive reversal getting to a controlling position. Benn, not to be dissuaded continued to control with repeated submission attempts until Nikora lands a nice elbow, cutting Benn in the process. Eventually after a lot of dodged ground and pound the referee stood the fighters up. Only for Benn to immediately takedown the winded Nikora. Eventually the 1st round ends after a fairly dominant controlled round from Nikora. However, this control was, but an illusion. Benn once again takes Nikora down to the ground, and through sheer persistence eventually locks in the submission victory he had been searching for all fight. Harris Benn Looked like he was out for an evening of disappointment and will be glad his desperate submission attempts finally got him his 7th submission victory as well as submission of the night. Nikora will be very upset with himself as he firmly won round 1 and had shown signs he was up to the Benn challenge. His moment of carelessness after failing a submission of his own will certainly haunt him in the days that come. Fight 2 - Heavyweight Division (2-2, 250 lbs) Aqissiac “The Cherokee” Jacira VS (11-15, 255 lbs) Peetu Tam For Our second fight of the evening the relatively young Aqissiac Jacira with only 4 fights under his belt takes on an island semi-finalist with 26 fights to his name, Peetu Tam. Given Tam’s track record I don’t think anyone came into this fight expecting it to go the distance given the fact he has only had one of 26 fights go to full time. Boy did it start with some fireworks, as Jacira cut Tam immediately with a hook. Tam then tried to regain control of the fight with some leg kicks, only to get countered with a huge right hand knocking him down where Jacira quickly capitalized to get the knockout victory. Jacira looked amazing in his SPFT debut and hopefully starting anew after losing two straight fights will set this youngster’s career alight. This is a very concerning fight from Tam’s corner as its never good to see an older fighter go down that quickly. Especially given the fact he has now lost 8 straight fights 7 of which are by knockout. Undercard Fight 3 - Heavyweight Division (11-10-1, 254 lbs) Xavier Washington VS (12-8, 265 lbs) Daniel Steel What a Heavy night!! Here we go with our third straight Heavyweight match of the night as World class Muay Thai meets world class boxing! Washington vs Steel who will be the last man standing! Both these fighters look like contenders in the heavyweight division and they showed their class immediately. With Washington attempting to clinch, being met with an impressive counter, but still managing to cinch the clinch right after. Unfortunately Steel ruined the moment by making a complete fool of himself in his attempt to drop to guard. Even Washington couldn’t help, but grin at his opponent’s antics. However the grin would be short lived as he once again clinched Steel who then, not to be deterred, successfully pulls his opponent to the ground. From here it was minutes of Washington trying to improve his position to no avail while Steel throws in submission attempts at any moment he sees an opening. Until finally at 3:47 Steel locked in a guillotine forcing Washington to tap. Washington may have gone into this fight expecting a fight on his feet, and seemed stymied by his opponent’s choice to instead drag the fight to the ground. He will hope to show more of what he is capable of in his next fight as he showed very little in this one. Steel showed that those who look at his stand up skills as his only strength will thoroughly regret this fact. His ground game combined with his exemplary boxing makes him a difficult opponent to manage for anyone. Fight 4 - Lightweight Division (16-10, 164 lbs) “The Ringworm” Erasmo Bezerra VS (21-18-1, 148 lbs) Long Schlong “Steel Penn” In our fourth fight of the evening two experienced lightweight fighters meet in the underground hoping to keep our string of finished fights going. Bezerra meets Schlong, and yes that's the fighter’s name. Schlong is the best fighter of all time and will probably be known as the best to ever fight (disregard the fact that his manager is the person who paid me to write this review please, as this is completely unbiased). Oooofffffffffff Bezerra took off with the bell and took Schlong down into half guard immediately. Come on Schlong you got this! *ehem* after some ineffective attempts to jockey for position by Schlong, Bezerra lands some impressive ground and pound, not missing a single strike before attempting a submission. Schlong in a masterclass effort avoids being submitted….into another submission attempt that he also rebuffs. Whoa!!! That elbow should have been completely illegal!!! But no the ref lets it go and that's the fight Bezerra with an early 1:46 first round knockout. Bezerra showed that he is a solid fighter that people can’t sleep on in this lightweight division, despite the rule bending nature of his knockout in this one. Hopefully he shows more of the quality and less of the questionable elbows in his next one. While he didn’t look like it was time to tie up the gloves he definitely showed his 39 years as he was always stuck reacting to what his opponent did, never quite overcoming the quicker, younger fighter. Hopefully He can learn from this and set the pace in his next fight. Fight 5 - Heavyweight Division (13-9,240 lbs) Elinho Mineiro VS (21-16, 235 lbs) Olaf Frost The Underground is electric after 4 straight high octane exciting fights! Mineiro and Frost surely have to be feeling the pressure walking into this cacophony. Lets get right to it I can’t drag it out further! Ouch that's gotta hurt! Early on Mineiro lands a devastating blow to Frost’s nose, hope he didn’t break it. Then after some aggressive hugging initiated by Mineiro, Frost manages to separate and continue missing just about every shot he throws. At least until the 2nd minute when suddenly he manages to land a couple jabs, only to be caught with an impressive 1-2 by Mineiro. Followed by an excessive amount of aggressive hugging by Mineiro which Frost is not into at all, evidenced by a nasty cut on Mineiro’s face when he refused to let go. In the second round Mineiro continued his strategy, but Frost seemed to have gotten the read on all the clinch attempts as he managed to keep out of the clinch in all, but three attempts. He managed to land some nice shots in between dodging the clinches and most likely took the scorecard in this round handily. Finally we enter the third round for the first time tonight where we see our first takedown of the fight as Frost turns a missed strike into a solid takedown. However, he soon got back up on his own and went back to avoiding clinch attempt after clinch attempt, until finally the fight ends. It was an easy 27-30 unanimous decision in Frost’s favor. Mineiro definitely came into this fight with bringing it to the clinch in mind, but with how accurate his boxing seemed, one has to wonder if he would have been better served going toe to toe with his less accurate foe. Frost will definitely be disappointed to not have continued the evenings finish streak, but definitely can hold his head up high knowing that his opponent’s 70 clinch attempts are what really dragged this fight into the mud. Hopefully his next opponent will be less interested in hugging and more interested in fighting so we can see what he is made of. Fight 6 - Heavyweight Division (8-2, 278 lbs) Werewolf “By” Night VS (15-34, 223 lbs) Ron Austin Spoiler alert this fight ends with one of these two fighters retiring after a short, but exciting fight. Night at 24 has found a lot of success and has to be the most promising youth in the SPFT. Taking on Austin who has a long, disappointing career to date. The fight started off with an immediate, but stuffed takedown from Austin. Right after a sharp straight from Night cuts Austin. After a one sided beat down interchanged with some failed takedown attempts from Austin, Night cracks Austin a big right hand. After getting back up Austin tries to stall with yet another stuffed takedown before a huge overhand right ends Austin’s night. Werewolf Night looked amazing and thoroughly deserved his Knockout of the night. I can’t wait to see him in action again after a victory this comprehensive. Another disappointing result and Austin has announced his retirement after the fight. Thanks for the long career Austin good luck in your future endeavors good sir. Main Card Fight 7 - Middleweight Division (32-3, 200 lbs) Javier Martinez VS (11-11, 192 lbs) Eli Vieira In our 7th bout of the evening the ex Flair champion Javier Martinez takes on a mixed result fighter Eli Vieira. On paper Martinez has to be the huge favorite to win this and Vieira definitely has his work cut out for him. The first round started off hot with an immediate landed strike from Martinez. Early on it looked like a tit for tat kinda fight as Martinez initiated clinches, mixed in some elbows with mixed success, until Vieira managed to break up the clinch. Until late in the round when suddenly Vieira decided he wanted to start initiating, then breaking the clinch. Real head scratching move as he was being thoroughly controlled and abused in the clinch. The second round continued just like the first ended as Vieira continued to engage the clinch, get abused then disengaging again. Oh and did I mention the cut? His cut from the first round is really starting to open up and raise questions. We hit the 3rd round with two very obvious won rounds for Martinez and Vieira must know he has to finish this to get the win. However, in head scratching fashion he continues his weird stalling clinch tactics that led him to this situation, further clinching into his cut being opened up even more. Eventually he stalls his way into the decision loss he deserved. Martinez has had a long very successful career and this fight is just another feather in his cap. It was a very comprehensive victory, but many will ask why he didn’t do more to end the fight. Vieira seemed like he came into the fight hoping to bog it down in the clinch and stall/control his way to a decision victory. Unfortunately Martinez was just better in the clinch and once his main strategy unraveled Vieira had no backup plan to fall back on. Hopefully his tactic was more a result of his opponent and less of a reflection on him as a fighter. Co Main Event - Welterweight Division (27-17-1, 170 lbs) Vladimir Kosmanov VS (11-11, 180 lbs) “Steel Penn” Chrysanthos Xanthopoulos Following up the beginning to our main card we have ex OFK Champion Kosmanov taking on the manager hopping Xanthopoulos from enigma in our co main event of the evening. This fight will surely be a wrestling showcase as both fighters have extremely high level wrestling ability. The fight started with Kosmanov taking the early lead with a takedown right off the bat. From there we had a period of short ground and pound attempts followed by a short nap, resulting in a warning from the ref. That's about as much excitement as we got to see in the first round as other than a couple failed submission attempts by Kosmanov it was mainly jockeying for position. However, in a wrestling round, the fact Xanthopoulos got into full mount should edge round in his favor. Which brings us into the 2nd round where this time Xanthopoulos jumps out to a quick takedown. Then followed up by a lot more…wrestling. Someone needs to tell these guys this is an mma event not olympic wrestling. However, Xanthopoulos clearly got the better of Kosmanov in this round which should make him the winner as long as he can avoid being finished. Guess what….the third round starts with another takedown, this time by Kosmanov. Oh my someone attempted a submission! Oh, it failed. Finally another riveting 4 minutes of wrestling and we find our winner by unanimous decision….Xanthopoulos. Kosmanov was perhaps overconfident in his wrestling abilities for this one. He continually kept the fight on the ground despite coming off worse in each exchange. Perhaps this was a bad matchup for him, but he will have to prove it was nothing, but a blip in his next fight if he wants to earn the respect of SPFT fans. Xanthopoulos, while not the most exciting person to watch, had a gameplan and executed it. While it may not have kept us on the edge of our seat he got the job done. Main Event - Featherweight Division (13-10-2, 185 lbs) “Pisces” Nelson Biederman VS (21-4-1, 190 lbs) Bora “Game Over” Khan Finally we make it to the main event. Hopefully the crowd can build the excitement back up for this one as we have two great fighters making their SPFT debuts. Biederman comes in trying to recover from a very poor showing in DC with a 1-4 record, while Khan is coming off of a successful OFK career having held the belt on 3 occasions and also having held the SSSD belt at one point in his career. Out of the gate it looked like we were heading to a one sided Khan victory as he countered just about everything Biederman did, even managing to cut him with a nice cross. However, perhaps sensing his inevitable defeat Biederman decided to take the fight to the ground. On the ground Biederman definitely showed his class. In a very controlled manner he kept control throughout the rest of the round, even finding himself landing blows from mount. A dominant first round win for Biederman. 1-0 A different story for the second round. Khan managed to keep the fight on the fight, completely controlling the fight, stuffing all takedown attempts and striking much more cleanly and effectively than Biederman, until four minutes in when Biederman finally managed a takedown. A narrow win for Khan in this round. 1-1 In the third round we saw both fighters showing evidence of tiring with a much less enthused showing. Biederman got a takedown right before the minute mark after some lackluster striking from both parties. Once there biederman landed some ground and pound, but eventually faded in activity until the ref had enough and stood them up. From there we saw a lot of activity from Biederman landing a decent amount of strikes before taking Khan down once again. However this success was shortlived as Khan managed an impressive escape. Once up it appeared Khan had regained his confidence as he very cleanly outfought Biederman on his feet. However, it was too little too late as Biederman most likely took the round. 2-1 We enter the rounds reserved only for those in the Main event. This round showed clearly why not every fight goes this long as both fighters appeared to have little in the tank. After a wild and crazy first minute, the action tapered off gradually as each fighter missed more than they landed. Eventually it came to a close with a narrow victory for Biederman. 3-1 Entering the final round Biederman had the tentative lead, but given how close two of the rounds were he couldn’t take it easy as judges may have been swayed one way or the other. This round started out looking similar with give and take striking from both parties that seemed destined to miss other than the occasional body shot. Shortly after the minute mark Biederman gets his takedown where he absolutely dominated Khan. It was mostly about control, but he came close to a submission victory as well as landed a huge shot from on top. After a few more submission attempts Biederman locked in the clear victor of this round, leaving no doubt. In a Split decision Nelson Biederman is finally declared victor in our fight of the night. Biederman should take great pleasure in this victory. It was an extremely well fought battle by both parties who gave everything they had. Beating a two time champion is never an easy feat and he can sleep well tonight knowing he did it! This will be a mixed bag for Khan. He goes home knowing he showcased his talents, but also knowing his path to a third belt just got longer with a defeat like this. However, he will always be a contender and we can hope for a swift recovery from this promising 28 year old.
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