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GLADIUS 5: CAMARA VS KRUEGER (REVIEW)
Hiya there folks! how are ya'll doing? i hope for the love of god, that you guys are doing great cause, if you watched tonight's event, how can you possibly not be buzzing for the rest of the weekend? And i say that with a definite puzzling look towards all the people who might say, well this was another good event, nothing special. Because let me tell you guys, this show was absolute bonkers. why? well firstly, this show had a event rating of 103.68, which is great in itself but, the main reason for people to remember this event will be, the 1st Round stoppages in this event (4 submissions, 4 TKO/KO's) which was fantastic to witness, cause those finishes showed that every fighter in this organization is fearless i.e, they are not afraid to lose this fight, if it means entertainment for the MMA fanatics who come in numbers to witness them fight.
Guys, on a personal note, i am delighted to be given the opportunity to write this review for all you guys. And therefore without wasting any more time, let's get straight into the review of this great event, in 3,2,3.. okay, okay, i am not great at mathematics alright? Anyways, here we go!
(UNDERCARD BOUTS)
Normally, we don't really expect many great bouts in the undercard, as, there is a reason it is called the undercard, which is? it does not really feature the very best fighters in the organization. And therefore, the so called lower ranked guys, or the newcomers to the sport, are made to fight in them, which sometimes produces some breathtaking contests, and then again, in some other days it produces some of the most boring fights. But, i have to say kudos to our owner Mr Wonder here, cause with him in charge, the last thing you can expect is a boring fight, and therefore there was no surprise in the fact that, in today's event, all 5 of the undercard bouts were stoppages, either by TKO or submission, exciting right? Believe me it was. And so for you guys to take a better look at what exactly went on in those fights, let's jump straight into the action with our first fight of the evening.
1. Topham Hatt vs Don Wetherby (HEAVYWEIGHT BOUT [265 LBS])
So, to start off the event we had a fight between two strikers as well as wrestlers, woah! this definitely was not going to end well for one of them. And well, i am a genius, cause it definitely did not end well. You guys wanna know why? Yes? okay, here is the reason.
Round 1: Right from the start of this fight, Hatt looked so much more comfortable while striking. He started off with a nasty body kick, which sucked the oxygen straight out of Wetherby's body and winded him, then he kept working on his body bit by bit with kicks and punches for a fair amount of time, until, he decided to step up his aggression a tad bit more, which led to him clinching up with Wetherby. And then from there on, Hatt never really looked back, because he knew that he was a much better Muay Thai striker, and so as soon as they clinched, Hatt started to strike Wetherby at will, with left and right hand punches connecting with Wetherby's head almost every time he threw them, as a result, one of the right hand's rocked Wetherby for a moment, from which he recovered alright,But then as soon as he recovered,a massive uppercut sent him sprawling to the ground and Hatt then unleashed a further barrage of strikes on the ground which forced the referee to step in and end the fight.
~ RESULT: TOPHAM HATT WINS VIA TKO (STRIKES) [1 MIN 58 SEC {ROUND 1}]
2. Jacques "French Man" Marchand vs Micheal "Skiper" Bond (FEATHERWEIGHT BOUT [145 LBS])
So, after a rather oddly skilled fighters battling it out in the first fight, we are back to the classic grappler vs striker contest, which can only mean one thing, that is, domination of the fight by one of the fighters depending upon how they are fighting i.e... on the ground or stand up. And therefore let's see what happened in this very tasty looking matchup.
Round 1: What did i say above? domination by one of the guys, depending on how the fight is going. Ah well, while saying that, i certainly did not expect the first round to go as it did go, cause right from the start of the fight, Bond started to boss the fight in the standup (as expected), and then Marchand, after taking a blow to the groin [OUCH! right?], took this fight to a clinch, and then followed it up with a clean takedown (also expected) which led to him trying various submission maneuvers and other BJJ tricks up his sleeve which he believed would have done the job against a rookie BJJ artist in Bond. But, to his credit, Bond managed to survive the onslaught from Marchand and in the end forced Marchand to get back up as frankly, nothing much was happening in the ground anyway. And then, as soon as they got back up, Bond took over the fight once again and started throwing all sorts of kicks and uppercuts and punches towards Marchand for the remainder of the first round. So, that's how the first round ended.
Round 2: Now round 2 started off in the same manner that round 1 ended, to be honest, as Bond started hitting Marchand with more punches, but then when Marchand realised that, taking this fight to the ground was his only way of winning, he quickly completed yet another clean takedown on Bond, but this time, the difference was that Merchand did not let Bond rest even for a little bit while on the ground as, other than trying a arm triangle submission on him, Marchand also kept striking Bond with some heavy ground and pound. This went on for a little while, but then out of the blue, Bond started to get up which led to him giving up his back to opponent, and Marchand being the clever guy he is, took the opportunity and locked in a (rear naked choke), which forced Bond to tap out and subsequently end this fight.
~ RESULT: JACQUES MARCHAND WINS VIA SUBMISSION (REAR NAKED CHOKE) [3 MIN 55 SEC{ROUND 2}]
3. Paulo Gutti vs Griorgio Petro (LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT BOUT [205 LBS])
This was a fight between a boxer with some decent wrestling and a wrestler with some decent Jiu Jitsu. So, take your pick, but before you do that, just know that one of them won their debut fight as a professional and the other one lost on his debut, so choose wisely. And therefore, after all that, let's take a look at what actually transpired in this fight.
Round 1: To say this fight was a one-sided one, is honestly a massive understatement. Because right from the start of this fight, after Gutti completed a takedown on Petro, this fight was almost as good as over, as, Gutii being a better Jiu Jitsu fighter, completely bossed the fight in the ground from start to finish. He tried various submissions like Guillotine, kimura etc on Petro but failed in those attempts, which probably made the fans think that this fight could possibly be going into a second round. But, Petro had some other plans, as for reasons unknown, he tried to get back to his feet while Gutti was still in control of the position and so the inevitable happened, which was Petro lost sense of his dangling leg which was open to be attacked and Gutti needed no second invitation to pounce onto this massive opportunity and lock in a heel hook which forced Petro to tap out, thus, ending the fight.
~ RESULT: PAULO GUTTI WINS VIA SUBMISSION (HEEL HOOK) [1 MIN 48 SEC {ROUND 1}]
4. Andrew "Ewelsy" Ewels vs Francesco Benvenuti (WELTERWEIGHT BOUT [170 LBS])
Now then, if there is anyone out here, who wants to know what happens when you become overconfident mid-fight and then have a momentary loss of concentration, i would suggest to them, to take a long hard look at this fight because, you cannot possibly have a better answer to that question, if you don't look at this fight. And so, do you guys wanna know the full story of this fight? well, i will tell you guys anyways. So here goes nothing (if i speak, for Benvenuti).
Round 1: So this fight started off with Benvenuti making an absolute mockery of Ewels, as Benvenuti completely and utterly tormented Ewels for large parts of the first round when this fight was still fought on the feet, by hitting him with some crisp jabs, hooks, solid body shots and what not. But, Ewels absorbed it all in without much fuss, waiting for the right opportunity to pounce as he saw that Benvenuti was clearly getting overconfident by each passing second and was starting to show off a bit. And therefore when the opportunity presented itself, Ewels did not think twice before going for the takedown and securing it on an unaware Benvenuti. After that, Benvenuti realised that he had to get to his feet as soon as possible, as he is terrible at BJJ and so he started to get back up almost instantly. But, as he is not the greatest Jiu Jitsu fighter(as mentioned before), he left his arm dangling outside while attempting to get up, and therefore Ewels saw that opportunity and locked in the armbar tight which forced Benvenuti to tap out furiously in pain and thus end this fight with some exciting twists and turns.
~ RESULT: ANDREW EWELS WINS VIA SUBMISSION (ARMBAR) [2 MIN 45 SEC {ROUND 1}]
5. Marcos Agripa vs Power "Super" Man (FEATHERWEIGHT BOUT [145 LBS])
This fight brought up no real surprises to be honest. As on one side, we had a grappler and a lethal submission artist in Marcos Agripa. And on the other end, we had a wrestler who is also a decent boxer but atrocious on the ground, so you can see where this fight was heading to be truthful, because, if a wrestler does not have decent Jiu Jitsu skills, then how on earth is he supposed to finish his opponent? Well. that's not for me to anwer, So let's take a look at what actually happened in this fight to see if we can get an answer to my question.
Round 1: At the very start of the fight, things were somewhat looking good for Man, as he was successfully landing a few shots on Agripa, because Man was clearly the boxer among the two. But the the turning point of the match soon arrived, as after a lazy attempt of throwing a hook from Man, Agripa countered with a massive takedown which quite frankly, already spelled the end of Man. So after securing the takedown, Agripa started, what can be honestly called a barrage of submission attempts on Man, which if we count it right was 3-4 attempts per minute, and were mostly focused on the arm of Man. Then again, Man defended every attempt brilliantly until, on another one of the attempt of a kimura, Agripa shifted his position slightly, which led to more pressure being applied to the arm and therefore, for once Man was very late in defending it, and due to the extreme pressure applied by Agripa, he was forced to tap out and hence end the fight in the dying seconds of the first round, as a result Man was very disappointed with himself post fight.
~ RESULT: MARCOS AGRIPA WINS VIA SUBMISSION (KIMURA) [4 MIN 59 SEC {ROUND 1}]
(MAIN CARD)
The time has arrived ladies and gents, i do sincerely hope that you all enjoyed the undercard, but, now? it is the time for the big boys of this organization to finally step out into the cage and show the world, why they all fight in the main card in one of the best up and coming organizations in the game. And so with that, let's jump straight into the action, with the opening bout of the main card.
6. Naoko Marui vs Ralph "The Nose Picker" Wiggum (FEATHERWEIGHT BOUT [145 LBS])
For this fight, i cannot really say a lot of things, because it finished almost as soon as it started, i.e.. someone got knocked out cold. OMG! what a surprise, not really, and i say this because in this fight, we had a pure boxer going up against a wrestler with no BJJ skills (again!), and what did i say will happen when this type of match is fought? Yeah! you guessed it right. So, without wasting any more time let's get to what happened in this fight which lasted for a really, really, lo... Nah! short time.
Round 1: This fight started with Marui connecting with a nice jab to Wiggum's face and then rocking him with a nice punch (which i guess was also to his face), which opened up a nasty cut in Wiggum's face (most probably, still guessing). After that, Marui connected with yet another jab and an overhand right, which hurt Wiggum bad, and so Marui pounced on this opportunity and hit the already hurt Wiggum with yet another right hand, which forced the referee to stop the fight and thus end it.
~ RESULT: NAOKO MARUI WINS VIA TKO (PUNCHES) [9 SECONDS {ROUND 1}]
7. Earl Campbell vs Gaur Gerome (HEAVYWEIGHT BOUT [265 LBS])
So, now we have come to the review of tonight's (fight of the night) and also the longest fight of the entire event. This fight has a boxer and a wrestler(Yeah, you know the drill) with no BJJ skills who are going to battle it out to find out who is the best among them. And tell you what, no matter what theory i have said about wrestlers with no BJJ attributes, if they have a fantastic manager with them, then they can still win the fight by targeting the weak points of their opponents. And so, to look at how this fight went about, let's get straight into the review.
Round 1,2,3: When i look at the fight, all three rounds have somewhat got the same pattern, and therefore i am not going to write the rounds separately and put everything in one basket and therefore.
Round one started with Campbell clinching with Gerome straight away, trying to expose his opponents poor Muay Thai and also implement his own strategy the best he can, and believe it or not, this strategy worked a treat, cause Gerome once backed up against the cage, just couldn't get free from the clinch, no matter how hard he tried and Campbell on the other end, kept striking at him with vicious body shots and right hooks while still in clinch throughout the entirity of the round until the bell rang to signal the end of the first round. So now, everyone was expecting some sort of tactical tweak to Gerome, as he got thoroughly dominated in the first round.But no, ironically, the rest of the rounds panned out exactly the same way the first round was fought like. And so after the final bell rang,to signal the end of the fight, there was only ever going to one winner from this one.
~ RESULT: EARL CAMPBELL WINS VIA UNANIMOUS DECISION (ROUND 3)
8. Rian "Bad Boy" McKean vs Ovido "El Chapo" Guzman (WELTERWEIGHT DIVISION [170 LBS])
This was a very interesting fight, because it was fought between two rather very evenly matched competitors, and again Kudos to the matchmaking department here at Gladius for putting up yet another fantastically closely matched fight between two extremely equally skilled boxers and wrestlers. But, as always, there is someone who will be a little better at certain aspects and so they, end up winning the fight. So is something like that going to happen here too? to find out the answer to that, just have a look below.
Round 1: So, before this fight even started, the supporters were already shouting "kill ! kill ! kill !" as if they already knew that these two are just going to let loose from the get go, So when the bell rang to signal the start of the fight, Mckean letting loose came as no surprise to the fans really. But what might have surprised them, was probably Guzman coming charging forward to attack like a bull, even though he was getting hit by some very nasty looking shots by McKean to the body as well as to his chin. But, a human beings body and chin can only take so much, therefore after a picture perfect combination strike by McKean, Guzman got rocked and stuttered for a bit before regaining his whereabouts. But by then, it was already too late as Guzman got a nasty cut and so, McKean sensing his opportunity to pounce, hit Guzman with a massive uppercut from hell which hurt Guzman bad and so even before he could recover, McKean hit him with yet more strikes forcing the ref to intervene and thus end the fight.
~ RESULT: RIAN MCKEAN WINS VIA TKO (STRIKES) [52 SEC {ROUND 1}]
(CO-MAIN EVENT)
And just like that, we have arrived a step closer to the fight that all the fans here have been waiting for.But, before we head onto the biggest fight of the entire event, we have got one last fight to watch, which also happens to be the co-headliner for this event. And therefore, to know what took place in this fight let's take a look at the penultimate fight of the evening.
9. Satan "Butt Slap" Nosferatu vs Oleksandr "Pussy" Stallone (HEAVYWEIGHT BOUT [265 LBS])
So this co-main event, features a Muay Thai striker vs an all rounded MMA fighter who is not really good at any particular skill, and is very unpredictable with the way he fights,as, he can sometimes look to strike with you whereas in other times, he can try and take you to the ground to submit you. And as a result, this fight was definitely going to a interesting one to watch.
Round 1: So, now it's time for the fight which features the [(KO) of the night], sounds fun to watch right? It should be, cause it was a very good fight while it lasted, which was all of 31 seconds. LOL. Anyways, this fight started off with Satan catching Stallone off guard with a nasty straight right and some good body kicks, the second of which made Stallone stumble back into the cage. Then, Satan sliced open a cut in Stallone's face via a solid jab. After that Stallone did try to come back with a takedown, but Satan dodged him rather easily while shouting (OLE!) for good measure, And then to add insult to injury, after throwing yet another leg kick on Stallone, Satan quickly threw a huge head kick, right on the button, which knocked Stallone out cold for good, and thus ended the fight.
~ RESULT: SATAN NOSFERATU WINS VIA KO (HEADKICK) [31 SEC {ROUND 1}]
(MAIN EVENT) [TITLE BOUT]
This is it guys, the time has finally arrived, the fight that you all have been waiting for is finally upon us and therefore, live from the sold out (Wild Bob's Bar), it's time for us to take a look at the main event of the evening, which is obviously sponsored by EL ZOIDO FEEBLE FIGHTWEAR.
10. Mbaku "Man Ape" Camara vs Bale "Operator" Kreuger (HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE BOUT [265 LBS])
Now, this was built up as some sort of grudge match between the two fighters, as well as their managers, because it is not a secret, that these two absolutely hate each other and therefore if anything, this match was going to provide some fireworks for sure. This match, was a classic striker vs grappler matchup, and so, let's take a look at the fight to see exactly what happened in it.
Round 1: So this fight, although was a very short lived one, had plenty of twists and turns in all of 49 seconds that the fight went on for. It started off with Kreuger slicing open a cut in Camara via a straight right hand on the money, but then Camara took this fight first into a clinch, and then he completed a clean takedown into full guard. And from there on, there was only ever going to be one winner as within seconds, Camara took control of one of the arms of Kreuger and quickly converted it into an armbar, after which, he flipped onto his stomach and started to apply more pressure to that arm which forced Kreuger to tap out and consequently end this fight.
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