Empire Grand Prix First Round Recap

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 The first round of the Empire Grand Prix is now in the books. I’ll briefly recap the fights here.

In the opener, two 18 year olds duked it out, but it was Tyson Abreu who came up victorious. It did not look that way initially, as it was Rounin Hashima who dominated the early going, scoring a cut on Abreu early on, but Abreu scored takedown late in the 1st to stem the tide and another one early in the 2nd leading to a submission later in the round.

The second scheduled fight was a no-contest since Darius Rucker missed weight. Danny Peterson will move on. I will spare you the Hootie and the Blowfish puns this time.

The second actual fight was another matchup of youngsters, as Jung Ho Park dominated Irishman Myke Bonner. The “Korean Wonderkid” lived up to his billing in this one as he dominated from the very start. Bonner was only able to escape the clinch for a brief moment before Park took him right back in and ended it by TKO in the 1st.

In the fourth fight scheduled, Huckleberry Flint destroyed Ernesto Powers. Powers scored the early takedown, but the Manhattan native was thoroughly outmatched by the Belgian who took Powers to the woodshed. Flint was unstoppable on the ground, and the referee rightfully stopped the match for a TKO in the 1st.

In the next one, Croatian Dario Balic scored another win for the European contingent through a likely fight of the night winning performance over Damian Molina. “Dragi” looked like a contender for the championship when he took the Puerto Rican into the clinch early and landed all 13 of his punches leading to a TKO less than a minute into the fight.

Following that electric performance, Ergun Cerrahoglu cruised past Aussie Rony Stark. The Turk won 30:26 on all three scorecards in a match which consisted of Stark hoping and praying for a submission while taking obscene amounts of punishment. Cerrahoglu  looked like a top contender, unsurprising as he is one of the more experienced fighters in the field.

The seventh fight on the card was a quick one, as Icelandic fighter Jax Sigthorsson defeated Jim Reefer. The Pittsburgh native was the more aggressive out of the gate, but “The Grim” Reefer was unable to do much before Sigthorsson scored a takedown and wrestled away control of the match, leading to a quick submission.

The final match of the tournament’s first round featured pre-tournament favorite Ricardo Morra Jr., who did not disappoint making quick work of Akihiro Imanari. Imanari was unable to land a single attack on “Monkey Style” Morra, who landed an astounding 34/36 punches in the clinch in just 3:31 before the referee stopped the match for a TKO.

The other two fights were also quite entertaining. First up, Arnold Kallas continued the trend of 1st round stoppages by beating the pulp out of Simon Slade en route to a TKO 1:57 into the match. In the main event, 170 lbs champion Michael Howardson was upset by 21 year old upstart Ricardo Miles. “The Butcher” tried to clinch repeatedly, but “The Soca Warrior” took Howardson down from the clinch and got a submission for the belt 2:41 into the match.

It was an exciting night, as the first round of the tournament lived up to its billing, a new challenger emerged at the super-heavyweight division, and a new champion won the welterweight belt.

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