GAMMA - The Rise of the Juggernaut

batsnumbereleven · January 9, 2015

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GAMMA – The Rise of the Juggernaut

Introduction

This is a story of a Mixed Martial Arts organisation that grew into a multi-National behemoth. It starts with a brief description of the early days of our subject, GAMMA, and runs through how what is now a vast multi-media empire that runs shows all over the planet became what it is today. How the vision of a number of men made GAMMA the pre-eminent force in MMA along with the grit, determination, skill, hard work, sweat, blood and pride of those who fought under the GAMMA banner.

It looks at the company's growth through the eyes of those who ran it and fought in it, and this is presented alongside the detail of the MMA events that took place from January 1998 onwards when Michael Frankley took over the reins as GAMMA CEO.

There's politics, money troubles, legal wrangling, internal dispute and division, and plenty of discord and disharmony, but what it all comes down to is a success story, regardless of the petty rivalries; an epic of human endurance, despite the arguments over money; a tale of human men fighting other human men (and in this case, it is exclusively men) for pride, glory and honor, and to be considered the best Mixed Martial Artist in the world. This is the juggernaut that GAMMA has become.

Chapter 1 – The Early Years 1994 -1997

GAMMA’s founding, back in April 1994, was almost prevented by the US Government and various State legislatures that bought into the concept of it being “human cock fighting” with no rules and little in the way of discipline.

In some respects the legislators were right – some of the early MMA practitioners weren’t especially skilled, but they were effective, and that was enough for them to win bouts.

The consortium that Lance Decker pulled together in 1994 had enough sway with the Nevada State Athletic Commission to allow the organisation to get started and to run events in Las Vegas.

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Lance Decker (GAMMA founder and first CEO)

The NSAC were flexible enough to give us that opportunity we needed. They weren’t especially impressed by the totality of some of the early shows, but they’d seen enough flashes of intrigue, real skill, and personality among some of the fighters to agree that we could continue.

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Mark Cohen (inaugural GAMMA Heavyweight Champion)

The early shows weren’t the “spit and sawdust” type of backyard fights that everyone thinks they were. Sure, the facilities were fairly basic, but they were generally clean, and we had doctors and physios on hand for the worst cases scenarios.

A couple of the fighters in the first shows badly needed those doctors after succumbing to heavy beatings, primarily to stitch up cuts and treat for bruises, whilst one notorious brawler ended up being sent to a Las Vegas hospital for treatment after his fight. He'd badly underestimated the sort of damage that his opponent could do to him, and even after 15 minutes of taking a battering from his much more skilled opponent, refused to quit. Rumours still abound that even the notoriously even-handed Nevada State Athletic Commission were re-considering their stance on Mixed Martial Arts having seen the extent of the damage, and only GAMMA's willingness to foot the medical bill and the fighter's own pride managed to keep the incident out of the media spotlight.

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Mark Wallace (GAMMA investor in 1994)

That was nearly the end of the venture right there, but we’d all invested enough in the physical plant and in insurance to want the organisation to succeed, and it’s to Lance’s credit that he got us through the early years without any significant lawsuits, medical bills or debts owed.

Decker had seen how a number of other sporting organisations had manage to bankrupt themselves very quickly, with huge financial commitments, and made sure that GAMMA had a medium term plan for the use of the finances that were made available, rather than spending extortionate sums on supposed celebrities or booking venues that they would never fill.

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James Foster (GAMMA Heavyweight Champion 1997-1998)

If anything, Decker underestimated how quickly the sport would grow in the US. We’d seen how ALPHA-1 had led Japanese growth in MMA, but there has always been a tradition of Martial Arts in Japan, in the wider public perspective, whereas in America it was more of a fad. Decker was cautious, but the work he did in building a base for the sport was vital.

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Lance Decker

Although we had to keep costs down, we did have a decent budget to start with. Taking a lead from ALPHA-1 was always on the cards, but we had to do things that made us stand out as something different. The ring that ALPHA-1 used was traditional in wrestling and kickboxing, and for an American audience we needed something else. I’d seen the sort of Cage that they used in American wrestling, and that seemed like a good idea, but we put our own spin on it, since the point wasn’t to try and escape the cage, but to engage with your opponent inside it.

Various versions of the cage were trialled before the first official event took place, with a number of the fighters testing out the structure before it was considered to be fit for purpose. The original designs were reportedly rather less robust than the current version, though there were never any reports of it breaking. However, there remain rumours that two or three of the fighters that were originally due to appear at GAMMA 1 pulled out of the event when they saw the cage. A difference of opinion still exists as to whether that was because they feared the cage collapsing, or they didn’t like the idea of being penned in, though those interviewed for this particular retrospective all seem to have become accustomed to the cage.

In any event, GAMMA 1 went off relatively smoothly, although it didn't make anywhere near enough on the gate to turn a profit, but the organisation made steady progress in capturing the imagination of the American public as the year drew on and they held more events. Even though the events were not available on TV or Pay-per-View, only live and through VHS releases, word of mouth seemed to do a good job of spreading the gospel of GAMMA, and attendances rose slowly but surely and began to make the company look as though it might one day turn a profit.

iverbure · January 10, 2015

in the words of Bart Scott Can't Wait!

batsnumbereleven · January 10, 2015

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Mark Cohen

The first ten or so events were about the fights, and very little about developing a “show”. The people who came were there to see some of the most varied Martial Arts all mixed together, and to be entertained by the athleticism and skill of the fighters. I held no illusions that being champion would last long, given the size of some of the men that were coming into the company, but I did think that I had a better skill set than most of them.

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Lance Decker

We worked fairly slowly in building up the presentation of the events. We weren't drawing tens of thousands of people, so we couldn't afford to put on a big hooplah and fill the place with flash bangs and big lights – most of the people coming to the shows were there either for the novelty value, or to see some really good athletes doing something that they couldn't do anywhere else. For the first few, we merely had an announcer to tell the audience who was fighting, and their skills, but once we got that established we were able to start smartening up the overall look.

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Beau Gorshin (GAMMA Lightweight fighter)

I think it took until about GAMMA 13 before we started getting sponsorship that made a difference. Until that point most of us were still working a full-time job as well as training. Foster, Dean and Morrison all spent a while in Japan with ALPHA-1 and made some decent money out there, but there weren’t many.

From late 1996 and into 1997 GAMMA’s draw started to become more noticeable across mainstream US sporting media. National TV started taking notice of the sport as more than an underground fighting club, and more than half the US states had allowed the regulation of the sport along the lines that the NSAC had developed through 1995 and 1996.

Something of a cult market built up in terms of MMA being the proving ground for which martial art style was the most effective. At the start of GAMMA, this was one of the main selling points, as the vast majority of the fighters came from a background in one martial art or another with little or no training in any other discipline. You had judo players fighting brawlers, classical boxers going toe-to-toe with jiu-jitsu experts and kick-boxers taking on pure wrestlers.

Part of the development of the sport was a presentation issue: the “unified” rules cut out some of the most egregiously sick elements of the sport (gouging, biting, raking) and brought an even greater level of athleticism to the table, and the differences between the various fighting styles became more apparent and people started to realise that they could learn from other varieties of fighting. It was no longer enough just to be good at one aspect of MMA to be a real success, you needed other strings to your bow, even from the late 1990s, though there were a few stand-out exceptions. It hadn't gotten anywhere near the level of cross-over between styles that would develop in the following decade or so, but there was a start made in understanding that one's own specialty might not be the be-all and end-all of MMA.

Yevgeni Sipatov was one of the first exponents of this, though his primary tactic was to use his exceptionally strong wrestling to take an opponent to the mat and then utilise his awesome strength to keep him under control there. Sipatov spent much of 1995 as GAMMA Welterweight champion before finding an opponent with different and better skills.

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Yevgeni Sipatov (former GAMMA Welterweight champion)

I voz gut at wrestling. Gut enough to be champion. I could hold my opponent down and he could not hurt me. I had great skill. I still beat many opponents now. Maybe I vill be champion again.

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Lance Decker

Sipatov was a good champion from a skill standpoint, but utter death for a good crowd. We were fortunate to have some entertaining challengers for him at Welterweight.

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Jack Humphreys (GAMMA Welterweight contender)

He was a beast – he still is. A nightmare to fight against because he had such good control of an opponent. Not a lot of fun for the fans to watch, but a real hard contest.

Throughout 1997, GAMMA began building a roster of fighters that were more rounded competitors, but also began giving them a forum to develop their characters with potential viewers.

James Foster and Nathan Chambers were signed away from ALPHA-1, and the likes of Julio Regueiro and Jim Carpenter came across from Europe. GAMMA looked posed to make strides in the sporting world, but there still seemed to be something holding the organisation back. The sporting media still looked upon MMA as something of a pariah of a sport, although numerous websites now promoted it, including the industry-leading Blurcat.com.

batsnumbereleven · January 11, 2015

Regulation of the sport across numerous US states brought with it drug testing as well. In the early days this was fairly rudimentary, but became more sophisticated as time went on, and Athletic Commissions began testing for the sorts of performance enhancing drugs, their metabolites and various masking agents that were cropping up in other sports (notably Athletics at this point in time) and eventually would cover a whole suite of enhancements that would include recreational drugs as well, though at this point it was barely even a consideration for most of the fighters.

At about the same time, a rival to GAMMA sprung up in California in Xtreme Cage Combat, focusing on the lighter weight classes and women fighters, the latter of which caused further ruckus among the male elite in some sections of American life. Some of the fighters and media had bigger and wider ideas about what MMA could encompass, whilst others were aghast at how the sport was developing. From a GAMMA perspective, the focus was primarily internal, and was on how GAMMA could develop its business.

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James Foster

Decker had the money sitting there, but didn’t seem to know what to do with it to make MMA the next big thing. When I headlined a card, it was always sold out, but I felt we could have moved into bigger arenas and I would have sold all the seats there, too.

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Lance Decker

We still had to be cautious, but we were spending more money than ever on the fighters: the contract that Foster signed could have been a huge liability for us and we needed to be sure that we had the infrastructure in place before we started committing millions of pounds to marketing and exposing the brand further.

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Mark Wallace

Lance spent a fortune on getting James Foster on board, and signing up the like of Norbert Vinkus, but seemed to have no plan on how to expand GAMMA to generate revenues that would enable us to pay them. We had money in the bank, yes, but we weren’t getting the sort of gates in that would cover those outlays in the longer term.

The board met at the end of 1997 and insisted on hiring someone to take over the responsibilities of managing the organisation.

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Yevgeni Sipatov

Audience voz growing but ve vere not on TV. I voz think maybe I make more money in Russia or Germany if GAMMA not on TV.

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Jim Carpenter (GAMMA Welterweight contender)

The number of small MMA organisations around the world that had followed either GAMMA or ALPHA-1’s models were developing some really good fighters. I spent some time in BCF in 1996 and 1997 and was impressed by the training regimes and the quality of the opponents I faced. But GAMMA was what people in England were talking about when you mentioned MMA to them – they knew about Karate and Jiu-jitsu and Kick-boxing, but none had ever really taken a hold – and GAMMA had the potential, being an English-speaking organisation with a captive audience in the US to form the base of an international push, to be the one place where you would go to show you were the best in the world. Just in 1997, it was still very much a niche and badly-promoted sport.

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Lance Decker

I still felt I was the best man for the job, but my fellow investors disagreed, and so I had to go along with what they wanted, even though I feared it would spell disaster for GAMMA.

batsnumbereleven · January 12, 2015

Chapter 2 – The takeover years 1997-1999

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Lance Decker

The man that the board picked to take over the running of GAMMA was a surprise to me. I’d never heard of Michael Frankley before the board arranged for his interview. I wasn’t invited to be part of the interview panel, otherwise I might have had some questions that he would have found tough to answer. I'm still not entirely convinced that he was the best man for the job, and the direction he has taken GAMMA, while intensely successful, appears to have diluted the core values of the company.

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Mark Wallace

Michael Frankley was the clear stand-out candidate. Although he had no previous experience in MMA, that didn’t mean he couldn’t run an organisation – he had a proven track record in the pharmaceutical industry and had a reputation for brand development and presentation that was amply demonstrated during the interview process.

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Michael Frankley

GAMMA’s primary problem before I took over was one of reputation and presentation. TV and Pay-per-View companies were perceived to have a negative view of MMA, and the previous CEO seemed to be of the opinion that this couldn’t be solved.

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Mark Cohen

When Mr Frankley came in, it was very much a case of starting afresh. He brought a whole new approach to GAMMA, and a number of the guys were concerned that they would immediately be out the door.

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Mark Wallace

We weren’t about to let all the hard work that Lance had done in assembling a strong roster of fighters go to waste, and we made it a precondition of Frankley‘s employment that he would give every one of the fighters on the roster on 1 January 1998 the chance to make their own impression, and to be fair to him, he did exactly that.

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Michael Frankley

The fighters themselves were among the strengths of GAMMA – I was never going to undertake a wholesale overhaul of the roster in the first couple of years because I could see that there was a lot of talent, and in some areas there was talent in depth as well. The biggest problem in that regard was that there simply weren’t enough fighters signed up for GAMMA to be able to deliver regular and high quality events to help build a strong brand.

The first month of Michael Frankley's tenure saw an unprecedented hiring spree. The fighters signed came from all over the world, as part of the design to develop an international brand, but the vast majority of them were young and undefeated, and were signed relatively cheaply.

But that wasn’t even the biggest news coming out of GAMMA at the start of 1998 – a press release on 15th January confirmed that a deal had been reached to distribute GAMMA events on Pay-per-View through American Option and that it would be expected that there would be an event at the end of each month across the next ten months, beginning with GAMMA 22 at the end of January.

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Michael Frankley

GAMMA had to become “appointment to view” television if we were going to be able to build a brand that people would recognise. There needed to be a set time when we would hold events, so that potential viewers knew when and where they could get hold of us. The previous, sporadic approach was fine for an organisation that was still in its infancy and needed to be carefully nurtured so that it would grow at a steady speed, but GAMMA wasn’t an infant any longer. Quietly, and not announced in America, we also did deals with Canada 1-choice and Australia Channel 100 as well, for international broadcasts, and would spend much of the early months in 1998 trying to get coverage around the globe.

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Beau Gorshin

Pay-per-View was the first signal that GAMMA really meant business. Unfortunately, my career was coming towards its end and I wasn’t going to see the real benefits.

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GAMMA 22 card for picks

Main Event

GAMMA Heavyweight Championship

James Foster © v Tim Boyer

Co-main

Light Heavyweight - Anthony LeToussier v Mark Cohen

Undercard

Middleweight – Adam White v Ashley Ballard

Welterweight – Bobby Brubaker v Diego Arteta

Lightweight – Aaron McBroom v Goncalves Cassaro

Heavyweight – Duke Aiona v Guy Broom

batsnumbereleven · January 13, 2015

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James Foster

I knew the honeymoon period in GAMMA was over when I had my first negotiations around the title defence at GAMMA 22 – Lance Decker had given me a couple of comfortable defences, but it looked like Frankley wasn’t going to continue that trend and I would have to work to show why I deserved to be champ.

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Tim Boyer

It was definitely time. Decker had been giving Foster an easy ride.

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Michael Frankley

We needed to make an impact with the first card on Pay-per-View. James Foster was a known commodity across the US and having anyone else headline the first PPV would have sent the wrong message. We had to deliver a competitive fight as well, to show off what GAMMA could do, rather than feeding James another one-dimensional fighter that we expected him to beat. If he was going to represent GAMMA as Heavyweight Champion he had to prove that he deserved it.

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Mark Cohen

I knew that I would be up against it taking on a guy of the calibre of LeToussier, but he was definitely one of the up-and-comers at Light-Heavyweight and whoever won would be well positioned for a crack at the title in the near future.

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Lance Decker

The top three matches all looked like they would deliver, but I had serious misgivings about the undercard, in which three fighters were making their GAMMA debuts – this was a trend that would continue throughout 1998, and I'm sure it hurt the ratings we could have achieved.

Controversy over the event began even before the main hype started up. The man originally slated to cover the broadcast, Tom Bellfort, decided that he wasn't interested in working for GAMMA and was looking for an opportunity to start up or run an MMA organisation of his own, which left the plans rather threadbare. Initial plans to have Garth Ward cover the analysis were scuppered when the broadcast producer decided that he wasn't sufficiently aware of the moves taking place, so a new commentary team had to be hastily arranged to replace the plans.

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Lance Decker

Personally, I thought it was a complete farce – here we were, less than a month before our first Pay-per-View event, and the commentary team that we had used to good effect in recent months was torn asunder and a new team assembled from scratch. It was just as well that there were other options available, even if we had to pry them away from other organisations.

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Michael Frankley

I know that Decker was appalled by what happened with the broadcast team, but frankly, we had no choice. Bellfort pulled the rug out from underneath us, and whatever chemistry he and Ward had built up together was obviously covering well for the latter's lack of knowledge of the sport.

In the end, GAMMA settled on a three-man team to deal with the broadcast: Canadian Mance Portman was hired to anchor the show and provide additional commentary as and when required, a job he would share with the young Ralph Ryder, whose main job would be teaming up in the announcing booth with Michael Andersen, who was hired away from XCC to provide analysis and color commentary.

batsnumbereleven · January 15, 2015

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The days of James Foster dominating the Heavyweight division in GAMMA appear to be well and truly over, if last night's performance against challenger Tim Boyer is anything to go by.

The defending champion put in a lackluster performance against a quality opponent, and came up very short of the sort of performance we would expect to have seen.

The first round saw the two fighters stand and trade, and it was an even contest for the most part. Neither man appeared to have an advantage in the early exchanges, although Boyer did outwork the champion slightly, and showed more variety in his striking.

In the second it looked as though Foster would utilise his wrestling advantage, and although the stand-up was again fairly even, Foster got the takedown at his second attempt and quick passed into side control and then mount. He'd left it too late in the round to do much else though.

The third round saw the tide move more firmly in favour of the champion in the early stages, with Foster controlling the grappling, but Boyer connected with a big right hook at the four minute mark that saw Foster wobbly, and then down on his back. Boyer poured on the pressure with strikes from side control, but Foster was able to recover and finished the round covering up fairly easily and deflecting strikes, rather than in any trouble.

In the fourth, the knockdown appeared to be taking its toll on Foster, and Boyer controlled most of the round in the clinch, making significant inroads into Foster's defences and scoring with lots of small strikes at close quarters.

The final round saw much of the same, despite Foster being behind on the card and needing a finish. Boyer controlled the grappling well until the final minute, when Foster reached down into the last of his reserves and planted the challenger on his back with a slam. Foster quickly passed into full mount, but as in the second round, he had left it much too late to force a finish and Boyer was able to hold on into the dying seconds.

All three judges scored the contest 49-46 to Boyer, which accorded with the scores reported by Blurcat.com. Boyer out struck the champion and his striking had better angles and more variation. Foster looked like he could have attempted to take the fight to the floor more often, to take advantage of his strengths. All in all, a deserved victory for the new champ Boyer, and we look forward to seeing who his first defence will be against.

LeToussier Stakes Claim for Title Tilt

Anthony LeToussier took another step forward in his burgeoning career with a comprehensive Unanimous Decision victory over former GAMMA Heavyweight champion Mark Cohen.

LeToussier out struck Cohen in the first round, and put him on the canvas with a crunching straight right. Cohen was able to weather the storm of ground strikes though. In the second Cohen got a takedown, despite eating another right hand, and passed into side control, but lost out in a scramble for position that saw LeToussier on his back, though not particularly threatening.

The third saw LeToussier put Cohen down with a right cross, but couldn't finish him off. The scramble saw LeToussier retain control through to the end of the round, though neither man threatened a finish. LeToussier took the fight 30-27, 29-28, 29-28, which was a fair reflection of the fight.

Elsewhere on the Card

At Middleweight, Adam White and Ashley Ballard fought out a tense affair that resulted in a Split Decision victory for White. The fight wasn't as close as that though, and from cage-side it looked clearly as though White bossed all three rounds. Ballard's kick boxing seemed out of sorts, and his was out struck and outwrestled by his opponent.

In other bouts, Diego Arteta upset the odds to gain a KO victory over Bobby Brubaker in the Welterweight division. A dull first round was followed by two in which Arteta largely dominated, and he finished it with a big right hook, with slightly more than 10 seconds remaining in the contest. Aaron McBroom took a justified unanimous decision victory in a grind over Goncalves Cassaro, whilst Hawaiian kick boxer Duke Aiona was defeated by Guy Broom in a heavyweight bout that lasted just three minutes; Broom got an early takedown and was able to overpower Aiona with his ground and pound.

<div style="text-align:center;">Quick results

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batsnumbereleven · January 16, 2015

The first card under new management attracted a crowd of around 3000, and pulled in gate receipts of more than $500,000. More importantly for GAMMA finances, the Pay-per-View revenue of more than $6million appeared to justify the approach of the new management. Both critical and commercial ratings appeared to be good and most of GAMMA appeared to be happy... with the possible exception of the former champion.

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Dan Halvorsen (GAMMA Welterweight and owner of Halvorsen's Gym, where Foster trained in 1998)</div>

Fozzy was absolutely gutted. I'm sure he felt as though he had been hard done to by the judges, but to be truthful I think he just underestimated what Boyer could do, and didn't do enough in the middle of the cage to make the judges give him the decision. I was surprised that he didn't try for or get more takedowns, as I would have thought that would have been his strength. In the end he only had himself to blame, biggest draw in the company or not.

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James Foster</div>

I thought it was a closer fight that the judges gave me credit for. I felt that I controlled the grappling and managed to get two takedowns, either of which might have led to a finish, so to say I was surprised that they scored 4 rounds against me was an understatement. The PPV ratings justified my position as a main eventer and the key guy to help GAMMA bring in crowds to watch in person and on TV. I was expecting to get a chance at a re-match pretty swiftly... apparently the management had different ideas.

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Lance Decker</div>

Foster should have been better protected – he could have been the #1 drawing fighter in MMA of all time had he been handled right, and putting him up against a tough competitor like Boyer was always a risk, because if he lost, his drawing power was diminished. To make matters worse, the sound quality on the PPV broadcast was utterly unintelligible, which must have hurt future buy rates. We had an announce team there that was basically completely wasted, because nobody watching the event on Pay-per-View could hear them properly.

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GAMMA 23 Card for picks

Main Event

Heavyweight – Jeff Carlton v Raul Hughes

Co-main

Welterweight – Darin Blood v Alan Kendall

Undercard

Lightweight – Truck Gleeson v Beau Gorshin

Light Heavyweight – Ken Peters v Dag Kreuger

Welterweight – Dana Delaney v Felix Mattherson Jr.

Heavyweight – Frank Sheedy v Oliver Fiderer

WCW Mark · January 16, 2015

What database are you using for this?

CageRage · January 16, 2015

Main Event

Heavyweight – Jeff Carlton v Raul Hughes

Co-main

Welterweight – Darin Blood v Alan Kendall

Undercard

Lightweight – Truck Gleeson v Beau Gorshin

Light Heavyweight – Ken Peters v Dag Kreuger

Welterweight – Dana Delaney v Felix Mattherson Jr.

Heavyweight – Frank Sheedy v Oliver Fiderer

batsnumbereleven · January 16, 2015

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="WCW Mark" data-cite="WCW Mark" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="39007" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>What database are you using for this?</div></blockquote> I've ported over the default WMMA3 database, but set all the new WMMA4 fighters to debut before 2001 and added in the various non-fighters to use in commentary teams etc. At the moment I'm finding it more interesting than the WMMA4 one

batsnumbereleven · January 18, 2015

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Jeff Carlton</div>

I was getting towards the end of my career and needed fights like this to build a legacy. Fighting guys like Rick Stanley and Mark Cohen was all well and good, but Hughes and Foster were the real reason for fighting in GAMMA rather than going to ALPHA-1.

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Lance Decker</div>

I couldn’t believe that Frankley was throwing out so many marquee match-ups at once. Wasn’t he thinking of the future? I’d kept Foster and Hughes and Carlton apart deliberately to build them to big matches down the line, and they were all being used up at once!

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Michael Frankley</div>

Decker seemed to think that a match like Hughes v Carlton was only valuable if it was for the title, which seemed to be long-term thinking for two fighters who were already well into their thirties. I was keen to get these big match-ups out there for people to see; to build a reputation for GAMMA being the place where big matches happened, otherwise you might not get to see two great warriors like these until they were so far past their prime that the only value was in their names.

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Tim Boyer</div>

It wasn’t billed as a number one contender’s match, but it didn’t need to be because it was very obvious. The rest of the bill looked pretty bland, but as it turned out there were some key match-ups.

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Vince Whiteman (XCC owner)</div>

It was around this time that we started hearing rumours that GAMMA were intending to operate a Featherweight division as well, which made us sit up and take notice in XCC. We'd agreed a tentative broadcasting deal with CBA in the USA and Canada, and suddenly we felt as though that might be at risk if GAMMA was moving towards a focus on the smaller fighters that we'd traditionally featured. We were already competing with them for talent at Lightweight, and with WEFF for female fighters, and there were concerns among some of the investors that this would be a nail in the coffin for XCC.

batsnumbereleven · January 19, 2015

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Jeff Carlton made a huge statement with both his fists and his words in the cage last night, as he put new GAMMA Heavyweight Champion Tim Boyer on notice that he was gunning after his belt.

Although the headlining bout between Carlton and Raul Hughes wasn't officially billed as a title eliminator, GAMMA management will have been impressed by Carlton's performance, and there is little doubt that he will be the next to challenge for the feature championship later this year.

Carlton and Hughes opened up with strikes, feeling one another out, before they engaged in some dirty boxing up against the fence. Carlton took control of the grappling and wrestled Hughes to the ground at about the 1:15 mark, before unloading with big right hands that forced referee Ken Capote to jump in and save Hughes from any further punishment. The stoppage looked about right, as Hughes was clearly not defending himself intelligently, and the fight was called at 1:49 of the first round by TKO.

In the post-fight interview, Carlton, who moves to 33-7 with the victory, made it clear that he wanted to fight Boyer next, a match-up that GAMMA will find it hard to deny making.

Blood Puts Kendall Away in Cracking Co-main

In the co-main, Darin Blood floored Alan Kendall with a vicious right cross in the first round but was unable to put the Green Bay native away. He made up for this in the second putting Kendall's lights out with a big straight right with under a minute in the round remaining. Blood and Kendall shared the Fight of the Night bonus in what was considered to be a good contest.

Elsewhere on the card

In the Lightweight division, Truck Gleeson looked the better of Beau Gorshin the first round, although Gorshin pulled out a takedown near the round’s end, but he wasn't able to do anything about Gorshin's takedown and ground control in the second, other than fight off kimura and rear naked choke attempts. A dull third round was highlighted by another Gorshin takedown, but once on the ground he didn't make much further progress. It was enough to take the round and a 29-28 result on the scorecards of all three judges to put “the Madman from Michigan” back in line for a title challenge. A stand-up exchange at Light-Heavyweight ended when Dag Kreuger knocked out Ken Peters with a left uppercut with a minute remaining in the first round, to spring something of an upset and take knockout of the night honors.

At Welterweight, Felix Mattherson Jr. demonstrated his superiority over Yonkers' Dana Delaney, taking advantage of an early takedown and showing good passing skills before finishing the fight with an Arm Triangle. In the opener, Frank Sheedy made fairly easy work of Heavyweight debutant Oliver Fiderer, out striking his opponent and getting two takedowns to one, though there wasn't as much action as the fans would have liked.

GAMMA 23 Quick Results

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Michael Frankley

Carlton's win set the title match with Boyer nicely, we just had to get agreement on when it could take place. The next challenge was to build up the next contender afterwards, with the top 4 GAMMA Heavyweights all having fought in 1998 already.

Pick results

CageRage 2/6 - better luck next time!

batsnumbereleven · January 20, 2015

February's ALPHA-1 card had been heavily stacked, and Hassan Fezzik's most recent Heavyweight title defence (by armbar submission over Mason Archer) hadn't even been the headliner on the show, which had seen underdog Sho Kitabatake get a split decision victory over highly-rated Light-Heavyweight Jin Katou. ALPHA-1 had picked up a decent gate, but this was also their first foray into PPV broadcasting in the United States, with North America Prime Select hosting their shows and although they didn't make as much money off the Pay-per-View as GAMMA did in either January or February, they still picked up more than $4million, no doubt eating into GAMMA's potential earnings.

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Lance Decker

This was worrying, because we’d never had to compete directly with ALPA-1 before when they didn’t have any distribution in America. Now, they were showing on one of America’s biggest Pay-per-View networks and providing the American people with an alternative to GAMMA.

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Michael Frankley

In some ways, ALPHA-1 moving into the US market was actually good for GAMMA as well, as it brought MMA to the attention of yet more people across the country. Those who had previously been interested had needed to find tape traders or late night replays of ALPHA-1 events on tiny public broadcasting networks, and now had access to all their shows via normal Pay-per-View.

Of course, it was also going to eat into the potential revenues we were going top pick up from our own shows, as there are only so many entertainment dollars to go around. I was confident that many more people would be interested in seeing the likes of Jeff Carlton or Matthew Dean fight than they were in seeing most of ALPHA-1’s fighters, with obvious exceptions, like Hassan Fezzik. Building our own new stars continued to be a priority, but we kept a close eye on ALPHA-1 and all the other MMA companies who ran shows, in case there was someone that was really worth our while picking up. In the meantime we needed to keep delivering events that captivated the fans.

Sean Morrison was probably our next biggest draw, even though he was fighting in a division that lacked depth. Bruce Steven was a competent wrestler with good submissions, and if he could get the fight to the ground then he was always in with a chance. It seemed likely that Morrison would dominate him on the feet though, so whether he would last long enough to work the ground game was a question. The only other likely challengers in early 1998 would have been Brandon Sugar or Beau Gorshin. Both men had struggled in their last outing in 1997, so were getting the chance to prove themselves elsewhere before taking on the Lightweight top dog. Beau had held up his end of the deal at the previous event, so was likely to be the next challenger pending fitness, but there was probably another six months before we had to make a final decision on that.

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Beau Gorshin

I thought I’d earned the first shot in 1998, so I was disappointed, and having already beaten John Gleeson I was hopeful that my name might be at the top of the list for a challenge, whilst I was still in good fighting condition. But given that Bruce got the nod here, and it would be a minimum of six months before Morrison would be ready to fight again, in the end I decided that I wasn't going to put myself through another training camp and weight cut when there were no guarantees of getting a title fight. It was good to go out on a high, I s’pose, but it would have been nice to have had one more shot at the big time, just as things were really kicking off.

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Michael Frankley

Obviously I was disappointed that Beau chose to retire rather than take a couple more fights, but what can you do? If his body wasn't up to the rigours of MMA any longer then it was the right decision for him to make.

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Lance Decker

By now we were three cards into the new regime, and the financial impacts were quite good, but we were getting a bit of stick from various quarters for only having six fights on a card. I didn't hold out much hope for Roy and Cobblepot putting on a great performance – Jack was a throwback to the start of GAMMA, when you needed to be good in one area and could get away without being any good at anything else, and he had a great deal of success, both before and after joining GAMMA with the size advantage he possessed and the grappling skills he had, but coming into 1998 it was starting to become clear that you needed more than one dimension to succeed at the top level of MMA, which was where GAMMA was.

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Mark Cohen

Decker only ever promoted the top 4 fights on a card as being worth anything, so he didn’t really have much to complain about. Jack was a stalwart of the Heavyweight division and was a great proving ground for younger fighters – if they couldn't get past Jack then they weren't going to have a chance against Foster, Hughes or Carlton.

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Michael Frankley

There was some talk about how we should be putting some of the smaller fights on a “preliminary” card as a taster instead of on the main card, but we didn’t have enough fighters to be able to do that, run a decent main card, and still deliver an event every month. In fact I was keener that we ran more frequent events than that we tried to fill out the cards of the ones we were booking with more fights.

From a commercial perspective, the more shows we ran, the more revenue we would accrue, and as long as the fans were happy enough with the content of the shows then that would be sufficient justification to keep them at the size they were. Remember – we were trying to make GAMMA a regular event that fans could put into their diary weeks and months in advance, and having a set monthly date was key to that.

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GAMMA 24 Card for picks

Main Event

GAMMA Lightweight Championship

Sean Morrison (c ) v Bruce Steven

Co-main

Middleweight – Petey Mack v Mac Fuller

Undercard

Heavyweight – Fatuma Roy v Jack Cobblepot

Light-Heavyweight - Bill Cumming v Emil Karlsson

Welterweight – Peter Bracewell v Evan Gardner

Heavyweight – Gary Sampson v Pai Cheng

CageRage · January 20, 2015

Main Event

GAMMA Lightweight Championship

Sean Morrison (c ) v Bruce Steven

Co-main

Middleweight – Petey Mack v Mac Fuller

Undercard

Heavyweight – Fatuma Roy v Jack Cobblepot

Light-Heavyweight - Bill Cumming v Emil Karlsson

Welterweight – Peter Bracewell v Evan Gardner

Heavyweight – Gary Sampson v Pai Cheng

batsnumbereleven · January 22, 2015

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Sean Morrison ground out another win and successfully defended the GAMMA Lightweight title for a sixth time at GAMMA 24 last night. A fight that was difficult to score saw it go all five rounds and the judges differed in their views as they scored it 50-45 twice and 48-47 in favor of the defending champion.

Challenger Bruce Steven put up a strong fight, however, and although he was regularly outclassed in the striking aspect of the fight, he was the first to get a takedown, in round one, and finished the round in top position, though unable to make much progress. The 2nd round saw Morrison return the favor, getting his takedown within 20 seconds of the re-start, and he tried to utilise his ground and pound, but was largely stymied by Steven's good defence from his back. A scramble with more than a minute left saw both men back to their feet, but Steven finished the round with a takedown of his own.

In the third, the battle was largely won by Morrison, and the fight stayed standing until the final minute, when the challenger got a takedown and tried a couple of arm triangle submission attempts, but they were easily fought off by Morrison, who looked comfortable all the way to the siren. The championship rounds began with relatively little action, as both men began to tire. Morrison again got an early takedown, but was unable to pass or make any impression with ground and pound, and referee Leo Behan stood the fighters back up after a couple of minutes of this.

The final round was mostly Morrison in control, and he emphasised this with a takedown mid-way through the round. Steven was still able to scramble, and a couple of times made a break to reverse the position, but the champion won out in each scramble and retained top position through to the end of the fight, though he posed little threat.

In truth it was something of a poor fight, with the champion showing little of the dominance he had demonstrated in his most recent title defences. Steven should be applauded for being able to stifle Morrison, but his strengths as a fighter are in top position, and the times he managed to take Morrison down (notably in the first and third rounds) he wasn't able to take advantage of the position.

Mack and Jack Roll On

In the Middleweight division, a fairly tepid first round between Mac Fuller and Petey Mack was compensated for in the second, as both men came out swinging. Mack hit the decisive strike, a powerful straight right, which sent Fuller to the floor. Sensing victory, Mack unloaded on Fuller with several more good shots, and the referee pulled him away at 3:24 of the second round to award the TKO victory. Mack will now look to take on one of the top ranked Middleweights in a bid to challenge for the title.

Jack Cobblepot made good use of his vast experience to overcome Fatuma Roy by unanimous decision in a decent, but fairly one-dimensional, striking contest. The judges score the bout 30-27, 29-28, 29-28 to Cobblepot in the 50th MMA encounter of his career to once again position himself as a potential contender for the title.

Elsewhere on the Card

“Wild” Bill Cumming made the most of some good scrambling from the bottom after being taken down by Swede Emil Karlsson in the first round, reversing the position and hitting enough good shots that referee Ken Capote had to call an end to the bout.

Evan Gardner won a unanimous decision on debut over Peter Bracewell at Welterweight, with Gardner having much the better of a fight that stayed standing throughout. Post-fight, Bracewell announced his retirement from MMA. In the Heavyweight division, GAMMA debutant Pai Cheng was far too good for Gary Sampson, taking the veteran down in all three rounds, but was unable to finish the fight. All three judges awarded the fight to Cheng 30-27.

GAMMA 24 Quick Results

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Pick Results

CageRage - 4/6 (6/12 total)

batsnumbereleven · January 23, 2015

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Lance Decker

My concerns about the first two cards that Frankley put together were realised here at GAMMA 24 – the emphasis on new talents at the expense of protecting GAMMA's ready-made stars, and the production problems had clearly had an impact, and the PPV buy rate was down almost 20%.

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Michael Frankley

Although we took something of a hit compared to the first two shows of 1998, we still made nearly $5million from the Pay-per-View alone, and the attendance might have been less than 3000, but this was a new market for us, and I thought it held up quite well. Obviously the lacklustre performances in the main event contributed to some of that as well, and I know that Sean in particular was disappointed that he hadn't been able to put on a more convincing performance.

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Sean Morrison

I should have been beating guys like Bruce Steven with my eyes closed. No offense meant, but he was clearly never in my class and I out struck him by a count of nearly 100. So, yeah, of course I was disappointed – there were bonuses up for grabs that I should have been getting my hands on, and with Frankley having raised the bonuses to $25k they were more than worth going for. But still, GAMMA Lightweight champion is still GAMMA Lightweight champion, and I was ready to up my game next time out.

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Peter Bracewell

Once I started losing to guys making their debut in GAMMA I knew that it was time to call it quits. I had nothing really for the kid, and we could have gone another 15 minutes and I probably still wouldn't have. He was never going to put me on my back, but it didn't look like I was gonna connect enough with him either. Maybe I called it a day a little bit too soon, given the contracts and bonuses that started to be given out in 1998, but I'm not sure I'd've picked up many of them anyway.

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Nathan Chambers (GAMMA Welterweight/Middleweight)

Norbert Vinkus was a freak, man! He wuz a football player who thought he could manhandle guys around in the cage line he'd done on the Offensive Line, but he was just a real sucka, man! He was suppose to've picked up some wrestlin' skillz, but from what we could see it was just good use of his mass. He had a couple of good shots with them massive fists, but technique? Shizz, you gotta be kiddin' man! No way they put him in ta main event!

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Lance Decker

Norbert was the sort of guy who was supposed to get us mainstream attention. He was well-known in the sports media circles from his pro-Football days, and was a great guy to put in front of the camera and tell stories about what he wanted to achieve in MMA. When we signed him for GAMMA in late 1997, he'd had a couple of fights on the local scene and held his own – he couldn't wrestle worth a damn, but we figured that working with a proper fight camp gave him a chance to work on that whilst we carefully hand-picked opponents that would make him look good. He had a good left hand, and could bully an opponent around the cage, but he needed a lot of work to be a genuine MMA fighter.

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Michael Frankley

When I took over GAMMA, Norbert was associated with the Animal House training camp, I think because Lance Decker or someone else felt that it would be the best place for him to pick up some wrestling skills to complement what little he could already do with his hands, and body. For some reason he didn't last very long there, and by the time we booked his first GAMMA fight, he wasn't associated with any camp at all. He's not someone I would ever have signed, but since we had him under contract we needed to make the most out of what he had – primarily a following among people who knew him through his football career and wanted to see if he could make a go of it in MMA.

He was a big enough draw to headline a Pay-per-View, so we set him up against Tank Manu'a to see how he would do against someone close to his own size. There are those who accused me of setting the guy up to fail, which is complete crap – I wouldn't have done that to a guy as nice as Norbert – but we did need to know whether he would sink or swim in MMA, and sometimes the best way to find that out is to throw them in at the deep end.

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Norbert Vinkus

I was at a loose end after I hadda quit football. So I thought I'd give MMA a go. Nothin' too serious, really. Then I got a call from the GAMMA office offerin' me a contract. Thought I might get some real training from proper MMA guys. They seemed to think I was a joke though. No one takin' me seriously. I dropped those guys and started working on my own. Wasn't expectin' to be headlinin' in my first GAMMA fight.

GAMMA 25 card for picks

Main Event

Heavyweight – Norbert Vinkus v Tank Manu'a

Co-main

Welterweight – Nathan Chambers v Yevgeni Sipatov

Undercard

Lightweight – Brandon Sugar v Nicholas Bretton

Middleweight – Thomas Smith v Dwayne Alleyne

Lightweight – Benny Danare v Manoel Cabral

Middleweight – Billy Russell v Sutton Ripley

CageRage · January 24, 2015

Main Event

Heavyweight – Norbert Vinkus v Tank Manu'a

Co-main

Welterweight – Nathan Chambers v Yevgeni Sipatov

Undercard

Lightweight – Brandon Sugar v Nicholas Bretton

Middleweight – Thomas Smith v Dwayne Alleyne

Lightweight – Benny Danare v Manoel Cabral

Middleweight – Billy Russell v Sutton Ripley

batsnumbereleven · January 25, 2015

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Tank Manu'a showed the world the value of proper MMA training and discipline last night as he put a major beating on former NFL lineman Norbert Vinkus in their GAMMA 25 headlining bout.

In what was otherwise a fairly even first round, Manu'a had the crisper and better strikes and clearly looked the finished article compared with the callow Vinkus, for whom this was just his third MMA fight. But in the final thirty seconds, Manu'a hit a left and a crunching straight right that knocked Vinkus down, and as time expired punches were raining down upon the hapless Vinkus.

In front of his hometown crowd, Vinkus was no doubt happy to be able to make it back to his stool at the end of the round, but the minute break did little to disturb the momentum of the fight. Whilst Vinkus attempted to grapple with Manu'a in the early seconds, the Samoan was able to break away and once again find his striking range. Moments later a well-timed combination, followed by a stunning right hook sent Vinkus crashing to the mat once again, and this time there was no reprieve, as the referee saw his eyes roll back and called a stop to the contest at 1:16 of the round, declaring Manu'a the Knockout winner.

Manu'a looks to be one of the fighters who will be jockeying for a shot at the Heavyweight title, probably next year, and if he can string together a couple more wins like this then he will deserve a shot, though the question will have to be raised with GAMMA management whether it was simply folly to allow Vinkus into such a high profile contest with such little MMA experience.

Chambers Making His Case

At Welterweight, Nathan Chambers exposed the single dimension of Yevgeni Sipatov by getting the takedown early in the first round and then managing to secure mount fairly easily. From there he pounded away until referee Herbert Osbourne had to pull him off to save the Russian from further punishment with the clock reading 2:04. After denying Sipatov the opportunity to impose his own ground game, Chambers could be up for a number one contender match for the GAMMA Welterweight title later this year if other fights fall his way.

In what must be considered one of the best fights of the year to date, perennial Lightweight contender Brandon Sugar looked the stronger striker against Nicholas Bretton, but got taken down in the latter stages of the first round to leave the scoring up in the air. In the second he kept things standing and looked to dominate, but Bretton came back with a takedown in the third. Sugar showed his prowess off his back though, and took an arm to force a tap out and position himself as the primary contender to Sean Morrison, now that Beau Gorshin has called it a day.

On the Undercard

Dwayne Alleyne pounded Thomas Smith in the first round of their Middleweight fight, but was unable to put him away, but he got the job done in the second in the same fashion, putting Smith on the canvas with a big right hand then putting him away with ground strikes.

Benny Danare and Manoel Cabral fought out a very close fight that stayed on the feet, with Cabral taking all three judges’ cards 29-28, though any score could have been possible.

At Middleweight we had an intriguing contest between debutant Billy Russell and the veteran Sutton Ripley that could have gone either way. Russell seemed to think that he had to finish the fight to make a statement, and pulled guard from a standing position in both the 2nd and 3rd rounds and attempted to submit Ripley with a triangle on three separate occasions, but all to no avail, and Ripley ran out the unanimous decision victor 30-27, 29-28, 29-28.

GAMMA 25 Quick Results

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Nathan Chambers

Hey, I put a good beatin' on the Ruskie – he don't get chance to lie on me and grind away like it was 1995 no more. We got proper martial artists these days and don't need shizz like that to get our dukes.

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Lance Decker

So Tank showed everyone exactly why I'd originally planned to ease Norbert into his GAMMA career, rather than putting him in a main event against a top ten Heavyweight. The card didn't even draw as well as the previous one, which says a lot, given the profile of the Chambers-Sipatov match, so things weren't looking quite as rosy as they might have first appeared.

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Michael Frankley

Of course I was disappointed in what happened with Norbert, but that's the sort of thing that happens at this level of competition. The key for Norbert was to go away and learn from the defeat, find a training camp that suits him and come back stronger next time. Ideally we wouldn't want to put him straight back in as a main eventer, but he was still going to be a good draw the next time out, because there would be interest in seeing how well he bounced back, perhaps against lesser competition.

As far as the gate and draw were concerned, it wasn't something that I was particularly worried about. You have to remember that before I'd gotten us booked onto Pay-per-View, none of this $3-5million was coming our way at all, and from a position where there was a small comfort of having a buffer in the bank to deal with any unexpected problems, we were not looking at cash reserves of more than $10million

Michael Frankley's vision hadn't stalled after four months of running GAMMA by any stretch of the imagination. The first week of May saw the official announcement of the start of GAMMA's first Featherweight division, and the introduction of a novel concept as far as MMA was concerned – the reality TV show.

Spread over 14 weeks, the plan was to introduce fans to the new Featherweights through an amateur competition that would be played out on television. GAMMA had negotiated a deal with East Coast Today for the rights to this reality series that would bring GAMMA to US and European audiences (through Euro Cable Sports 4) and would see the winners of the show face off in the inaugural GAMMA Featherweight title match after the end of the series. The series was designed to show the hard work and training that the fighters put themselves through in preparation for fights, and the initial 16 participants would share lodgings in a specially designed training environment, where they would receive coaching from two of GAMMA's top stars.

Obviously this meant another hiring spree, as GAMMA sought to secure the best featherweights that they could, and the search spread around the world.

Pick results

CageRage - 6/6 - congratulations! (12/18 total)

batsnumbereleven · January 26, 2015

The search for top class Featherweights took something of an immediate setback. The top free agent, a young man by the name of Lamont Banner had tested positive for recreational drugs as part of a routine test at one of the smaller shows being held in America. With a 12-month ban slapped on him, despite his protestations of innocence, it wasn't going to be possible for GAMMA to sign him up and position him as one of the expected finalists for the new programme.

Adding to the difficulties in securing fighters was a decision that was made in conjunction with the legal department not to seek to offer contracts to fighters who were currently working for other organisations. Whilst their contracts could likely have been superseded by any contract that GAMMA held with them for an exclusive set of appearances, it was possible that this might still end up in litigation, with the whole series of programmes being suspended until the courts made a decision about the issue.

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Michael Frankley

It was a pain in the ass, but in the long run it probably worked out okay. It enabled us to bring in young, untested fighters who were hungry for glory and get their names recognised by the American public as part of the GAMMA brand, rather than having any lingering association with XCC or KDMFC that might have identified them as not being “home grown”.

Adam White and Petey Mack were set up to be the first coaches on the new show, with the intention that they too would face off at the end of the series.

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Adam White

It was an honor, of sorts, to be picked as a coach for the first iteration of GAMMA Futurestars, and I looked forward to working with the young Featherweights that had been picked out by management, but I couldn't help but feel that it was simply that Petey and I were both available, having recuperated sufficiently from our most recent fights, and were a good fit to fight one another when the time came.

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Petey Mack

I didn't know what to make of it at first, as we had no idea what was expected of us. But we got given a few ideas, and it started to flow quite naturally once we got into the swing of things. I look back on the first few episodes now and think how gauche we all looked on camera at the time, but it was a good learning experience for me as well as for the young lads we were bringing through.

Meanwhile, with one item of business settled, preparations for GAMMA 26 were not going particularly smoothly. As well as having issues with the originally booked venue for the event, which would have been far too small to fit in the 3000 plus that were expected, the weigh-ins revealed that John Rivero had missed the Light-Heavyweight limit by some 13lbs, which was marvelled at by those who regularly made the weight cut.

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Michael Frankley

It was completely unprofessional. To my mind it looked as though he hadn't even bothered to try and make weight, he was so far over. It apparently wasn't the first time he'd been well over the 205lb limit, so I told him straightaway that he wouldn't be booked to fight at Light-Heavyweight any longer, and any future fights would be at Heavyweight. It was grossly unfair to his opponent, who made 205lbs quite neatly.

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John Rivero

I didn't see it was an issue. Nobody complained about it before. I just took the cut to the purse and kicked the hell out of my opponent to make sure I picked up the winner's cheque. When Decker ran the company, he never did anything like this.

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Lance Decker

To be honest I was tired of Rivero's antics as well, but he had more value to GAMMA as a Light-Heavyweight than he ever would as a Heavyweight. I just couldn't see him as a future Heavyweight champion the way I could at 205lbs, if he could only just get motivated to make a proper weight cut. Sure, some of his opponents complained in the past, but we kept it quiet and gave them additional bonus money to take the fight and everything was hunky-dory.

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GAMMA 26 card for picks

Main Event

GAMMA Welterweight Championship

Co-main

Heavyweight – Leon Banks v Rick Stanley

Undercard

Light-Heavyweight – Derek South v John Rivero

Lightweight – Luke Hilton v Bud Brockett

Middleweight – Woody Fierstein v Ethan Sutton

Heavyweight – Randall Donnelly v Ozzy Bintley

CageRage · January 26, 2015

Main Event

GAMMA Welterweight Championship

Co-main

Heavyweight – Leon Banks v Rick Stanley

Undercard

Light-Heavyweight – Derek South v John Rivero

Lightweight – Luke Hilton v Bud Brockett

Middleweight – Woody Fierstein v Ethan Sutton

Heavyweight – Randall Donnelly v Ozzy Bintley

batsnumbereleven · January 29, 2015

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Last night's GAMMA Welterweight title fight saw underdog Jack Humphreys from Mobile Alabama supplant the Spaniard Julio Regueiro as champion and inflict Regueiro's first profession defeat in MMA.

A close bout, which could have gone either way, and which was at turns exciting and intriguing, and at others dull and lackluster, was awarded to Humphreys by split decision, after he took Regueiro down twice in the fight. Regueiro's much vaulted attacks from bottom position never really materialised, with only one submission attempt from his back coming, and which was easily defended by Humphreys.

A cagey first round was evenly fought, with a lot of feeling-out between the two fighters, though both stayed active throughout. The two continued to exchange strikes through the first half of the second, before Humphreys cornered Regueiro against the cage and tried some dirty boxing. The positions were swiftly reversed, though, and Regueiro used his position to get Humphreys to the canvas. Regueiro's guard passing was largely blocked though, and although he got into side control, he had no time to do anything with the position before the end of the round.

In the third, Humphreys tried an early takedown but couldn't get it and had to push Regueiro back up against the cage, where he was better able to utilise leverage and eventually got the champion to the mat. A couple of guillotine attempts were unsuccessful, and resulted in a stalemate that saw referee Stanley Wright standing the fight up, and the final minute of the round passed with a couple of exchanges of strikes but no further significant action. Humphreys again got a takedown early in the fourth, and spent a couple of minutes smothering the champion, and although Regueiro attempted to take an arm, he couldn't latch on tightly enough. The ref was again forced to stand the fighters up, and again that was the end of the meaningful action in the round.

The final round saw Humphreys gain control of the grappling and push Regueiro back against the cage, where the two fighters exchanged positions a couple of times before circling back to the center and exchanging a series of strikes. The round ended with Regueiro grabbing a clinch and hitting some nice short shots on the inside.

The judges were called into action, and a split decision (48-47, 48-47, 47-48) was awarded to Humphreys, making him the new GAMMA Welterweight champion.

Stanley Retires After Disputing Judges' Call

Leon Banks and Rick Stanley got off to a fairly slow start, but picked up the pace somewhat in the second, with both guys landing some heavy leather. Stanley probably had the better of the first two, but it was a very close call. Halfway through the third, with both men tiring, Banks got through with a couple of hard lefts that first wobbled then put Stanley on his back. He followed up with shots from top position, but Stanley was able to safely cover up and regain his composure, and lasted out the remainder of the round with little further threat. The judges gave a split decision to Banks (30-27, 29-28, 28-29), and Stanley obviously felt hard done by. In his post-fight interview he criticised the judging and announced his immediate retirement from MMA.

John Rivero's problems making weight continued again at GAMMA 26, and he must be due some disciplinary action after weighing in some 13lbs over the 205lb Light-Heavyweight mark. His opponent Derek South edged a fairly tense first round, but put Rivero on the mat with a powerful right cross in the second, though he was unable to capitalise. After the ref stood the fighters up, Rivero tried a couple of ineffective takedown attempts.

Rivero finally got his takedown in the third, and tried to submit South with an arm triangle, but with no success. Passing to mount, Rivero stung South with some big shots that forced him to turn away and give up his back. Rivero spent the remainder of the round trying to secure hooks for a rear naked choke, but South was able to fight the attempts off, and the fight went to the judges, who each scored the contest 29-28 to South, a fair reflection of the fight. South indicated in his post-fight interview that he'd be interested in taking on Mark Cohen next, which could be an intriguing match-up for two guys that are just below the level of the top Light-Heavyweights in GAMMA.

On the undercard

Luke Hilton and Bud Brockett are both better known as wrestlers, but they showed off their striking in a brief spell at the start of their Lightweight encounter, before Hilton connected with a powerful straight right to KO Brockett at 1:38.

Woody Fierstein and Ethan Sutton faced off at Middleweight, and Sutton had the better of the early going, opening Fierstein up with an elbow, then taking him down. An armbar attempt was countered though and Fierstein briefly gained top position, but a scramble saw Sutton regain control through to the end of the round. In the second Fierstein failed with a couple of takedown attempts, and right at the end of the round was forced to the floor when up against the cage. Sutton finished the fight in the third with his second attempt at a takedown, turtling and rolling over Fierstein to take the back, from where he was able to swiftly secure a rear naked choke submission victory.

Randall Donnelly looked like he had the better of Ozzy Bintley through the first two rounds of their Heavyweight bout, but a big shot from Bintley put Donnelly on the mat early in the third. Bintley retained control and delivered some useful ground and pound for a couple of minutes but the ref stood them up with 2 minutes left in the round, and that was it for the fight. All three judges scored it 29-28 to Bintley, which was a little bit of a surprise.

GAMMA 26 Quick Results

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Michael Frankley

GAMMA 26 saw a rebound in PPV revenue,, and a bigger crowd, which shut Lance Decker up for a while, after he had spent the first few months of the year complaining about what I was doing in the organisation. There were a couple of dubious judging calls, but that will always happen now and again, and you have to expect it – no two people are going to see a fight in exactly the same way. I was disappointed that Rick saw it as a slight against him and decided that he'd had enough. I tried to talk him out of his decision, but he wasn't for changing his mind.

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Rick Stanley

Maybe I was a little bit rash in blaming the judges, but I really thought I'd won the fight. I was so disappointed with the scoring, especially the guy who scored all three rounds to Leon. But hey, I was 37, and the body just don't heal as fast as it used to – I didn't feel like putting myself in the same position again, only to have the fight taken away from me by the judges.

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Leon Banks

Someone was deludin' themself if they thought they beat me. I had him in trouble all the way through.

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Julio Regueiro

Definitely I made mistakes. I still thought I won the fight – I was much more dangerous at the striking, and always a threat on the ground. I was never in any trouble. A re-match would only have been fair. Humphreys, he had no interest in a re-match, so it would be up to Mr Frankley to put pressure on him.

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Michael Frankley

It was certainly something to consider carefully. The judges could probably have scored it any number of ways and somebody would have gone away dissatisfied. Welterweight was a very deep division though, so giving Julio a re-match meant putting someone else's nose out of joint when they felt they'd earned a shot of their own. Definitely something of a conundrum, and I could already sense that there would be fighters and agents queuing at my door or on my cell phone to press their own case.

Pick Results

CageRage - 4/6 (16/24)

batsnumbereleven · January 30, 2015

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Michael Frankley

This card was one of the main reasons why granting Julio an immediate re-match would be difficult. Josh and Rufus were both very strong contenders for a title shot themselves, and the winner of this match-up ought really to be getting a shot at Jack Humphreys before we considered a re-match. Plus, it might have given Julio a chance to regain some momentum by picking up a strong victory in the interim. You also couldn't rule out Nathan Chambers, who'd shown what he could do against a former champion by beating Yevgeni Sipatov quite smartly.

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Lance Decker

Even though the finances were looking quite good by this stage, it was disappointing seeing yet another card being run without a title being defended, and this was one of the key issues with running as many shows a year as Frankley wanted to – sometimes you had to put on Main Events that didn't quite have the same cache as a title match, and I'm sure that this meant that it didn't deliver as much excitement for the fans, nor as much money from sales.

GAMMA 27 card for picks

Main Event

Welterweight – Josh Aldarisio v Rufus Stephens

Co-main

Middleweight – JJ Reid v Maarten De Vries

Undercard

Light Heavyweight – Christian Mountfield v Mike Watson

Light Heavyweight – Ricky Heath v Kendall Tracey

Lightweight – Henry Baldwin v Rogelio Quesada

Middleweight – Osmosis Benn v Ollie Castle

CageRage · January 30, 2015

GAMMA 27 card for picks

Main Event

Welterweight – Josh Aldarisio v Rufus Stephens

Co-main

Middleweight – JJ Reid v Maarten De Vries

Undercard

Light Heavyweight – Christian Mountfield v Mike Watson

Light Heavyweight – Ricky Heath v Kendall Tracey

Lightweight – Henry Baldwin v Rogelio Quesada

Middleweight – Osmosis Benn v Ollie Castle

batsnumbereleven · February 1, 2015

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GAMMA 27's Main Event in Miami was something of a snoozer for the fans, but for Josh Aldarisio it was one more step towards a shot at the GAMMA Welterweight title. The unanimous decision was the correct result, though the actual scores (50-45, 48-47 twice) could have been disputed, as Aldarisio showed that his grappling and takedowns would be enough to keep him at the top level in the division.

The first, fourth and fifth rounds were unquestionably Aldarisio's as he executed two nice trip takedowns and a beautiful slam, but this was countered by Rufus Stephens' attempts to drag Aldarisio down into his guard in the other rounds.

At no point, however, could either man really make the most of their grappling exchanges, and the key feature of the fight was the grinding and smothering top control of Aldarisio, which force the referee to stand the fighters up on several occasions. Stephens only real threat to take the victory came on a couple of occasions when he tried to secure an arm from the bottom of half-guard, but on each attempt Aldarisio was easily able to defend and prevent the submission.

New GAMMA Welterweight champion Jack Humphreys is likely to be Aldarisio's next opponent if he is not automatically re-matched against former champion Julio Regueiro, but Humphreys will probably see little to fear in this performance, despite Aldarisio completing 4 of 5 takedown attempts and landing 81 ground strikes.

KOs Doing the Job for De Vries and Watson

The co-main event began with JJ Reid in charge, finding his range nicely against fellow veteran Maarten De Vries, and out striking him through the first half of round one, but three minutes in, De Vries pulled out a sensational head kick that knocked Reid out completely. De Vries has always looked like a potential contender at Middleweight, but his previous high profile bouts had seemed to show him short of the highest class – perhaps his time is coming soon! De Vries improved his record to 16-6 with the victory.

Christian Mountfield and Mike Watson met at Light-Heavyweight and the first round was a fairly even striking battle, with Mountfield perhaps having the edge,. In the second, Watson connected with a big head kick that sent Mountfield flying, and he gained side control, but couldn't do any further damage. The round ended with a scramble that Mountfield came out on top of and had Watson trapped against the fence. The fight was decided just seconds into the final stanza though, with a stunning right hook from Watson that knocked Mountfield out cold.

On the Undercard

Also at 205lbs, Ricky Heath was the early aggressor, putting Kendal Tracey down with a right hook, but was unable to follow it up. Tracey tried a submission off his back, which Heath was able to reverse and pass into side control, but Tracey was able to regain full guard, and although Heath peppered him with small strikes he was unable to do much damage. This was replicated almost exactly in the second round, but in the middle of the third Tracey was able to get a trip takedown, and turned it into a back mount from which he was able to land several heavy shots. Tracey tried to work a rear naked choke but was unable to get the hooks in, and the round ended before he could make any further attempts. It wasn't enough, however, to undo the work that Heath had done in the first two rounds, and all three judges scored the fight 29-28 to Heath.

At Lightweight, Rogelio Quesada took a unanimous decision victory (29-28 on all cards) over Henry Baldwin with a good display of technical striking, rocking Baldwin a couple of times with heavy shots. Baldwin was more active and accurate in the third round, but it wasn't enough to earn the decision.

Something was definitely amiss with the Miami crowd during the evening's opener – Osmosis Benn and Ollie Castle combined for over 140 significant strikes during each rounds, yet the crowd booed them off! Benn got a takedown at the end of the third to cement the victory, during which he was the more fluent and accurate striker. The scores were 30-27 to Benn on all three judges' cards.

GAMMA 27 Quick Results

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Pick results

CageRage - 5/6 (21/30 total)

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