Bulldog MMA - A True Underbulldog Story

vladjarca · May 30, 2020

Heavyweight Division

Glen McBeam vs. Nelson Kenny

Middleweight Division

Nelson Angelo vs. Omar Calvert

Welterweight Division

Rich Robinson vs. Mauricio de Terreros

Heavyweight Division

Kieran Morgan vs. Nimrod Wickhammersley

Heavyweight Division

Laurence Lamping vs. Bob Dozier

BMMA Heavyweight Title Match

Aston Merryman © vs. Norman MacAskill

CageRage · May 30, 2020

BMMA 8: Merryman vs. MacAskill Fight Card

Heavyweight Division

Glen McBeam vs. Nelson Kenny

Middleweight Division

Nelson Angelo vs. Omar Calvert

Welterweight Division

Rich Robinson vs. Mauricio de Terreros

Heavyweight Division

Kieran Morgan vs. Nimrod Wickhammersley

Heavyweight Division

Laurence Lamping vs. Bob Dozier

BMMA Heavyweight Title Match

Aston Merryman © vs. Norman MacAskill

McDojoDelux · May 31, 2020

Heavyweight Division

Glen McBeam vs. Nelson Kenny

Middleweight Division

Nelson Angelo vs. Omar Calvert

Welterweight Division

Rich Robinson vs. Mauricio de Terreros

Heavyweight Division

Kieran Morgan vs. Nimrod Wickhammersley

Heavyweight Division

Laurence Lamping vs. Bob Dozier

BMMA Heavyweight Title Match

Aston Merryman © vs. Norman MacAskill

Chris2K · June 1, 2020

BMMA 8: MERRYMAN VS. MACASKILL

Match #1

Heavyweight Division

Glen McBeam (1-1) vs. Nelson Kenney (1-2)

The show kicked off with a very entertaining first round, both fighters were willing to engage in striking no matter how it depleted their stamina. McBeam showed a more varied attacking strategy landing both punches and punished leg kicks, Kenney certainly wasn't able to figure out a way to avoid them and ended up limping by the end of the round from all the damage he had taken. Kenney himself struggled to find his range despite his best efforts, and so was easily outstruck over the course of the round. The action slowed in the second round as the fighters began to tire, McBeam continued to work the leg of Kenney, however one of his kicks was caught by Kenney who used it to try and take the Scotsman down. McBeam was able to stay on his feet, but only at the expense of Kenney taking control of the clinch. Kenney tried to take McBeam down again from the clinch, but McBeam stood firm and broke free of the grapple. McBeam was able to land a few more decent blows before the round ended, perhaps making who won the round a little clearer.

The final round was all on the feet as well with a surprising lack of clinching given how tired both men were, instead the fight drew to a snail's pace as both men tentatively prodded at each other. McBeam's leg kick game plan had gone out the window despite how successful it had been up to this point, and Kenney simply offered nothing at all. In the end McBeam did initiate a clinch, Kenney tried and failed to use it for a takedown, and the fight meandered into the close. All three judges scored the fight 30-27 in the favour of Glen McBeam for his first victory in Bulldog MMA.

Winner: Glen McBeam (2-1) via Unanimous Decision (30-27 x3)

Fight Rating: Decent

Post-Fight: In one of the worst post-fight interviews by an English-speaking person, an exhausted McBeam gave a few grunts to say thanks to his sponsors and family and walked off before there were any follow-up questions. Probably for the best.

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Match #2

Middleweight Division

Nelson Angelo (8-6) vs. Omar Calvert (7-2)

We all knew what Calvert was going to try and do, Angelo had to somehow try and stop him. He found a way, although not in the most conventional of senses, during the first strike exchange an errant finger of Angelo's found its way into the eye of Calvert. That'll stop him. Once Calvert has had a chance to recover the fight was more even than expected, perhaps with his eye still bothering him a bit Calvert wasn't able to find his range as quickly as you'd expect, and Angelo peppered him with jabs. When big shots did land though it was Calvert who had thrown them, and he easily did enough to win the first round on the scorecards. The second round began with Calvert landing some good shots, but a minute in he used a jab to set up a powerful straight right which knocked Angelo down! Calvert knelt beside the fallen Angelo and began unloading power strikes to the head, Angelo had nothing to offer and this point and the referee stepped in to save him from any further punishment. Another TKO win for Calvert, who remains incredibly tough if his opponent makes no attempt to grapple with him.

Winner: Omar Calvert (8-2) via TKO (Strikes) - 1:13 of Round 2

Fight Rating: Good

Post-Fight: Calvert thanks the usual, supporters, family, sponsors etc., but then calls out Owen Hyde for his next fight. I don't know what the Canadian has done to upset the British Middleweights but they sure love calling him out.

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Match #3

Welterweight Division

Rich Robinson (9-0) vs. Mauricio de Terreros (6-0)

A Canadian takes on a Mexican in Wigan, the time-honoured story. Robinson had a distinct weight advantage before the fight began despite them both weighing at 170lbs, and that bulk came in handy in the first round as Robinson was able to bully de Terreros up against the cage early on. However, Robinson couldn’t do much with the position and the referee ended up separating them due to a lack of action. Back in the centre of the cage and de Terreros was able to get some striking going, landing a very good right cross and some good jabs to keep Robinson away from him, however that couldn't last forever and soon Robinson had hold of him in another clinch. This time Robinson used a snazzy outside leg trip to get de Terreros to the ground and likely secure the round, but there was no time left for him to do anything afterwards. The second round began with de Terreros again impressive on his feet with some quick strikes, but Robinson soon took the fight to the ground with a driving takedown. Landing in half guard Robinson began to try and improve his position, de Terreros resisted for as long as he could but eventually Robinson was able to move through into side control, and then into the mount. Robinson began landing his trademark ground and pound and de Terreros looked to be in trouble, the Mexican rolled over giving up his back to Robinson who tried to lock in a rear naked choke. De Terreros did well to prevent that happening, but with both hooks in and lots of time remaining Robinson wasn't going anywhere. He landed some more ground and pound, some of it looked a little close to the back of the head, but enough punches landed for the referee to step in and stop the contest! An impressive first Bulldog MMA showing for Robinson who will no doubt be looking for a title shot soon...

Winner: Rich Robinson (10-0) via TKO (Strikes) - 4:50 of Round 2

Fight Rating: Great

Post-Fight: Robinson is a charismatic interviewee and thanked his friends, sponsors and training partners at Slaughterhouse for getting him ready for this fight. No callouts or challenges but it was fun, nevertheless.

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Match #4

Heavyweight Division

Kieran Morgan (4-1) vs. Nimrod Wickhammersley (5-1)

I've spoken about how dumb a name Nimrod is before, but his nickname "The Tall Guy" is as bland as Nimrod is terrible. The local fans in Wigan were happy to see a fellow Lancastrian in Wickhammersley, and he gave them quite a show. He started out battering Morgan with any type of strike that came to mind, the Welshman certainly isn't much of a striker himself, and Wickhammersley ridiculous reach advantage was preventing him getting close enough to grapple. After two minutes of a beating Wickhammersley found a combination of a jab, left hand, then a huge right hook which knocked Morgan down, Wickhammersley joined him on the ground and began unloading heavy punches to the head, the referee stepped in stop the fight for our third TKO victory in a row. The hometown fans were happy to see Wickhammersley win, especially given that he came into the fight as the betting underdog.

Winner: Nimrod Wickhammersley (6-1) via TKO (Strikes) - 2:27 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Great

Post-Fight: Wickhammersley thanks the local fans for coming out to support him, then of course thanks his sponsors, but that's about it.[/b]

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Co-Main Event

Heavyweight Division

Laurence Lamping (4-1) vs. Bob Dozier (17-10)

A good old West Country derby here as Wiltshire's Laurence Lamping takes on Devon's Bob Dozier. The more experienced Dozier also carried a 20-pound weight advantage into the cage, but that doesn't help at the start of the fight when Landing connects with some good punches right out of the gate. Where it does help though is in grappling, and Dozier was able to clinch with Lamping and drives him back against the cage. Dozier seemed happy to just keep Lamping trapped there, but Lamping wasn't thrilled about that and managed to wrestle his way out and back to the centre of the cage. Somehow it seemed that Dozier was already slowing down, only three minutes into the fight, and that perhaps didn't help his cause when Lamping connected with a jab and vicious right hook to knock Dozier down! Lamping started unloading punches on Dozier who couldn't do anything to get out of the situation, and the referee pulled Lamping away to stop the fight for another TKO stoppage. Lamping showed his class here.

Winner: Laurence Lamping (5-1) via TKO (Strikes) - 4:20 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Good

Post-Fight: Lamping always gives a good interview, and this is no exception. After thanking the usual fans, sponsors and family, he goes out of his way to compliment Bob Dozier, saying he's looked up to the veteran for some time and is inspired by high toughness. What a class act.

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MAIN EVENT

BMMA HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH

Aston Merryman (4-0) © vs. Norman MacAskill (4-0)

Here we go, the first title defence in BMMA history, with the massive ramifications of Merryman leaving for the BCF as soon as the bell sounds to end the fight. Your referee for this contest isn't Earl Hebner though, it's Lee Tynan. MacAskill wasn't afraid of Merryman it seems, he moves forward to pressure the champion and lands some good punches to the head of Merryman. It may not have been the best idea though, because the closer he gets to Merryman allows the champion to initiate a clinch, and Merryman soon has MacAskill backed up against the cage. After some knees to the thigh and foot stomps Merryman executes a perfect leg trip to get MacAskill down to the ground. Once there Merryman was almost immediately able to secure the back of MacAskill and got a body triangle in to ensure he maintained control. This was only ever going one way now, and it didn't take long for Merryman to lock in a rear naked choke on the prone MacAskill. There was nothing MacAskill could do, the choke was locked in, and he had to tap out. Merryman defends the BMMA title, not that it really matters as the title is now vacant. If only MacAskill could have got some kind of submission in the referee could have signaled the fight was over or something.

Winner, and still BMMA Heavyweight champion: Aston Merryman via Submission (Rear Naked Choke) - 3:13 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Great

Post-Fight: No idea what's going to happen here... Merryman does the usual and thanks the sponsors and fans. He thanks Bulldog MMA for the opportunity, which gets him booed, says he was proud to defend the BMMA Heavyweight title, which gets him booed, and that he hopes to see the fans again someday, which gets him booed. Tough crowd. Merryman hands the BMMA Heavyweight title to Jim Carpenter, and just like that Aston Merryman is officially a BCF fighter.

The BMMA Heavyweight title has been vacated

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Show Details

Attendance: 169 (+23)

Critical Rating: 72%

Commercial Rating: 35%

Popularity Change:

UK +1.9%

Canada +0.4%

Europe +0.4%

Central America +0.4%

South America +0.4%

Mexico +0.4%

Africa +0.4%

USA +0.4%

Asia +0.4%

Australia +0.4%

Russia +0.3%

Japan +0.3%

Fight of the Night: Rich Robinson vs. Mauricio de Terreros

Knock Out of the Night: Nimrod Wickhammersley

Submission of the Night: Aston Merryman

Income

Gate: $14,892 (+$2,026)

Sponsorship: $13,739 (-$256)

Merchandise: $2,152 (+$119)

Expenditure

Fighters: $23,144 (+$3,943)

Drug Testing: $4,800 (No Change)

Production: $3,037 (+$554)

Total: $-198

So close. I blame Aston Merryman.

--------------------------------

Other News

- As has been made fairly clear, Aston Merryman has officially left Bulldog MMA and started up with British Cage Fighting. That leaves the BMMA Heavyweight title vacated, along with the Light Heavyweight title after Dennis Gallagher's departure. It is thought that BMMA management are looking for a fight that will be worthy of crowning new champions, which won't be easy in their underwhelming Light Heavyweight division.

- In what has to be considered a surprise, Welterweight Evan Pizzarro, who is due to fight for the Bulldog MMA Welterweight title at their next show, has committed to stay with the small organisation despite receiving an offer from GAMMA. Pizzarro recently moved to the UK and having made that life change did not want to move again so soon. Also, money.

- This didn't stop GAMMA from signing a boatload of young fighters, most notably Wes Hersch, Tyrone Malik, Moses Amokachi, Jericho Stewart and Wyatt Ashur.

- Bulldog MMA have also continued their hiring spree, among the new arrivals are Frederico Vergara, Gustavo Spagnol, Murray O'Hare, Craig Hulme, Dag Kreuger, Buzzy Tuttle, Vagner, Stephan de Winter, Neville Granville, Callum Henson, Andrew Rush, Allen LeFleur, Duey Rickert and Bryan Guest.

- The BCF have also been busy, signing Silvio Leite, Evgeni Medtner, Thom Billings, Cullen Skink, Javid Khan and Clarence Gibson. Most notably they have also signed BMMA Middleweight champion Osi Lewis, and SIGMA Welterweight champion Alberto Basora.

BCF Silvio Leite, Thom Billings, Osi Lewis, Cullen Skink, Clarence Gibson, Evgeni Medtner

- As for ALPHA-1, they have been targeting young, unemployed Japanese fighters rather than taking talent from other promotions. I won't list them as you won't have heard of them, but good for them.

- XCC Featherweight Sammy Gaffigan decided to lose the respect of the decent members of humanity by making racist comments on his social media platform. We here at Blurcat would like to publicly state that he is an idiot.

- And finally, both Bud Brockett and Guy Moss have announced their intentions to compete at the Olympics in 2004. Best of luck to them.

Other Shows

Saturday Week 2 of May

New BCF Light Heavyweight champion crowned

Lenny McFadden's reign at the top of the BCF Light Heavyweight decision was a short one as he was dethroned in his first title defence by undefeated Swiss fighter Fabian Schar. McFadden's weakness on the ground was easily exploited and he was submitted in the second round.

Also on the main card there were victories for Reynolds Baer, Crow Leddy, Rhys Buck and Heath Kaladaris. As you can see, these names are hardly the pinnacle of British MMA, so the BCF must be quite happy that they still made a decent profit on PPV.

Winners on the undercard included Danko Jelavic, Edgar van den Hoogenband, newcomer Roope Kuqi, and Charlie Oakley who remains undefeated and is likely a future star in the Middleweight division.

Sunday Week 2 of May

XCC: Ziskie vs. Diggle

Phillip Ziskie def. David James Diggle to retain the XCC Featherweight title

(Then they both left for ALPHA-1)

Wallace Everett def. Shuler Eigenberg

Aubrey Bassington-Bassington def. Ollie Rockmetteller

Easton Frye def. Noah Smithee

Brock Youdale def. Hinton Grey

Friday Week 3 of May

ALPHA-1: Fezzik vs. Sarkisian

Hassan Fezzik def. Armen Sarkisian to retain the ALPHA-1 Heavyweight title

Sho Kitabatake def. Tadamasa Yamada

Syed Tan def. Ikku Funaki

Mason Archer def. Terron Cabal

Simon Vine def. Bakin Sakamo

Saturday Week 3 of May

BCF run their weakest show in their modern era, nobody bothers to watch

Considering they are the top MMA company in the UK the BCF put on a bizarrely under-par show, main evented by a fighter making his MMA debut in Mike Shearer, and journeyman Murray O'Hare. This should be a sign to the BCF that they're running too many shows, hopefully they learn from it.

Shearer, who was a submission fighter prior to moving to MMA, was successful in his debut by submitting O'Hare with a Guillotine in the first round. Elsewhere Enar Igonen defeated Pip Londress, Hans-Peter Schneider defeated Ivor Orr, Eddie Whelan defeated Roko Stipanvoic, and Mick Curran defeated Conor Houghton. Not exactly PPV quality.

They only had room for one prelim fight, Max Rebottaro defeating Owen Williams.

SIGMA: Medtner vs. Van Ommen

Evgeni Medtner def. Willem van Ommen

Jean-Jacques Levasseur def. Vjekoslav Sarich

Heiko Pander def. Benedikt Streit

Luka Hajek def. Tore Herlovsen

Massimiliano Locatelli def. Zhenya Golob

Sunday Week 3 of May

WEFF 30: Vaughan vs. Masters

Sarah Vaughan def. Monica Masters to retain the WEFF Bantamweight Title

Michelle Addams def. Emma Birch

Alison Beattie def. Suzana Ramos

Chelsea Lawson def. Tabitha Cameron

Rose Nessa def. Erica Page

Friday Week 4 of May

ALPHA-1: Fontes vs. Yamasheeta

Joaquim Fontes def. Ieyoshi Yamasheeta to retain the ALPHA-1 Middleweight Tite

Go Yamamoto def. Motoki Hojo

Hyun-Shik Lim def. Roberto Aldez

Xie Ming def. Chew Chua

Jin Yamane def. Chojiro Goto

Saturday Week 4 of May

GAMMA 52: Darling vs. De Vries

Dexter Darling def. Maarten de Vries

Tora Mizwar def. Sutton Ripley

Teddy Glossop def. Irwin Middleton

Davey Rushton def. Seb Morehead

Diego Arteta def. Dana Delaney

Friday Week 1 of June

ALPHA-1: Sukarno vs. Atep II

Sukarno def. Atep of Indonesia to retain the ALPHA-1 Lightweight title

Fumiaki Hayashi def. Heikichi Shimizu

Rafael van der Moot def. Curt Kitson

Naizen Hamacho def. Korekiyo Anzai

Jakuchu Abe def. Kojiro Kudo

Saturday Week 1 of June

SIGMA: Hristov vs. Peyroux

Filip Hristov def. Benni Peyroux

Artak Gevor def. Jemaine McKenzie

Markku Mikkola def. Michael Klaughnschue

Vittorio Pescatelli def. Scotty Arnsson

Thorvald Axelsson def. Nshan Ramazyan

Friday Week 2 of June

ALPHA-1: Lette vs. Shivari

Palmer Lette def. Ali Shivari to retain the ALPHA-1 Super Heavyweight title

Hiro Arai def. Kunimichi Kikiuchi

Tomoji Takaoka def. Taroemon Abukara

Renato def. Zachary Nobell

Seiho Nanami def. Shizuya Nakae

And just like that everyone's show quantities went from Saturation back to Rapid Fire. So many shows...

Chris2K · June 2, 2020

SPECIAL EVENT

Saturday Week 3 of June 2002

Harry: "You ready for this?"

Jim: "It's now or never. Literally, we have to do it now, it's part of the contract."

Harry: "This is a massive step, I hope it doesn't blow up in our face."

Jim: "If you don't try, you don't succeed. To dare is to do. Better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all."

Harry: "Alright, enough clichés, let's get on with it..."

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

BULLDOG MMA AND EURO CABLE SPORT 1 ANNOUNCE NEW TELEVISION SHOW - BULLDOG BRAWL - TO BEGIN IN AUGUST

by Mike Thomson

Bulldog MMA president Harry Milne, their CEO Jim Carpenter and Euro Cable Sport vice-president Tim Tanner were on hand in Manchester today to announce a new monthly television show to be broadcast on Euro Cable Sport 1, their subscription service. The show will go by the name "Bulldog Brawl" and will air on the Saturday of the first week of every month from August onwards.

Tanner was quoted as saying "In their brief time in existence Bulldog MMA have already shown that they are a can't miss brand of Mixed Martial Arts action, their cult following on the internet has made us stand up and realise that they are just the sort of popular competition we are looking for at Euro Cable Sport. We look forward to working with Harry, Jim and the ever-increasing ranks of highly talented fighters under the Bulldog MMA banner."

"In January if you'd told me we'd be signing a TV contract within six months of our first show I would have told you to go and do one and scrap your crazy ideas" said the ever direct Milne, "but here we are, and I couldn't be happier. For a network as prestigious as Euro Cable Sport to bring our little regional company into their fold is a real boost for everyone involved at Bulldog MMA. It has been a tough few weeks but knowing that this deal was so close to fruition has made it bearable, and now we can look to a very promising future."

Carpenter was asked about the style of the show; "Euro Cable Sport have been very generous with the timeslot they have given us, a three-hour window will be enough to run at least six fights if not more. As far as fights go we will be prioritising the Bulldog Brawl shows, so if you want to see the very best that Bulldog MMA has to offer you will only find it on Euro Cable Sport 1, 8pm, the first Saturday of every month."

Carpenter also gave word that the first Bulldog Brawl show will be headlined by current Middleweight champion Osi Lewis defending against newcomer Owen Hyde, a fight specifically requested by Lewis following his title victory. No matter the result this will be Lewis' only defence of the title as he has been signed to an exclusive deal by the BCF which comes into effect at the conclusion of the fight. Both Carpenter and Milne refused to answer questions relating to fighters leaving BMMA to go to BCF, a sign that their views on the matter is not something they wish to air publicly, even when questioned if the TV deal would help sway fighters into remaining with the smaller promotion.

As far as TV shows go, not including Bulldog MMA's current deal to air events on SportTube, they join GAMMA, ALPHA-1, BCF, KDM FC and WEFF in having television deals. This must also be a kick in the teeth to SIGMA who have been trying to get a TV deal with Euro Cable Sport for over two years without success, only for Bulldog MMA to get one in just a few months of existence. XCC are the only other active company without a television deal, somewhat surprising given their brand of fast-paced exciting combat.

Whilst having more eyeballs on the product, likely more than they are currently getting on SportTube at least, the risks are there for Bulldog MMA as any TV show comes with additional costs, they will be moving out of the building in Wigan where all of their shows have been so far, and into a larger building in Manchester to allow space for the production team to work. They will also be relying on George Thomas-Grey to host and commentate the show, and whilst he's a good commentator his hosting skills have never really been tested. They have also brought in a translator, Dave White, to help the post-fight interviews for the ever-increasing number of overseas fighters in the company who are not able to speak English yet.

Overall though it is likely to be a big gain for Bulldog MMA who at least put themselves at a similar level as BCF as far as broadcasting goes, what they need to work on now is getting their fighters to a recognisable level, as the goal of being able to run shows on Pay-Per-View for the big income is a long way off.

Chris2K · June 4, 2020

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Friday, Week 2 of July

Harry: "Well after the last few weeks of madness the last fortnight has been a bit boring, hasn't it?"

Jim: "Not sure about that, I've been booking shows left, right and centre. We're nearly sorted through October now, just need to find an opponent for Garry McSweegan for the Light Heavyweight title. That division really is difficult, everyone's either on a huge losing streak or has barely any fights, neither of which make for a credible title challenger."

Harry: "Isn't McSweegan on a losing streak too?"

Jim: "Yeah, but he's the most recognisable person in the division. Maybe the most recognisable in the company in fact."

Harry: "Yeah, I understand. We'd both love this to be a sport that relies solely on wins and losses, but we both know that fighter marketability is just as, maybe even more important. What's the latest on the BCF front?"

Jim: "Not a whole lot of activity to be honest, things seem to have settled down. They've signed Tim Oldacres to an exclusive contract, but he was already under contract with them to begin with. That forced me to change things around, Oldacres was going to get a title shot, but now he's out and Graeme Spark is in. It's a Brawl main event, I don't want to waste it on someone who won't be around."

Harry: "Good call, I've got this feeling that Euro Cable Sport are keeping a close eye on us and that's the sort of thing they could pick us up on. Anyone else gone?"

Jim: "Only Chris Hollands, a youngster. They threw money at him, he couldn't say no, it won't make much difference to the Heavyweight division. I've actually been having a bit of fun with them, whenever a BCF guy has a contract up for renewal I send them an offer, knowing full well they won't accept, but Jerome is so adamant not to lose anyone to us that he offers them a massive wage increase to make sure they stay. We both know what pay is like for fighters, and if we can get some more of the BCF's money to them then that's a win for us and the fighter."

Harry: "Very crafty, just make sure you don't get too extravagant and we end up with a lower card BCF fighter with us for 5k a fight. At some point a BCF fighter is going to choose us instead of them, I can't wait to rub it in Jerome's face when that happens."

Jim: "Speaking of people choosing us, we've had mixed luck with our major imports. I convinced Evan Pizzarro to stay with some cash incentives and a reminder of what he gave up coming here in the first place, and that was enough to keep him out of GAMMA's hands. On the flip side, Rich Robinson got an offer from ALPHA-1, and the same tactic didn't work with him. It's a shame, he's a talented guy."

Harry: "To be honest if someone goes to ALPHA-1 or GAMMA I don't mind so much, they're a different level from us and take talent from the BCF as well. Keeping people out of the BCF and maybe SIGMA is a different story. Everything coming together for the first Brawl show?"

Jim: "Yup, we've moved to a bigger building in Manchester to make the show look a bit more presentable. Euro Cable Sport have been talking us through the production side of things, not exactly my area of expertise."

Harry: "You'll be an expert in no time. Let's worry about the next show though, it's Ron Chuckle's last fight, we've already seen Merryman win on his way out the door, MacAskill barely put up a fight, what's this Pizzarro kid like?"

Jim: "He's very talented, I trained a lot with him when I did camps in the US. I'm hoping he's going to win, and we won't have a third title vacant. We might have four if Lewis wins at the first Brawl show. I know the tournaments were hard work, but they've been cursing us ever since as well."

Harry: "You're never going to let me live that tournament idea down are you..."

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Press Release

BULLDOG MMA RETURNS, SHOW HEADLINED BY A WELTERWEIGHT TITLE MATCH

by Mike Thomson

Bulldog MMA return to their spiritual home of Wigan for what might be the last time, with the company scheduled to start holding their shows in a slightly larger venue in Manchester from next month onwards. For the second show in a row the Bulldog MMA management find themselves in a position where they need one fighter to win the title match, once again the champion, in this case Ron Chuckle, is leaving for the BCF as soon as the fight is over, and the challenger Evan Pizzarro has agreed to stay. Unlike the Aston Merryman/Norman MacAskill fight from the previous show, this fight looks to be a lot more even, Pizzarro comes in with a lot of hype for his ability and will also have a significant weight advantage.

Kicking off the show will be a Lightweight division match which has only recently been put together after one of the original participants, Cyril Kamoze, pulled out through injury. Owen Oggleberry-Pipp (6-3) was rushed in to replace him, and he takes on Keith Jolly (6-4). Welshman Jolly has not exactly had the best run of form, his early career was fantastic as he went 6-0 including his first two fights in the BCF, but a loss to Seth O'Breen was followed by another to Jochen Bellof, then Tim Oldacres, and recently Pip Londress, leading to his release from the company. At his best Jolly can use his speed to strike then avoid getting hit, things tend to go badly if someone is able to grab hold of him. Owen Oggleberry-Pipp (OOP) flies in from Canada without a whole lot of expectation behind him, his performances on the Canadian independent scene have been unspectacular and his win/loss record of 6-3 hasn't made him a standout prospect. OOP's main game plan is to use his kick boxing skills to out-strike his opponent, and that may have to be his only tactic as nobody believes him to have any grappling or ground skills to speak of

The second fight of the show will be between two young English fighters in the Middleweight division, Todd Prenger (2-1) takes on Eric Riggs who is making his MMA debut. It's also a Tyneside derby with Prenger from Sunderland and Riggs from Newcastle. Prenger has already fought once in Bulldog MMA having participated in the Middleweight tournament, he put up a good showing against Osi Lewis and almost pulled off an upset before being forced to submit with 12 seconds left in the fight. Prenger is long-time student of karate giving him a high level of technical prowess in his striking, however as with most karateka he does not have much power behind them. Riggs is a former boxer with some lower rank Middleweight titles to his name, but he has moved into MMA believing that his boxing skills are more than enough to take out any opponent. A very talkative chap, expect his abrasive personality to shine through if he gets a chance to speak after the fight.

The show's third fight will be a Heavyweight division fight between Chris Hollands (2-0) and Linton Renn (9-4), with Hollands another fighter leaving for the BCF once this match is over. Hollands was successful in his first Bulldog MMA fight, overcoming Nelson Kenney with a comprehensive decision victory, which was evidently enough for the BCF to deem him worth stealing. Hollands technique is not quite there yet but he has impressive physical attributes in his height and strength, and seemingly a strong focus that will help him develop his skills. Linton Renn is a new addition to Bulldog MMA having recently been cut by the BCF (about a week before Hollands was hired in fact), his biggest claim to fame so far is scoring an upset over previously undefeated Ozzy Bintley in his BCF debut. Since then he has suffered two consecutive decision losses to Tyke Milligan and Reynolds Baer, hence his termination. Renn has a solid all-round game with his heavy punching power and stifling grappling skills, he is however quite slow, and from a fans' perspective, incredibly dull to watch.

The fourth fight of the evening will be a clash in the Light Heavyweight division between Hardy Tristan (3-5) and the debuting Datsakorn Pratoomwong (4-0). It says a lot about the state of Bulldog MMA's Light Heavyweight division when Tristan is still involved, his participation in MMA at this point seems to be as a moving punch bag. He has fought once in BMMA already, a decision loss in the Light Heavyweight tournament against Liam Spurling, but his reputation for brawling and the fact he can cut to 205 pounds seem to be the main motivations for his continued employment. Datsakorn Pratoomwong, not the easiest name to get your mouth around, is one of the few fighters to have moved over to the UK from Asia, as the focus on smaller weight class fighters has left Light Heavyweights and Heavyweights starved of decent action. Pratoomwong is a student of kung fu and is happy to trade strikes with anyone, he also cuts a lot of weight to get to 205 pounds meaning he will likely have a weight and power advantage over most opponents. His nickname is "Lefty” because he is left-handed. Can't fault that logic.

In the co-main event of the evening two Heavyweights will collide, although the fans will not be too excited to see them, Lachlan Bowen (12-8) takes on Terry Bull (5-3), in a fight that could most favourably described as "happening". Lachlen Bowen came over from Canada looking to rebuild his stop-start career on a new shore, but all that happened was for him to fall victim to a huge upset against Hayden Ellery, a fight which Ellery only took on six days’ notice. It remains to be seen if Bowen can recover from that humiliation, his wrestling skills will always be there if he needs them, but there must be questions about how able he is to take a punch. That said, if he can't beat Terry Bull, he should probably hang up his gloves. To call Bull mediocre would be paying him a compliment, he has no conditioning, no wrestling skills, no clinch game and no striking technique. Most people with that report would at least having punching power, but he doesn't have that either. His only fight in BMMA so far resulted in a 69 second TKO loss to Kieran Morgan, a fact made more frightening in that Morgan is known for his grappling skills with little in the way of striking ability.

The Main Event of the show will be another one where emotions will be running high, BMMA Welterweight champion Ron Chuckle (11-2) will make what will be his only title defence against BMMA newcomer Evan Pizzaro (8-0). There are people who think Pizzarro was hand-picked by Jim Carpenter to get the title off Chuckle, explaining why someone who hasn't fought in BMMA yet is getting a title shot straight away. Chuckle blitzed his way through the Welterweight tournament to win the title, he won every round he was involved in and it was hard not to call him a worthy champion. Primarily a grappler, Chuckle was able to dominate despite normally being a Lightweight division fighter, showing just how good a wrestler he is even against bigger opponents. Evan Pizzarro comes to the UK from New Orleans, Louisiana after a personal invite from BMMA CEO Jim Carpenter who trained with Pizzarro during his time with GAMMA. Pizzaro’s background is in judo, and that allows him to hold an advantage in most grappling situations with an array of different trip takedowns at his disposal. He has the submissions to go with it once the fight goes to the ground as well, with seven of his eight wins coming by submission, including one already this year against local fighter John Wales before he moved to the UK.

BMMA 9: Chuckle vs. Pizzarro Fight Card

Lightweight Division

Keith Jolly vs. Owen Oggleberry-Pipp

Welterweight Division

Todd Prenger vs. Eric Riggs

Heavyweight Division

Chris Hollands vs. Linton Renn

Light Heavyweight Division

Hardy Tristan vs. Datsakorn Pratoomwong

Heavyweight Division

Lachlan Bowen vs. Terry Bull

BMMA Welterweight Title Match

Ron Chuckle vs. Evan Pizzarro</div>

vladjarca · June 4, 2020

Lightweight Division

Keith Jolly vs. Owen Oggleberry-Pipp

Welterweight Division

Todd Prenger vs. Eric Riggs

Heavyweight Division

Chris Hollands vs. Linton Renn

Light Heavyweight Division

Hardy Tristan vs. Datsakorn Pratoomwong

Heavyweight Division

Lachlan Bowen vs. Terry Bull

BMMA Welterweight Title Match

Ron Chuckle vs. Evan Pizzarro

CageRage · June 4, 2020

BMMA 9: Chuckle vs. Pizzarro Fight Card

Lightweight Division

Keith Jolly vs. Owen Oggleberry-Pipp

Welterweight Division

Todd Prenger vs. Eric Riggs

Heavyweight Division

Chris Hollands vs. Linton Renn

Light Heavyweight Division

Hardy Tristan vs. Datsakorn Pratoomwong

Heavyweight Division

Lachlan Bowen vs. Terry Bull

BMMA Welterweight Title Match

Ron Chuckle vs. Evan Pizzarro

Chris2K · June 6, 2020

BMMA 9: CHUCKLE vs. PIZZARRO

Match #1

Lightweight Division

Keith Jolly (6-4) vs. Owen Oggleberry-Pipp (6-3)

The first round is fairly frenetic in terms of the two fighters bouncing around all over the place, Jolly showed his immense speed by avoiding most of OOP's shots and did a good job of landing his own strikes when given the opportunity. Whilst there were lots of strikes being thrown there was nothing by either fighter that would be considered a threat to finish the fight, jabs and the occasional leg kick were the strikes on show, OOP did try some bigger shots but Jolly was too quick. OOP kept looked for the big shot at the start of the second round, but again Jolly avoided them and landed some counter shots of his own, however OOP eventually scored with a surprise head kick which stunned Jolly, forcing him to back up! OOP looked to capitalise but missed with his big follow-up shots, and Jolly was able to recover and get back to the centre. The remainder of the round sees OOP land some more decent shots, but his attempts to go back to the head kick catch nothing but air, allowing a now fully recovered Jolly to land some more counter shots. The final round began with Jolly missing a right hand and OOP countering with one of his own, that staggered Jolly who went back to the cage, OOP landed another right hand, then followed that with another head kick which put Jolly down! OOP connected with some decent shots on the ground and Jolly wasn't going anywhere, so the referee stopped the fight. I didn't expect this fight to have a stoppage, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Winner: Owen Oggleberry-Pipp (7-3) via TKO (Strikes) - 0:53 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Decent

Post-Fight: Owen Oggleberry-Pipp thanks his sponsors, family and friends, and he should probably be very thankful if friends and family flew over from Canada. He celebrates winning on his debut, but nothing more.

-----------------------

Match #2

Middleweight Division

Todd Prenger (2-1) vs. Eric Riggs (0-0)

As with the first fight this one was all on the feet as well, but both fighters had a lot more power behind their strikes. Former boxer Riggs was happy to be the one pushing the pace and scored with some nice hooks to the body, but once Prenger got close enough he landed a nice combination of two jabs and a right hook which left Riggs staggered! Riggs went to finish and connected with a huge uppercut which Prenger somehow managed to survive, a second uppercut was thrown but Prenger avoided that and circled back to the centre. Prenger never looked entirely comfortable after that and started throwing big punches perhaps out of desperation, Riggs was able to avoid those and counter with good shots of his own. Riggs landed several more good shots before the end of the round and the fact Prenger survived it was some kind of miracle. The second round continued to display Riggs' striking prowess and he continued to land powerful punches without ever looking like he's concerned about what Prenger can throw back at him, and by the end of the fight he had landed more power strikes than jabs. Riggs perhaps got a tad complacent though as Prenger was able to land a right hook which opened up a pretty severe cut over the eye of Riggs. That perhaps ignited something in Riggs, as moments later he dodged another Prenger right hook and fired back with one of his own which knocked Prenger out cold! Riggs gave Prenger a few choice words, not that the unconscious Prenger would have been able to hear them, before heading back to his corner to celebrate.

Winner: Eric Riggs (1-0) via Knock Out (Punch) - 3:30 of Round 2

Fight Rating: Good

Post-Fight: I was expecting some kind of angry spiel from Riggs, but he is remarkably dignified for someone who believes his boxing makes him better than any MMA fighter. He thanks the usual sponsors, family etc. and then quite emotionally talks about how glad he is to win his MMA debut. He doesn't even call anyone out. What a let-down.

-----------------------

Match #3

Heavyweight Division

Chris Hollands (2-0) vs. Linton Renn (9-4)

Company pride is on the line here, Hollands is about to leave Bulldog MMA to go to the BCF, whilst Renn has recently been cut by the BCF, perhaps rather harshly, and makes his BMMA debut here. This fight got off to a rather brutal start when a left hand from Hollands looked like it broke Renn's nose within the first minute, but that was the most exciting action we had for a while. One of the big criticisms of Renn is how his fighting style is incredibly boring, and that was very much the case here as he grappled with Hollands and held him against the cage for over three minutes. Once separated by the referee Hollands was able to land some more left hands, and by the end of the round Renn's right eye was noticeably swelling. The second round was even more of the same with Renn being able to control a clinch against the cage for four minutes, a tactic which wasn't winning him many fans in the crowd, however he remained busy enough with dirty boxing and the occasional foot stomp to prevent the referee from separating them. Hollands eventually got free when Renn decided to try for a takedown which didn't work, but in the twenty seconds he was free Hollands wasn't able to land any meaningful shots.

It wasn't much of a surprise that Round 3 followed in a similar pattern, Hollands landed a few strikes in the opening minute, but after that it was three minutes of Renn clinching and holding Hollands against the cage. I'm starting to see why the BCF cut him now. When they are separated with a minute left in the fight Renn tries to shoot in for a takedown which Hollands easily sprawls on to defend, and Holland is able to land one more clean shot before the fight ends. We went to the judges and the scores were all over the shop, the first scored it 30-27 to Renn, the second somehow scored it 30-27 to Hollands, and the third scored the fight 29-28 to.... Linton Renn. It wasn't pretty, but it got the win. I have to think the 30-27 Hollands judge was basing his opinion on entertainment rather than what actually happened in the fight. Or maybe he's being bribed by the BCF. This is the second upset Linton Renn has caused to a young, undefeated fighter after he handed Ozzy Bintley his first professional defeat.

Winner: Linton Renn (10-4) via Split Decision (30-27, 27-30, 29-28)

Fight Rating: Average

Post-Fight: Renn thanks his sponsors, his family, his friends and celebrates his debut victory in the BMMA. He apologies for the dull fight and says he'll do better next time. I wouldn't put money on that.

-----------------------

Match #4

Light Heavyweight Division

Hardy Tristan (3-6) vs. Datsakorn Pratoomwong (4-0)

There are some establishments calling Pratoomwong a -1000 favourite here, so Tristan isn't exactly expected to do much to threaten him. The first round was all Pratoomwong, although to begin with Tristan does do a good job of only getting caught by Pratoomwong's setup strike and avoiding the big one that followed it. Small victories and all that. It was all going quite sedately until halfway through the round when Pratoomwong unleashed a left head kick which caught Tristan on the side of the head and sent him staggering backwards. You'd think that would be it, but Pratoomwong made the strange decision of following up with shots to the body of Tristan, and that gave the Englishman the chance to escape. For the remainder of the round Pratoomwong completely out-struck Tristan to an almost embarrassing degree but didn't land another big shot at any point. Throughout the fight Pratoomwong had been landing some kicks to the lead leg of Tristan and after a few more in the second round Tristan was starting to visibly limp. This round Tristan was at least trying to make the first move, but more often than not that resulted in him getting caught by some more PSM punches. Halfway through the second round Pratoomwong was able to land a jab/left hand combination which stunned Tristan, and he followed that up with another big head kick which knocked Tristan down! Pratoomwong started unloading massive left hammer fists to the head of the floored Tristan and it didn't take long for the referee to step in and stop the fight. A dominant victory for Pratoomwong, and Tristan managed to survive a whole round and a half, which is something at least.

Winner: Datsakorn Pratoomwong (5-0) via TKO (Strikes) - 3:03 of Round 2

Fight Rating: Good

Post-Fight: Pratoomwong has very limited English to the say the least, he has only been in the country a month, but he was able to say he was "happy" a lot, which is nice.[/b]

-----------------------

Co-Main Event

Heavyweight Division

Lachlan Bowen (12-8) vs. Terry Bull (5-3)

Given Bowen's surprise defeat in his BMMA debut he had better hope he wins here, or he might be sent back to Canada on the next flight. Bowen started the fight landing some good punches, and even though Bull had a 25-pound weight he still managed to lose a grappling battle with Bowen who was simply too strong. Despite his strength Bowen didn't actually do anything with the position and ended up holding Bull there for over two minutes without any action. Despite only fighting four minutes, with most of that being stood still, Bull was starting to look tired and his striking became more erratic, allowing Bowen to pick him off with counter-striking seemingly at will until the end of the first round. The second round was a far more one-sided affair as Bull seemingly just got off his stool to get punched in the face by Bowen a significant number of times. After 80 seconds of that Bowen connects with a right uppercut which finally knocks Bull down, and some punches on the ground are fairly inconsequential as Bull probably wasn't looking to get back to his feet only to take more punishment. Bowen banishes the ghost of his upset defeat and Terry Bull remains... well, terrible.

Winner: Lachlan Bowen () via TKO (Strikes) - 1:37 of Round 2

Fight Rating: Decent

Post-Fight: Bowen thanks his sponsors, family and friends and is happy to finally be in the win column in Bulldog MMA. He issues a challenge to Laurence Lamping, which is a slight increase in competition to say the least.

-----------------------

MAIN EVENT

BMMA WELTERWEIGHT TITLE MATCH

Ron Chuckle (11-2) © vs. Evan Pizzarro (8-0)

Weird reaction here with Chuckle's friends and supporters cheering him on, whilst others boo both him, and them. Very loyal, these Bulldog fans. It's a grappler versus grappler contest but a strike made the early difference, Pizzaro’s first punch opened up a cut under Chuckle's left eye. From there we get the expected clinching with Pizzarro dominating to begin with, however Chuckle was able to reverse the position and even got a trip takedown against the judoka. The remainder of the round was on the ground with not much action, but as far as close rounds go you don't get much closer. Chuckle was desperate to grapple in the second round but every time he got close, he was met by very competent striking from Pizzarro, far better than most people might have thought he had. Chuckle's cut was opened up again, and when he finally did get a grapple Pizzarro was able to out-wrestle him and executed a perfect outside leg trip to take him down and get side control. Pizzarro was able to work away on the ground for a while and tried lock in a kimura, when that wasn't successful he was able to roll Chuckle over and take his back, but the round ended before he could do anything with that position.

The third round was similar in that Pizzarro started with good striking, Chuckle went to grapple, Pizzarro reversed it and took control of the clinch, except this time he kept the fight standing against the cage. Pizzarro landed some good knees to the thigh, some foot stomps and some inside punches, but the referee eventually separated them. The remainder of the round saw both fighters control a clinch at some point, but neither one was able to do anything special when they had control. Into the fourth round we went and Pizzarro was starting to tire having exerted a lot of energy in controlling the fight, that didn't stop him securing another trip takedown though. On the ground Pizzarro shows some great skill to transition from guard, to half guard, to side control and then the mount, Chuckle gave up his back again but Pizzarro continued to struggle to get his patented rear naked choke applied. After several attempts he finally was able to lock it in, but Chuckle had held on long enough that he could survive until the end of the round despite being completely stretched out.

So we hit the final round and Chuckle needed a finish it seemed, he started off on the right track with a successful takedown, however once he got the fight to the ground he wasn't able to do anything of note, Pizzarro made sure to keep him tied up as much as possible to both prevent him landing shots and to stop him moving to get a better position. The referee eventually stood them back up, and on their feet, it was evident that both fighters were exhausted, and their striking was barely existent. Towards the end of the fight Chuckle shot in for one more takedown, he got it, making him 3 for 3 for the fight, but there was no time left to do anything. The judges gave in their scores, whilst the BMMA management sat on the edge of their seats. They scored it 49-46, 48-47 and 48-47 for a unanimous decision to... Evan Pizzarro! We have a new BMMA Welterweight champion, and whilst the BCF now get Ron Chuckle they won't be taking him as a champion.

Winner, and NEW BMMA Welterweight champion: Evan Pizzarro (9-0) via Unanimous Decision (49-46, 48-47 x2)

Fight Rating: Decent

Post-Fight: Pizzarro is pretty tired but still manages to thank his sponsors, family, friends and fans. He's happy to be the Bulldog MMA Welterweight champion and has title strapped around his waist by Jim Carpenter.

(As a completely unbiased diary writer I certainly didn't punch the air in happiness when Pizzarro won, that would be very unprofessional.)

-----------------------

Show Details

Attendance: 162 (-7)

Critical Rating: 59% (-13%)

Commercial Rating: 30%

Popularity Change:

UK +0.8%

Canada -0.3%

Europe -0.3%

Central America -0.3%

South America -0.3%

Mexico -0.3%

Africa -0.3%

USA +0.3%

Asia -0.3%

Australia -0.3%

Russia -0.3%

Japan -0.3%

Evan Pizzarro, our draw in the USA it seems.

Fight of the Night: Ron Chuckle vs. Evan Pizzarro

Knock Out of the Night: Eric Riggs

Submission of the Night: N/A

Income

Gate: $14,276 (-$706)

Sponsorship: $13,739 (-$924)

Merchandise: $2,212 (+$60)

Expenditure

Fighters: $23,144 (+$5,476)

Drug Testing: $4,800 (No Change)

Production: $3,232 (+$115)

Total: $-7,349

Keeping Evan Pizzaro from going to GAMMA was expensive, to the extent that the show loss is less than his fight wage.

--------------------------------

Other News

- Perhaps the biggest news of the last month is that former GAMMA Lightweight champion Brandon Sugar has announced he is "taking a break" from fighting for an indefinite amount of time. After losing the title to Jake Keane he was back to winning ways again recently against Truck Gleeson but has since stated he wants to come back when he has the drive to fight and train again.

- In signing news Bulldog MMA have lost two fighters, Welterweight stand-out Rich Robinson has chosen to join ALPHA-1, stating that as he is in his late 20s, he needs to start earning bigger money. Heavyweight Chris Hollands, who lost on the most recent BMMA show, has also joined the BCF.

- GAMMA have signed the fantastically named Sly Twinge. That's all this news item is, I just wanted to write about Sly Twinge.

- Howard Pursglove had a rough month, first he lost his fight to Morgan Wakarewarewa, then the BCF cut him, and now he's failed the drug test from that fight for PEDs, which has cancelled his potential employment with Bulldog MMA. Pursglove has admitted that he used the drugs, so don't feel too sorry for him.

- Pursglove joins a long list of people failing drug tests this year, along with Woody Fierstein Piotr Dabrowski, Dule Bayliffe, Jasper Osmond, Ronan Mary, Keaton Spratt, OJ Oberst, Marcus Speed, Brett Krawkosi, Buster East, and most notably Jack Humphreys. It does at least show that the commissions are working hard on cleaning up the sport, even if a lot of those fighters have plead their innocence.

- Bulldog MMA have signed another batch of South Americans and Canadians, Kendall Tracey is the biggest name, he's joined by Flavio Alberto, Giovanni de Matos, Lazaro Campos, Leandro Piquet, Russell McPhee, Emerson Mori Nunes, Todd D'Abruzzo, Joey Valdez and Ethan LaGrange. Surely, they have too many fighters now?

--------------------------------

Other Shows

Saturday Week 2 of June

BCF BEST OF BRITISH 5 FINDS NEW TITLE CHALLENGER

Niko Soldo emerged as the unquestioned top contender for the BCF Light Heavyweight title on UK Broadcasting Digital by kicking Danny Akabaro into next week, a rare instance of a TKO caused by a body kick in the first round. Soldo was already a feared name, this just added to that resumé.

Elsewhere on the card George Astaire scored a win over Rupert Lennox, Walter May ended Jayden Karp's undefeated run by split decision, Stef Lomb had a war with Michael Dali which he won when he choked Dali to sleep, and Fernando Amaro marked his debut in the UK by defeating Ollie Castle.

BCF could only muster five fights for the show in total, something that didn't please their attending fans, or UK Broadcasting Digital who received a much shorter show than usual.

GAMMA 53: Dean vs. Garner III

Matthew Dean def. Buddy Garner to retain the GAMMA Middleweight title (for the 10th time)

Sean Morrison def. Luke Hilton

Jonathan Huang def. Gabriel Gallego

Sam Hoynes def. Fatuma Roy

Evan Gardner def. Joe Hinchcliffe

Saturday Week 3 of June

GAMMA 54: Sugar vs. Gleeson

Brandon Sugar def. Truck Gleeson

Marlon John def. Junior Patinkin

Gaby Corrales def. Wilson Franklyn

Bosco Curbeam def. Jimbo Jakes

Warren Scumboon def. Yan Hasluck

SIGMA: Halle vs. Rossi

Jens Halle def. Carmelo Rossi

Frankie Burgess def. Andranik Paletilolu

Harald Hubner def. Andre Coton

Hans Christian Bloch def. Henry Zachary

Schalk Rhodes def. Bast Moulke

KDM FC Prime Fight 1: Norberto vs. Yip

Norberto def. So Yip to win the vacant KDM FC Featherweight Title

Yee Tsuji def. Tan Su

Chan Kim Huat def. Ahmed Mohamed Farag

Lito Alcala def. Maya Asgar

Chan Wan Wah def. Cong Tsao

Sunday Week 3 of June

XCC: Bassett vs. Wickham II

Willy Bassett def. Roddy Wickham to retain the XCC Bantamweight Title

Kyle Sagal def. Duane Weatherly

Riveron Potter-Pirbright def. Markus Waller

Ian Linderman def. Mark Lee

Ralph Concannon def. Brendon Job

Friday Week 4 of June

ALPHA-1: Katou vs. Asanovic II

Jin Katou def. Zvonimir Asanovic to retain the ALPHA-1 Light Heavyweight Title

Bussho Maruyama def. Keita Oshima

Thoki Murasaki def. Chikafusa Abukara

Haranobu Oshiro def. Saemon Endo

Meiji Hagiwara def. Yaichiro Takahama

Saturday Week 4 of June

POTTER RETAINS THE TITLE AGAIN AT LATEST BCF SHOW

Carter Potter continued his dominance of the British Heavyweight scene with a dominant victory over Percy Catcher, the New Zealander finished off his latest challenger with a rear naked choke in the first round. Potter's all-around game has exposed the British Heavyweights lack of ground skills, and his five-fight win streak doesn't look like it's going to end there.

Also on the show there was a return to the winner's circle for David Webb who defeated Timothy Latchkey in one of the most boring fights of the year, Morgan Wakarewarewa continued his winning ways by defeating Howard Pursglove, Robert Darrell defeated Ats Kruglov and Dom Yorke scraped past Paddy McNamara with a split decision.

GAMMA 55: Brubaker vs. Blood

Bobby Brubaker def. Darin Blood

Nilton Fantoni def. Linfield Ballard

Christopher Sharp def. Clem Wolff

Lawrence Herringbone def. Rupert Dreck

Kel Ryan def. Cory Frain

Friday Week 2 of July

ALPHA-1: Takeuchi vs. Maeno

Tomohiro Takeuchi def. Masahiro Maeno (for some reason they didn't think to crown a Featherweight champion here)

Eiji Masuko def. Domingo de Vivanco

Lefter Oktay def. Ari Peltonen

Yoshinori Morisheeta def. Hidetada Matsumura

Kiyomori Sanda def. Marmaduke Chuffnell

vladjarca · June 7, 2020

Joey Valdez was an absolute killer in my SIGMA save! Made it to #3 in the worldwide MW rankings and 3-3 in title fights, 8 fight of the night bonuses + 4x KO of the night.

Chris2K · June 8, 2020

I'll settle for him winning a few matches and staying with the company .

Harry: "How much exactly did you offer Pizzarro for him to stay with us?"

Jim: "Um... $7,500 a fight, plus bonuses."

Harry: "You're bloody mad, I told you not to overspend just to keep one fighter. His salary was the difference between making a profit and a loss from that show."

Jim: "I know, but to me the company's gain outweighs the financial loss. We've got a solid Welterweight champion, and with the right treatment and development he can be our biggest star. He's a huge talent, he'll be worth it, I promise."

Harry: "Maybe he is, but I think you're letting your attachment to him cloud your judgement here. What are the other fighters on that show going to think when they find out that Pizzaro earned more than six of them combined? They're going to want to earn the same amount as well, and we'll be in debt before you can blink."

Jim: "I can't guarantee that won't happen, but I also stand by my decision. Besides, I think this TV deal might be very advantageous to our profit margins, I've had a look through the contract and not only do we get a cut of the advertising fees from the three hours Bulldog Brawl will be on the air, but also a slice of any subscription fees based on the number of viewers we bring in."

Harry: "You know I'm not a numbers guy, so I'll just believe you when you say it's a good thing."

Jim: "Well there are negatives, for some reason we can't get the numbers of how many people watch the show, even though you'd think that information would be the bare minimum to be given to you for a TV show, and our production fees are going to increase given that we're moving to the Manchester Central Convention Complex for the Bulldog Brawl shows. Both the cost of the venue and the costs required for proper camera equipment, the ones we use for SportTube aren't going to be enough. I'm still confident this is going to be worthwhile though, if nothing else it's a lot of exposure."

Harry: "It's a big step, but if it works, we are a huge step closer to the BCF. Euro Cable Sport is probably a bigger platform than UK Broadcasting Digital as well."

Jim: "Not quite, if it was Euro Cable Sport 4 it would be on terrestrial TV, Euro Cable Sport 1 is subscription only."

Harry: "Why is their biggest channel number 4 and their smallest number 1?"

Jim: "Not a clue. Also are you happy with the name? I was going to go with Bulldog Fight Night until my wife pointed out that "Dog Fight" is in the middle of that."

Harry: "I like Brawl, rolls of the tongue nicely. Here's to a good show, hopefully we can start things off with a real barnstormer to show what we're all about."

Later that week

*ring ring*

Jim: "Hello?"

Jerome: "Oh look, one of you knows how to pick up a phone. Obviously, Harry's taken too many shots to the head and can't remember how to do it."

Jim: "Or maybe he has more sense than to do it, I know I wish I hadn't. What do you want?"

Jerome: "You know why I'm ringing; you lot are disgusting. I could stomach what you were doing with our fighters, angling them contract offers so that they'd ask us for more money, that's just business. But what you did at that last show was unacceptable and has no place in this sport."

Jim: "... What are you talking about?"

Jerome: "Those two decisions involving fighters we'd signed, Chris Hollands and Ron Chuckle, that so "coincidentally" ended up going against them. As if it was a coincidence, you know as well as I do that Hollands and Chuckle won those fights. What did you do, pay those judges off?"

Jim: "Jerome, firstly, it's great to know that you're watching our shows, I'll see if I can get you a t-shirt. Secondly, we had absolutely nothing to do with the judges on that show, they scored the fight without any interference from us. The Hollands/Renn fight could have gone either way, but Renn did enough to take it. As for Chuckle/Pizzarro I have no idea what you're talking about, if anything Chuckle should feel lucky that he got given as many rounds as he did."

Jerome: "Yeah, well you would say that, wouldn't you?"

Jim: "Aren't you always mocking us about how little money we have? If you're so sure about that, how would we have enough money to bribe the judges to get the result we wanted? And if we were so scared about fighters leaving while they're still champion, why would we even put them in a fight to begin with?"

Jerome: "You can throw out as many questions as you want, I still know what happened, it's the sort of thing you guys would do to get back at us, jealousy most likely. But don't you worry, I know that Osi Lewis is main eventing your first TV show, and when he wins, which he will, no matter what you try, he'll show you lot up big time. And after that we'll carry on taking who we want from you until you realise you can't compete."

Jim: "And we'll keep on coming at you, our fans just want to see fights and we have access to anyone in the UK, even Europe, who aren't under contract with you, and if they put on a good show then it enhances the Bulldog MMA name and reputation. That reminds me, I don't remember getting a congratulations from you for us signing our TV deal..."

Jerome: "You won't get anything from me, you're not even worth the..."

Jim: "Bye, Jerome."

-----------------------------

Press Release

NEW ERA FOR BULLDOG MMA AS THEIR NEW TV SHOW DEBUTS ON EURO CABLE SPORT 1

by Mike Thomson

Despite only being in business since January, and only six months after their first ever show, Bulldog MMA have accomplished something that most MMA companies don't ever get - a live television show on a recognised network. Their gamble to run shows on the internet paid off when Euro Cable Sport saw it and decided they wanted to broadcast the company on their network, and thus Bulldog Brawl was formed. The first show is headlined by a BMMA Middleweight title fight between Osi Lewis and Owen Hyde, a sign that BMMA will be focusing on the TV show for their biggest fights, even if Lewis is leaving the company after this fight is over.

The first fight of the show, and first fight in Bulldog Brawl history, will be in the Welterweight division between Geraint O'Connell (3-1) and Valdo Calamari (9-0). Geraint O'Connell is a tall, lanky fighter who would usually compete at Lightweight, but stays at Welterweight here after competing in the Welterweight tournament. He uses his long reach to keep fighters away from him, staying out of range of their strikes whilst also landing jabs. This method doesn't usually translate well to finishes though, and his three victories have all come via decision. He didn't last long in the Welterweight tournament as he was eliminated in the first round, although it was by the eventual tournament winner Ron Chuckle. Valdo Calamari makes his way into the UK from Brazil, and those in the know are aware that he is one to watch. Calamari started off as a fighter with good striking and wrestling skills, but he has put the work in to develop his ground game as well, making him a very well-rounded fighter. He has put those skills to good use once already this year, before he left South America he competed at an independent show where he knocked out Godofredo Tavoro in the first round.

In the second match of the evening in the Light Heavyweight division we will see Pierce Jeeler (6-6) taking on Erik Cunniford (0-1). To me this doesn't seem like the caliber of fight that Bulldog MMA should be having on their first TV show, but I'm not here to judge. Or maybe I am. Pierce Jeeler was once considered a good prospect for the future; he went 4-0 and even won his first two fights in the BCF. Since then it has been six defeats in a row, including to Rob Baines, Ram Phookan, Snuffy Fontana and most recently Dennis Gallagher in the BMMA Light Heavyweight tournament. His stand-up is mediocre, and his grappling is non-existent, and he has shown no sign of improvement in years. Erik Cunniford, that's Erik with a K, also lost in the first round of the Light Heavyweight tournament, but at least he had the excuse of fighting veteran Mick Curran in his very first MMA fight. Cunniford is better on the ground than on the feet, and if he gets the fight there, he has some decent strikes and submissions that can end a fight.

Next up will be two undefeated fighters, although one has never actually fought professionally, as Albert Campbell (1-0) takes on Karl Whitehead (0-0). This fight was due to mark the BMMA debut of Jay Dorridge, however an injury forced him out of the fight, with Whitehead the replacement. Campbell is a kick boxer from Newcastle who only began training in MMA full-time this year, that hasn't given him a whole lot of time to develop the other skills required for MMA, so for the time-being he will very much be focused on keeping the fight standing. It seemed to work in his only fight so far, a 1st round knockout win over a local fighter at an independent show. Karl Whitehead hasn't even had the luxury of one professional fight before he gets thrown on to a live television show, he is also a kick boxer but he is known to be a higher level than Campbell was, even considered the best kick boxer in Northern Ireland. Having decided to join the more lucrative world of MMA he will hopefully have spent some time developing the rest of his game, but with no fights on his record nobody has had the opportunity to scout him to see if that is the case.

The fourth fight of the night is a Middleweight division battle between Humbert Gest (7-6) and Mario Varela (10-2). Humbert Gest is classified as a karate fighter, however based on his fights so far, he has only shown that he is able to punch and take a punch, no signs of any kicks. As for grappling and ground skills, that may as well be an alien concept to him. Gest's lack of ability didn't prevent him from advancing in the Middleweight title tournament though as defeated Paxton Brixtal by Split Decision, however he was eliminated in the semi-finals by Duncan Thistlewood. Mario Varela is another Brazilian who has arrived in the UK for more fighting action and being from a Muay Thai background he will likely fight in a style that most British fighters are unfamiliar with. Varela's game plan is usually to get opponents into a Muay Thai clinch and blast them with knee strikes, however he has shown a weakness against grapplers who are able to get him to the ground and nullify his striking threat. Varela has fought once this year before he left Brazil, winning against a local fighter at a Brazilian independent show with a 1st round knockout from a head kick.

Now the show really kicks in to gear with the co-main event, in the Lightweight division Nigel Collett (7-3) takes on Jazz Snide (4-0) in a fight that the two have been building up for months, even before the fight was officially booked. Snide in particular has been vicious in insulting Collett's ability, so has a lot of words to back up here. Collett is a boxer by trade and has both speed and power in his hands, making him a dangerous opponent to stand and trade with. Other than that however he doesn't pose much of a threat, and if the fight goes to the ground, he is pretty much clueless. Collett is responsible for what might be the upset of the year after defeating Tim Oldacres in the quarter-final of the Lightweight tournament, he couldn't continue that run though as William Powell quickly submitted him in the semi-final. Jazz Snide is fast becoming the most notorious fighter in British MMA, people used to think Carter Potter's trash talk and attitude was bad, but Snide has taken it to a whole new level with social media as his favoured weapon. His relentless barrage of insults for future opponents has actually won him many fans too, and any recognition is better than none. Snide is a very fast fighter with decent striking, although not a lot of power, and whilst he's not the best grappler in the world he can still handle himself. Snide defeated Jonjo Whiteley by decision earlier this year, and immediately called out Collett, leading to the fight we have here.

And finally, in the Main Event will see the first defence of the BMMA Middleweight title as champion Osi Lewis (8-1), who leaves for the BCF after the fight, gets his wish to fight Owen Hyde (9-0). The BMMA are currently 1-1 on their champions leaving for BCF with the title and will be hoping Hyde can follow in the footsteps of Evan Pizzarro in winning the title in the cage. Osi Lewis is a fast-rising star in British MMA thanks to his elite striking skills, when he attacks, he does so with lightning speed and solid power. His sole defeat came in SIGMA to Tore Herlovsen where his weakness in grappling was exposed, however that seems to have improved given that he was able to submit Todd Prenger during the Middleweight tournament, even pulling guard to get the fight to the ground. After that he defeated Omar Calvert and Duncan Thistlewood to claim the Middleweight crown, even if this fight will be the only time, he defends the title. Owen Hyde waltzed into a title fight despite not previously fighting due to Lewis specifically calling him out after winning the title. Nobody is entirely sure why people have such a grudge against him, as Omar Calvert has also recently called him out as well. Hyde is a former professional kick boxer, and after mixed results in that field he has shone in MMA with 9 consecutive victories. He is one-dimensional tactically, you know he will only want to come out and strike, so Hyde must be alert to grapplers trying to take him out of that game plan. Hyde has fought once this year with a victory back in Canada over the wonderfully named French Dancer.

Bulldog Brawl 1: Lewis vs. Hyde Fight Card

Welterweight Division

Geraint O'Connell vs. Valdo Calamari

Light Heavyweight Division

Pierce Jeeler vs. Erik Cunniford

Lightweight Division

Albert Campbell vs. Karl Whitehead

Middleweight Division

Humbert Gest vs. Mario Varela

Lightweight Division

Nigel Collett vs. Jazz Snide

BMMA Middleweight Title

Osi Lewis © vs. Owen Hyde

CageRage · June 9, 2020

Bulldog Brawl 1: Lewis vs. Hyde Fight Card

Welterweight Division

Geraint O'Connell vs. Valdo Calamari

Light Heavyweight Division

Pierce Jeeler vs. Erik Cunniford

Lightweight Division

Albert Campbell vs. Karl Whitehead

Middleweight Division

Humbert Gest vs. Mario Varela

Lightweight Division

Nigel Collett vs. Jazz Snide

BMMA Middleweight Title

Osi Lewis © vs. Owen Hyde

Sorry to say, but I think you'll be vacating another title, never had much luck with Hyde winning fights. Though at least Lewis is a striker, so Hyde has a chance I guess.

Chris2K · June 11, 2020

BULLDOG BRAWL 1: LEWIS vs. HYDE

Match #1

Welterweight Division

Geraint O'Connell (3-1) vs. Valdo Calamari (9-0)

Here we are then, the very first fight on a Bulldog Brawl show, live on Euro Cable Sport 1. Who better to kick us off then a barely known Irishman and a Brazilian who has never fought in the UK before and whose name translates to squid? We had a striking exchange to begin with as both O'Connell and Calamari landed some good shots in the opening minutes of the fight, if anything it was O'Connell getting the better of the exchanges though. Calamari perhaps senses that as he eventually went in for a takedown and easily took the Irishman to the mat, Calamari was far better on the ground and moved through to side control quite easily, however a slight error allowed O'Connell to move Calamari back into his guard which is where the remainder of the round took place. Calamari obviously knew what was going to work for him as during the second round he went for a grapple immediately, instead of taking O'Connell down though he held him against the cage for a while. Eventually Calamari used the cage as an ally in getting O'Connell down to the ground, and this time he landed in side control. Calamari was content to land some punches to the body instead of going for a finish, eventually he tried to move into the mount, O'Connell used it as an attempt to scramble but only ended up giving up his back, kneeling on the ground with Calamari holding a waist lock. From there Calamari was able to start landing hard shots to the side of the head, O'Connell did his best to deflect them but not being able to see them coming wasn't helping his cause. Calamari kept on landing punches until O'Connell's knees gave out, and that was enough for the referee to step in and stop the fight. The first Bulldog Brawl fight ends with a stoppage, which is a good sign of things to come at least.

Winner: Valdo Calamari (10-0) via TKO (Strikes) - 4:15 of Round 2

Fight Rating: Good

Post-Fight: Calamari speaks fairly good English, but that means we get the standard thanks to sponsors, fans, family and friends, before saying he was happy to win his BMMA debut.

-----------------------

Match #2

Light Heavyweight Division

Pierce Jeeler (6-6) vs. Erik Cunniford (0-1)

When this fight is on the show it becomes very apparent that Bulldog MMA were short on available fighters when they were booking this show. Jeeler started the fight using some decent striking, but Cunniford wasn't interested in engaging in a striking battle as he kept moving forward to initiate a clinch. Once he did that it wasn't long before Jeeler was pressed back until he was trapped against the cage, and from there Cunniford executed the most basic of takedowns to get Jeeler to the ground. Jeeler has absolutely no ground game to speak of and Cunniford moved through into the mount with ease, from there he set up for an armbar, and once that was fully applied Jeeler wasted little time in tapping out. To a casual viewer this fight made Cunniford look like a monster, unfortunately those of us who know how bad Jeeler is know better, but we're not the ones watching Bulldog MMA, or even MMA itself, for the first time on this TV show.

Winner: Eric Cunniford (1-1) via Submission (Armbar) - 2:44 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Great

Post-Fight: Cunniford barely mumbles out a thank you to his sponsors and fans whilst looking very uncomfortable. Interviews do not appear to be his strong point.

-----------------------

Match #3

Lightweight Division

Albert Campbell (1-0) vs. Karl Whitehead (0-0)

It's the Roller Coaster (Campbell) vs. the Rhino (Whitehead) here, and both youngsters will be desperate for a good performance to make a name for themselves. That said, the opening minutes of the fight see both fighters very reluctant to engage, and when they do come together and strike it's a fairly even contest. Eventually Whitehead seems to find his range and lands some good combinations, he also starts throwing out a high volume of kicks, some miss, some are only glancing blows, but the occasional leg or body kick land hard. Campbell opens up a bit more after that and starts throwing some kicks of his own, but overall, after the first round it's definitely Whitehead with the advantage. The second round began with a couple of powerful right hooks landing for Whitehead and he maintained that early dominance by out-striking Campbell for the whole round. Campbell tried his best, but he could only ever land the occasional jab, and his attempts to use that to set up a second, more powerful shot were easily avoided by Whitehead, particularly his head kicks. The second half of the round was almost uneventful as both fighters went back to their original plans of keeping their distance. The final round began with Whitehead in control again by avoiding a right hook and connecting with a hard kick to the ribs, Campbell then went for another head kick but this time Whitehead avoided it and countered with a straight right which landed cleanly and knocked Campbell down! Whitehead pounded away with right hands on the fallen Campbell, and after some brutal shots landed with Campbell unable to defend them the referee stepped in to stop the fight. A very impressive performance from Whitehead here, and it's the third finish in a row for the TV show.

Winner: Karl Whitehead (1-0) via TKO (Strikes) - 0:55 of Round 3

Fight Rating: Good

Post-Fight: Whitehead didn't say much more than the usual sponsors/fans gratitude, but when asked if he wanted to fight next he said that he didn't care who it was against, but wanted another fight as soon as possible.

-----------------------

Match #4

Middleweight Division

Humbert Gest (7-6) vs. Mario Varela (10-2)

Varela comes into Bulldog MMA with a bit of hype behind him, but in the ever-increasing number of Brazilian and Canadian imports in the company it's getting difficult to remember who is who. Let's hope this fight isn't indicative of Varela's talents as it wasn't a pretty one. The first round isn't too bad, it's all on the feet with open striking and some good shots are landed by both fighters, I think most people were expecting Gest to fold quite easily but instead he held his own, and even though Varela landed the most strikes it was far from a one-sided contest. The second round maintained the level of the first for the opening portion, again Varela was landing the better strikes but Gest was landing jabs here and there, however as the fighters began to tire their work rate significantly dropped off, and with it the volume of strikes being thrown. With two minutes left in the round Varela got Gest into a Muay Thai clinch, something we've rarely seen in British MMA, Varela began hitting some hard knee strikes to Gest, but they were mainly to the body and there wasn't any danger of Gest being knocked down or out. In the final round it was all Varela as Gest had no energy left in the tank, not the best look given that he'd only fought two rounds and didn't cut any weight for this fight, Varela continued to out-strike him but never landed anything particularly damaging, before taking the fight into a standard clinch and keeping Gest trapped against the cage for a while. Varela eventually drags Gest away from the cage and into a Muay Thai clinch, but again the strikes he landed are only to the body, and at this point Gest doesn't have any energy left to drain. With seconds left Gest tries one last gambit with a wild right hand, but it missed, and we went to the judges. All three unsurprisingly scored the fight 30-27 to Mario Varela for a very uninspiring debut victory.

Winner: Mario Varela (11-2) via Unanimous Decision (30-27 x3)

Fight Rating: Poor

Post-Fight: Varela doesn't speak English, but Bulldog MMA have brought in a translator! Probably for the best given the level of understanding of Portuguese in the British Isles. Varela, via the translator, thanks his sponsors and fans, and wants to challenge Wederson de Oliveira for his next fight. I'm all for calling people out, but I'm going to have to work out which newcomer that is before I get excited.

-----------------------

Co-Main Event

Lightweight Division

Nigel Collett (7-3) vs. Jazz Snide (4-0)

This is match-up full of spite, it started with Snide's call-out after his last fight, calling Collett a coward, and has escalated through a war of words on social media, before nearly resulting in a scuffle breaking out at the weigh-in. Suffice to say, they didn't touch gloves. Both fighters were willing to throw strikes early, and despite Collett being a former boxer it was Snide who got the best of the exchanges, his reach advantage and more diverse striking was able to keep him one step ahead. Snide continued to hold the advantage and that looked like it was irritating Collett, the punches he threw began to get more and more reckless, and all that did was give Snide more opportunities to avoid them and counter with strikes of his own. When the first round ends the referee had to step in to send them back to their corners, evidently neither one wanted to be the first one to walk away. Snide began the second round with a very quick combination of four strikes, Collett was able to respond though and in the first half of the round probably landed more clean shots than Snide. Whilst Snide's strikes are very fast they never seem to do a lot of damage. Snide also likes his high kicks but he hasn't been able to find his range tonight, he misses with a couple in this round, Collett can't take advantage of the first one, but after the second he counters with a hard left hand. Collett definitely got the better of Snide during the second round, but right at the end a right hook from Snide connected which opened a cut on Collett, for some judges that's just as significant as a knockdown.

The final round began with both fighters looking to engage and both land some good shots, however as they begin to tire both of them struggled to maintain their frantic pace. Collett lost his accuracy with his energy and Snide goes back to being able to counter his missed strikes, but then decided to guarantee control of the fight by grappling with Collett and forcing him back against the cage. The remainder of the fight was spent with Snide trapping Collett against the cage and landing shots on the inside, not exactly the most punk method of fighting. We went to the judges for a decision and all three scored the fight 29-28 to Jazz Snide, giving him Rounds 1 and 3. Snide remains undefeated, and it means we're going to hear from him after the fight...

Winner: Jazz Snide (5-0) via Unanimous Decision (29-28 x3)

Fight Rating: Average

Post-Fight: I'm not sure live TV is ready for this. It starts off fairly sedate with the usual sponsor thanking, but after that I'll just quote him directly.

"Nigel Collett, you stepped up, I appreciate that, but I knew you were nothing compared to me and that got proven tonight. I'm done with you now. Nathan Wyles? Whoever the **** you are? You want to call me out, you better be careful what you wish for, because I will teach you a lesson you'll never forget. And as for Owen Oggleberry-Pipp, your fancy name just shows what kind of a person you are, you want to prove me wrong then get in the cage with me and show me you're not as much of a coward as you sound. Take this mic back, I'm out. You need me, I'll be at my after-party celebrating another win."

Well at least he only swore once. I don't think Oggleberry-Pipp has ever said anything about Snide, I guess he just doesn't like his name.

-----------------------

Main Event

BMMA Middleweight Title Match

Osi Lewis (8-1) vs. Owen Hyde (9-0)

Middleweight title fight time, and as we know Lewis is going to the BCF after this so we're in another situation where the BMMA management would much prefer the challenger winning. Lewis' first strike was a head kick which caught Hyde and opened a cut, I'm not sure how that's possible unless it was his toenail that caused it. Eww. Lewis was by far the better striker in the first round, Hyde was only able to land a few strikes on the counter, but even when he did Lewis just took them, smiled and motioned for Hyde to try again. Towards the end of the round the doctor was brought in to check Hyde's cut, but it was deemed OK to continue, despite Lewis shouting from across the cage that he should give up before it gets any worse. Lewis is in a strange mood tonight it seems. Hyde did a bit better in the second round once his cut is cleared up, landing some decent hooks and the occasional combinations, but it was still very much Lewis in control, scoring with both good punches and hard kicks to Hyde's lead leg. Lewis was moving a little slower than he was in the opening round, but he was still able to avoid most of Hyde's attempted strikes and did more than enough to win the second round.

The action really slowed in the third round, with Lewis tiring he wasn't pushing the pace of the fight, and Hyde didn't seem to want to try and take advantage of that. The first half of the round saw very few strikes land, but Lewis is nothing if not wildly unpredictable and his next decision was to clinch with Hyde and pull him down to the ground with Hyde in his guard. It's a tactic he successfully used against Todd Prenger in the Middleweight tournament, but Hyde is a better fighter on the ground than Prenger. The remainder of the round was on the ground with Lewis keeping Hyde wrapped in his guard, and Hyde landing whatever small strikes he could from that position without much success. The pulling guard tactic wasn't employed by Lewis in the fourth round, once again it started with a striking battle with thankfully more strikes landing than in the previous round, but after that Lewis went for another different game plan. Once again, he clinched up with Hyde, however this time Lewis used it to push Hyde back against the cage and land elbows and knees from the clinch. One of the elbows opened up Hyde's cut again, but other than that not a whole lot of damage was done and after two minutes the referee separated them. Within seconds they were back clinching against the cage, but thankfully the round ended shortly afterwards.

Hyde needed a finish now but Lewis wasn't going to give him the opportunity to do so if he could help it, and by that I mean he was intent on clinching and keeping Hyde controlled against the cage for as much of the final round as possible. Unfortunately for Hyde, and in fact for everyone watching the fight live or at home, that's exactly what happened with most of the first four minutes of the round, Lewis doesn't really bother trying to land many strikes from that position either. The referee eventually separated them, and not a moment too soon, Hyde does what he can in the last 45 seconds and connects with a few decent shots, but nothing that has the power to trouble Lewis, even at this late stage. We went to the judges for a decision for the third fight in a row, and I'm sure that the BMMA management would have preferred a more exciting last three fights on their first TV show. All three judges score the fight 50-45 to Osi Lewis, meaning that he defends the Middleweight title but will have to vacate it shortly.

Winner, and still BMMA Middleweight Champion: Osi Lewis (9-1) via Unanimous Decision (50-45 x3)

Fight Rating: Decent

Post-Fight: Let's do a direct quote again...

"I want to thank my sponsors and the people that came out here tonight, but I'm done fighting in front of 70 people in an old building up here. I've proven that I'm the best here and I don't need to stick around fighting for scraps when I could be up at the big table down in London getting what I deserve, and what I'm worth. So, thanks Bulldog MMA, Harry, Jim, but I'm done with you now. There are bigger things ahead for me, I'm going to the BCF, where the best fighters in the country are, and you can bet I'll be the Middleweight champion there as well. You can have this back; I don't need it anymore."

With that Lewis pretty much threw the belt at Harry Milne and walked out of the cage. Probably not the last image the Bulldog MMA owner would have wanted to end their first TV show, but at least people will be talking about it...

The BMMA Middleweight Title has been vacated.

-----------------------

Show Details

Attendance: 74

Critical Rating: 63%

Commercial Rating: 37%

Popularity Changes:

UK: +0.4%

Europe: +0.4%

Russia: +0.3%

Fight of the Night: Albert Campbell vs. Karl Whitehead

Knock Out of the Night: Valdo Calamari

Submission of the Night: Eric Cunniford

Income

Gate: $6,521

Sponsorship: $8,428

Advertising/Subscription cut: $89,442

Merchandise: $2,046

Expenditure

Fighters: $28,466

Drug Testing: $4,800

Production: $13,700

TOTAL: +$59,471

What a beautiful sight that is.

Other News

- Perhaps the biggest news recently is that Japan has regulated MMA throughout the country, a move that brings it in line with every other major MMA region around the world. The biggest impact of this will be the standardised drug testing for any show run in Japan, as well as a much firmer oversight of the MMA companies that run there.

- GAMMA suffered a massive blow when their biggest fight of the year so far, James Foster against Gladstone Lopes for the Heavyweight title, had to be scrapped at the last minute after Foster suffered an injury in his last training session. It's also a torn rotator cuff, keeping the 36-year-old for a year at least, not ideal for the company's biggest star.

- BCF have renewed the deal with United Kingdom Choice, meaning that they will continue to have PPVs for some time to come. The PPVs are the big money earner for BCF and if they are going to get to the level of GAMMA and ALPHA-1 then money is going to be the main factor.

- Unfortunately, another fighter has decided to make his racist views public, Foggy Lee seemed like such a nice guy, but apparently, he has views that we neither endorse, nor condone anyone else having.

- Some signings to discuss, the BCF have signed Felipe Luiz Rosa, and GAMMA have signed Timmy Dukes and Garth Neill. Meanwhile...

- Bulldog MMA have signed Thorbjorn Rekdal, Adrian Swall, Agustin Gonzalez, Fabio Santoro, Kevin Sponge, Pepe, Ranieri Fernanda, Bienvenido Roumulo, Julio Correa, Santiago Rocha, Marcus Rimmer, Noppanon On-Mo, Billy Fish and Souleymane Ya Konan. I have no idea what they intend to do with all these guys.

Other Shows

Saturday, Week 2 of July

BCF: Sithalayan vs. Basora
BCF crown the best Welterweight in Europe

The BCF made a rare choice in MMA, they had a big fight to make, and they made it straight away instead of messing about trying to set it up. They pitched their Welterweight champion, Vikram Sithalayan, against new signing Alberto Basora, the former SIGMA Welterweight champion who didn't lose the title in a fight. It was an incredibly close fight, but Sithalayan came out on top with a split decision victory to earn the unofficial honour of the best Welterweight in Europe.

Dennis Gallagher, the former Bulldog MMA Light Heavyweight champion, made his return to the BCF in spectacular fashion with a second round TKO win over Rhys Buck, other former BMMA fighters didn't fare so well however, Javid Khan was knocked out by a Jerome Atkins head kick, and Shawn McCarthy was out-struck by Sid Morgan for a decision defeat.

Elsewhere on the card Malloy Mahoney scored a minor upset over Ragnar Gunnlaugsson, and Matthew Michael Kirby easily took care of the debuting Gene Lane.

KDM FC 25: Sablikova vs. Sakamoto

Kit Sakamoto def. Veronika Sablikova to win the KDM FC Women's Featherweight title

Cheng Shih def. Ho Tseng

Supachai Thamsatchanan def. Sophan Sastrowardoya

Tossapol Puangchan def. Shusui Ohmiya

Eiko Shiokaka def. Romi Takahashi

GAMMA 56: Le Toussier vs. Rubenstein III

Spencer Rubenstein def. Anthony LeToussier to win the GAMMA Light Heavyweight title

Osmosis Benn def. Patrick Thomas

Coltrane Aaronson def. Benny Danare

Alan Kendall def. Cooper Richardson

Den Bickersteth def. Bruno Doman

SIGMA: Ya Konan vs. Lipnicki

Souleymane Ya Konan def. Stanislaw Lipnicki to win the vacant SIGMA Heavyweight title

Snorri Gunnarsson def. Klaus Greis

Daniil Skala def. Dmytro Dargomyzhsky

Thorbjorn Rekdal def. Drazen Gabelich

Roman Danielyan def. Sau Cervantes

Friday Week 3 of July

ALPHA-1: Van Der Capellen vs. Miyagi

Ichisake Miyago def. Noach van der Capellen to win the ALPHA-1 Welterweight Title

Fjodor Kanchelskis def. Mal Phe Roby

Li-Kong Ho def. Yoshihiro Makamori

Carlos da Guia def. Gempachi Higa

Osamu Dan def. Yoritomo Ina

Saturday Week 3 of July

GAMMA 57: Chambers vs. Sipatov II

Nathan Chambers def. Yevgeni Sipatov

Rufus Stephens def. Josh Aldarisio

Ken Peters def. Bryan van den Hauwe

Jerry Bogdonovich def. Big Magic

Adam White def. Ethan Sutton

Seth O'Breen def. Gerardo Diez

XCC: Tavares vs. Nunes

Rafael Tavares def. Azor Portela Nunes

Ward Maloprop def. Landon London

Pat Troy def. Kade Devine

Julian Beals def. Warren Kitt

Mitchell Bryan def. Chris Byng

Sunday Week 3 of July

WEFF 31: Lehane vs. Croft II

Hope Lehane def. Haley Croft to retain the WEFF Featherweight title

Pamela O'Neill def. Serena Hill

Laura Adair def. Rachel McGuiness

Grace Hughes def. Olivia Sweet

Piper Evergood def. Brooke Rockerfeller

Saturday Week 4 of July

Baines remains British Middleweight kingpin with 5th straight win

The undoubted best Middleweight in the United Kingdom made another statement to prove that as he defended his BCF Middleweight title for the 3rd time by submitting youngster Ginger Beaumont in the first round. Baines put his ground and submission skills to good use to hand the Scotsman his first defeat and make it very difficult to know who has the ability to go head-to-head with Baines in the future.

There was a big upset in the co-Main Event as Mark Bicknell submitted former champion Stafford Alois, another sign that Alois doesn't have much left in the tank and is a shadow of his former self. Elsewhere on the main card Dave Lennon defeated Reynolds Baer, Martin Cupples returned to winning ways by defeating Steven Griffin and Ram Phookan defeated Billy Fish.

On the prelims there were victories for Mikey Wallace, Pip Londress, Snuffy Fontana and Mal Beswick.

SIGMA: Agdestein vs. Toadspew

Stian Agdestein def. Kenneth Toadspew

Milenko Rudonja def. Johan Kavli

Gerrit Dudok def. Lothar Marks

Ern Fathoui def. Roland Furtwangler

Eberhard Dahm def. Egidijus Fomenka

KDM FC 26: Hsu vs. Kang

Shen Kang def. Sying Hsu

Seka Mutsu def. Noara Kikuchi

Chakrit Mamanee def. Sammi Chann

Kei Maki def. Chan Siu-wei

Apolonio Redodno Jr def. Alessandro Adauto

Friday Week 1 of August

ALPHA-1 Warriors of the Ring 3

Kazuko Nishi def. Eric Coleman

Konosuke Shirahata def. Matsudaira Satoh

Yahgi Jokichi def. Ryota Sugimoto

Tadao Miyazaki def. Sojiuro Iriye

Suketsune Okuma def. Juro Fukazawa

vladjarca · June 11, 2020

Shit, you know SIGMAs doing bad when Ya Konan - Lipnicki is a title fight

good job getting Rekdal tho, a legit threat. Pepe is an interesting pick up too

Chris2K · June 14, 2020

Monday, Week 1 of August

Jim: "Well, I think you have to call that a success."

Harry: "Are you kidding? The last three fights were horrible to watch, one of the winners swore in their interview, the Middleweight champion is gone and the title is vacant, and what's more on the way out he made the entire company look like a joke. Oh yeah, and only 74 people turned up to watch the show. How exactly are you looking at this as a positive?"

Jim: "Wow, I wasn't expecting that. OK, let's go through your points. Yes, the last three fights weren't pretty to watch, but I've seen worse. Hell, we've both fought in worse. The first three fights were entertaining though, that showed people what Bulldog MMA is about. Jazz Snide did swear, but it was past the watershed, plus we're an MMA company with people getting knocked out and bleeding all over the place, I think we're OK for a swear word. The Middleweight title is more of an issue, Lewis was the favourite and we don't really have a fight happening any time soon that can crown a new champion, but we'll get there."

Harry: "And what about the way Lewis left? How was he even allowed to say that?"

Jim: "It's a live mic, and he took advantage of it. My guess is that Jerome gave him a hefty bonus to trash us on the way out, he's never usually like that when you talk to him. On the plus side the clip of his interview is cropping up in a lot of places, and no publicity is bad publicity. Even Euro Cable Sport liked it, they thought it made the show more unpredictable."

Harry: "Well I didn't like it, he won't be fighting here again unless we get an apology."

Jim: "It's MMA Harry, if he's useful to us we'll use him again, let's not pretend otherwise. As for the attendance, it was lower because people had the option to watch it on TV, and as it's a subscription channel they would have already paid for it. Plus, they got to listen to me on commentary, you can't blame them for choosing that option."

Harry: "What was the financial outcome in the end? Surely it wasn't good with barely anyone attending."

Jim: "Remember that part of the contract that gave us a cut of the advertising and subscriptions? We've just had the numbers through. We get 89 grand. It covers the cost of the fighters three times over and made us nearly 60 grand in profit from the show. That means the company's going to make a profit this month. We're on our way, Harry."

Harry: "You're kidding. 60 grand profit? You're right, this was a success, screw everything else that happened. You've made some great decisions Jim, everything that has happened since the SportTube deal has fallen into place perfectly. All we need to do now is stay alert to what the BCF are likely to try against us."

Jim: "Oh they've been trying to take some of our young guys but with the extra money at our disposal and being able to use the TV show as leverage we've been able to keep them. The question is, once we start making money regularly, do we want to start trying to steal talent from them?"

Harry: "Let's take it easy for now, get a few profitable months under our belts then look at what we do. No point starting an all-out war without the means to support it."

Jim: "Probably a good idea. Our expenditure is going to increase now we're running more fights per show, but with that we can increase ticket prices a bit. It's 7 fights for the next couple of shows, moving up to 8 after that. We're even going to have prelim fights soon, probably useful given all the people we have under contract."

Harry: "Things are looking up indeed. We're still missing three champions though..."

Jim: "I'm working on it, I'm working on it..."

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Press Release

BRITAIN VS. SOUTH AMERICA THEME FOR BMMA 10

by Mike Thomson

Bulldog MMA will be back on Saturday, Week 4 of August in the Manchester Central Convention Complex for the first show after their very successful television debut, it's back to the internet for this one though. The show has been given a loose "Britain vs. South America" theme with 5 of the 7 fights following that criteria, including the main event which will see Britain's Tim Oldacres taking on Argentina's Juan Pablo Rique in the Lightweight division.

The first fight of the evening will be Manchester's own Kevin Portman (13-9) taking on BMMA newcomer Antonio Santos (1-0) in a Heavyweight division clash, to say these two have a difference in experience would be an understatement. Kevin Portman may have the best physique in all of MMA, and as a former bodybuilder he has put a lot of work into it. However as intimidating as his appearance is, the truth is that his skills do not match up to it at all. He has muscles for days, but also has very little in the way of punching power. At 37 he is very much on the decline, as proved when Aston Merryman knocked him out in the Heavyweight title tournament. Antonio Santos is nicknamed "The Hulk", which is as much an accurate description of his fighting style as it is a blatant copyright violation. He goes straight ahead with no fear, the brutal power in his fists could probably knock out a Chitauri Leviathan, and he has decent enough grappling skills to stop opponents from getting him to the ground. This young man could be one to look out for. He has fought once this year, knocking out a local fighter at South American show in the first round.

The second fight will be between two veterans in the Middleweight division, as Paxton Brinkal (9-7) takes on Vagner (15-8). Paxton Brinkal is an old-fashioned slugger from Somerset, he's always willing to come out swinging in a fight and has decent power behind his punches, he can take a good punch as well, but other than wild brawling he has no other game plan or skills to fall back on. His only fight this year was a remarkably close contest with Humbert Gest in the Middleweight tournament, Brinkal ended up on the losing end of a split decision. Vagner is a very experienced fighter from Brazil who has shown flashes of brilliance during his career, as well as frustrating inconsistency. A kick boxer who is a dangerous opponent for anyone in a stand-up fight, he doesn't have a lot of power in his strikes, but he makes up for that with particularly good technique. A former FLB fighter with a 2-5 record in the now defunct organisation, he has fought once this year with a TKO win over Marco de Almeida at a South American show.

It's Britain vs. Brazil again in the third fight as George Brabazon-Plank (1-1) takes on Rubenilson Augusto (9-3) in the Light Heavyweight division. George Brabazon-Plank is known for being the most upper-class fighter in MMA history, and his posh-London boy personality is usually a reason people want to see him get punched. That happens a lot due to his willingness to stand and trade strikes with anyone, he is a decent striker himself with a solid technique, the rest of his game is somewhat. GBP competed in the Light Heavyweight tournament but was eliminated in the first round by Michael Dali. Rubenilson Augusto is a dangerous striker with a right hand that, if it lands flush, could knock out anyone standing in his path. That has been the basis for his 9 victories, but also the reason for his 3 defeats as he has absolutely no other skills to speak of. One of the FLB fighters not to be picked up by other companies after it closed, Augusto defeated Denilson da Cunha on their final show, and has defeated Arkan Gleiser on a South American show since then.

Let's switch things up with Ireland vs. Mexico now, Brian O'Flaherty (5-1) enters the cage to fight Salvador Santos (8-0) in the Welterweight division. I'll let you work out who represents which country. O'Flaherty has some pressure on his shoulders after being deemed the future of Irish MMA, that accolade being given on his impressive striking ability that he carries over from his kick boxing background, and the power he has is a threat at all times. With wrestling being his weak link, once that improves, he might be able to live up to the hype. His current standing was summed up during the Welterweight tournament when he knocked out Roger Quince in 68 seconds, but then lost after he was taken down and finished on the ground by Ron Chuckle. Whilst other people discuss O'Flaherty's future, Salvador Santos is perfectly happy talking about his own. He speaks about how he intends to be the greatest Welterweight of all time, and whilst he is undefeated at the moment, he still has a long way to go if he wants to meet that goal. Santos is a good kickboxer but isn't considered elite, and the remainder of his game is still very much a work-in-progress. He hasn't had a fight in some time, so it remains to be seen how far he has developed since his previous one.

The fifth fight of the show brings us two debuting fighters in the Heavyweight division, Perry Barr (16-8) will take on Colin J L Capes (3-0). Perry Barr has been around British MMA for a long time, and most of that time he has been an ever-present figure in the BCF. Using his power to be a ground and pound specialist, Barr has fought most of the top British Heavyweights, and eventually was given a title opportunity against Stafford Alois. Unfortunately, this was where his weak chin was discovered, and despite a victory over Christopher Drew, he has since been knocked out by both Percy Catcher and Dave Lennon, results which saw BCF cut ties with him. This may be the final run for Barr who will bring his popularity to the cage if nothing else. Colin Capes is 15 years younger than his opponent and will also no doubt be heavier given that he is usually a Super Heavyweight who is trying to cut down to 265 in order to find more fights in the UK. The big man from Glasgow has a background in kick boxing which combined with his natural strength leads to brutal striking power, and showed that at a local show recently when he won his fight at a local show with a head kick KO in 62 seconds.

UPDATE: Since the writing of the above it has been revealed that Capes has missed weight for this fight, coming at 267lbs, 2lbs over the limit. He will be fined a percentage of his purse, but Barr has agreed to still fight him.

The sixth fight and co-main event of the evening will be another Heavyweight division clash, llson de Lima (19-9) takes on Vic Millican (20-7). Hey, it's another Britain vs. Brazil match as well. Ilson de Lima follows in a similar vein to several other Brazilians on this show, he is also a kick boxer with great physical strength which allows him to strike with power, and he is particularly fond of a head kick. That strength translates to his grappling, but if the fight goes to the ground, he is very much lost. Despite all of his victories he was never picked up by FLB during their time in business and remained a fixture on the South American independent shows. He has fought once this year, a win over Dias Candido in Brazil before he moved to the UK. Vic Millican may be one of the best-known fighters in the UK, his appearance is that of a stereotypical brawler, his toughness is thought of as legendary, and his unorthodox fighting style make him difficult for anyone to compete against. Millican is another of the long-time BCF fighters who have been cleared out recently, which is strange given that two fights ago he was fighting Carter Potter for the BCF Heavyweight title. A loss there, and a follow-up loss this year to Mark Bicknell was enough to get his marching orders and Bulldog MMA signed him up as quickly as possible.

Our main event is not quite Britain vs. Brazil, it's Britain vs. Argentina instead. You know, I think they've fought about something before. It's a Lightweight division match-up between Tim Oldacres (9-1) and Juan Pablo Rique (18-9), with it being Oldacres' last fight before he becomes exclusive to the BCF. Tim Oldacres is one of the new generation of fighters who knows that they have to be fully trained in all aspects of MMA to be competitive, and that's exactly what he's done. His bread and butter though is still the kick boxing skills he had prior to starting MMA, and his powerful hands are a big threat in the Lightweight division. After joining the BCF he defeated both Keith Jolly and Sid Morgan and entered the BMMA Lightweight tournament as a heavy favourite, but instead he suffered a huge upset loss to Nigel Collett in the first round. Juan Pablo Rique comes over from South America touted as being one of the best fighters in the region not to have competed in FLB, with many experts saying he is better than some of the people who were in the Lightweight division. Rique has very good jiu-jitsu skills but does struggle in getting the fight to the ground in the first place, his other glaring weakness is a lack of decent striking meaning he has to rely on his speed to get him out of dangerous situations. Rique has fought once this year, a TKO win over Dalmo Pedrosa in South America, perhaps showing that he has improved his striking game.

BMMA 10: Oldacres vs. Rique Fight Card

Heavyweight Division

Kevin Portman vs. Antonio Santos

Middleweight Division

Paxton Brinkal vs. Vagner

Light Heavyweight Division

George Brabazon-Plank vs. Rubenilson Augusto

Welterweight Division

Brian O'Flaherty vs. Salvador Santos

Heavyweight Division

Perry Barr vs. Colin J L Capes

Co-Main Event

Heavyweight Division

Ilson de Lima vs. Vic Millican

Main Event

Lightweight Division

Tim Oldacres vs. Juan Pablo Rique

vladjarca · June 14, 2020

Heavyweight Division

Kevin Portman vs. Antonio Santos

Middleweight Division

Paxton Brinkal vs. Vagner

Light Heavyweight Division

George Brabazon-Plank vs. Rubenilson Augusto

Welterweight Division

Brian O'Flaherty vs. Salvador Santos

Heavyweight Division

Perry Barr vs. Colin J L Capes

Co-Main Event

Heavyweight Division

Ilson de Lima vs. Vic Millican

Main Event

Lightweight Division

Tim Oldacres vs. Juan Pablo Rique

CageRage · June 15, 2020

Heavyweight Division

Kevin Portman vs. Antonio Santos

Middleweight Division

Paxton Brinkal vs. Vagner

Light Heavyweight Division

George Brabazon-Plank vs. Rubenilson Augusto

Welterweight Division

Brian O'Flaherty vs. Salvador Santos

Heavyweight Division

Perry Barr vs. Colin J L Capes

Co-Main Event

Heavyweight Division

Ilson de Lima vs. Vic Millican

Main Event

Lightweight Division

Tim Oldacres vs. Juan Pablo Rique

Chris2K · June 17, 2020

BMMA 10: OLDACRES vs. RIQUE

Match #1

Heavyweight Division

Kevin Portman (13-9) vs. Antonio Santos (1-0)

Portman is fighting in his hometown of Manchester so he gets a good reception, he may need that fan support as from what we hear there may not be many stronger punchers in MMA than Santos. That information doesn't prevent Portman from exchanging strikes with the Brazilian, and he does well enough in landing some quick combinations. Santos was not going to be put off by that though and he continues moving forward, Portman uses his jab to try and keep him away, but Santos just walks straight through them. Santos lands a straight right, before closing in and connecting with another left hand, followed by a beautiful right uppercut which knocks Portman out cold! I guess that's one way of proving your punching power, Portman may be a veteran but he's still a tough guy, and Santos has just treated him like he was nothing.

Winner: Antonio Santos (2-0) via Knock Out - 1:42 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Good

Post-Fight: Santos and BMMA's resident translator Dave White manage to get through a brief interview where he thanks House of Pain, his training camp in Brazil, not the singers of Jump Around, and his sponsors. He is happy to be in Bulldog MMA and happy to win.

Post-Post-Fight: Kevin Portman also asks for some time to speak, and he announces his retirement from MMA on the back of this loss. It will be interesting to see if he stands by that after he has had time to think, but if it sticks then it's a sad end to a long and fairly distinguished career for one of the stalwarts of British MMA.

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Match #2

Middleweight Division

Paxton Brinkal (9-7) vs. Vagner (15-8)

This may be another example of a commission not knowing how good the fighter coming in from overseas is and thinking it's perfectly fine for Brinkal to be matched up against them. Vagner starts with a jab and right hand which already opens up a cut on Brinkal's eye, the next exchange sees Brinkal land a left hook, only for Vagner to score with a jab and a brutal right hook which leaves Brinkal looking dazed! Vagner tries to follow up with another big right hand but Brinkal somehow avoids it and gets bac k to the centre of the cage. Moments later another exchange sees Brinkal land a right hook, but Vagner walks through it and lands a right head kick which staggers Brinkal again! Brinkal backs away and somehow avoids an uppercut from Vagner, and once again Brinkal can recover. At this point I have no idea how Brinkal is still standing, or why he would want to be for that matter. Vagner continues stalking Brinkal and lands a jab followed by a right cross, Brinkal then misses a right cross in response leaving him open to an overhand right hand which leaves Brinkal in trouble again! This time Vagner follows up with a head kick which connects, and that's finally enough to knock Brinkal down to the mat. Vagner follows up by hammering down some punches to the head of Brinkal, and the referee steps in to stop the fight before Brinkal takes any more damage. An impressive performance from Vagner, but you can't help but also be amazed at how much punishment Brinkal was able to take despite being completely outmatched.

Winner: Vagner (16-8) via TKO (Strikes) - 2:18 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Great

Post-Fight: Dave White is in there with Vagner to do some translation again, he thanks his team, Combat Team Curitiba, fort their help in getting him ready for the fight, and says that he wants to fight Thorbjorn Rekdal next. If BMMA can get him out of SIGMA's hands then that sounds like a cracking fight.

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Match #3

Heavyweight Division

George Brabazon-Plank (1-1) vs. Rubenilson Augusto (9-3)

If you're keeping score in the unofficial Britain v South America contest, it's 2-0 to South America now. After the craziness of the last two fights this one is a bit more settled to start, both fighters aren't quite as trigger-happy as Santos and Vagner were, GBP is able to land a quick one-two, only for Augusto to respond with a right hook. Both fighters connect with some more decent shots, but it's Augusto who lands the better punches with his hooks, whilst GBP lands a couple of leg kicks before missing a high kick. The next two minutes is where the fight stalls as both fighters are reluctant to move forward, and any strike exchange that does happen is pretty meaningless. It picked up again in the final round with Augusto able to land a left hook, only for GBP to connect with a superb head kick which knocks Augusto down! That very much came out of nowhere and even GBP looks a bit surprised, but he eventually heads to the ground and pounds away with right hands to the stunned Augusto, the Brazilian tries to escape but he can't do so, and after some more hard shots land the referee stops the fight! That's quite an upset victory for GBP who runs around the cage celebrating like he's won the Light Heavyweight title. That's also three first round finishes in a row, and the score moves to South America 2-1 Britain

Winner: George Brabazon-Plank (2-1) via TKO (Strikes) - 4:34 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Great

Post-Fight: I thought GBP's posh accent might need a translator in Manchester, but they seem to understand well enough. He is very excited about his victory, and after thanking the usual sponsors, fans etc. he says he wants to fight Gustavo Spagnol. I admire his willingness to make a challenge but aiming that high seems like a bit of a mistake.

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Match #4

Welterweight Division

Brian O'Flaherty (5-1) vs. Salvador Santos (8-0)

We take a brief interlude from the Britain/South America battle to do Ireland/Mexico, and these two fighters have a lot to live up to after the first three fights. O'Flaherty comes out looking to uphold the reputation of the previous fights, he is throwing big bombs from the start, the first misses allowing Santos to counter with a jab, the second connects with a nice left hook. O'Flaherty throws a head kick which misses, allowing Santos to counter with a leg kick, however Santos then misses with a right hook. The big shots keep coming but also keep missing, O'Flaherty misses with a left hand, Santos then connects with a left of his own, however O'Flaherty just walks through it and lands a jab, following that with a big head kick which sends Santos down! O'Flaherty's ground strikes are thought to be more powerful than when he's standing and that seems to be proved here, after a few destructive shots to the head of the grounded Santos the referee steps in, and not a moment too soon as they have knocked Santos out! The head kick obviously did the damage, but Santos wasn't out when he hit the floor, it was one of the punches that finished the fight. It's another KO finish for O'Flaherty, this time with a surprise assist from his left foot. And oh yeah, 4 from 4 first round finishes now, this is getting bizarre.

Winner: Brian O'Flaherty (6-1) via Knock Out (Punch) - 2:26 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Great

Post-Fight: O'Flaherty thanks his sponsors and fans, and he's happy to prove that his knockout power is something for everyone to fear. He calls out Fabio Santoro, who I believe is a fighter in the Welterweight division. Smart move.

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Match #5

Heavyweight Division

Perry Barr (16-8) vs. Colin J L Capes (3-0)

It only feels like twenty minutes ago we were starting the first fight, now we're starting the fifth. These two are hardly three-round cardio machines either. Capes missed weight, the cardinal sin, but hardly surprising given how much he had to cut to move down from Super Heavyweight. Capes starts things off with a nice right hand but misses a head kick, that allows Barr to counter with a jab. There's an exchange of strikes in the centre of the cage, Barr strikes first with a left hand, but Capes strikes harder with a vicious left hook which knocks Barr out cold! I mean, proper tree falling knock out, certainly he was out before he hit the ground. Capes doesn't bother following up thankfully as Barr has taken enough damage there, he just goes back to his corner. Five first round finishes, and this was the fastest so far. Good job I don't paid by the hour.

Winner: Colin J L Capes (4-0) via Knock Out (Punch) - 1:00 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Good

Post-Fight: Colin Capes gives the usual thanks to his sponsors, family and friends, before apologising to everyone for missing weight. I get the feeling that the fight would have gone a similar way if he hadn't, those 2lbs he was over wouldn't have made that punch any lighter.

Post-Post Fight: You know what that means. Now he's conscious again Perry Barr tells the world that he's also retiring from MMA following this loss. I'm not sure the BMMA will be happy he's only fought once in his four-fight contract before hanging the gloves up.

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Co-Main Event

Heavyweight Division

Ilson de Lima (19-9) vs. Vic Millican (20-7)

This show is flying by, and it's not as if Vic Millican is known for his grind fests either. Millican has a lot of support with him, but that won't help the 20lb weight disadvantage he has here. De Lima starts the fight by landing a leg kick, Millican lands a jab, de Lima then avoids a right hook and lands a left kick to the ribs. Yup, these two are throwing down as well. De Lima loves his kicks but misses with a head kick this time, that allows Millican to land a one-two combination, but de Lima catches him with a low kick on the way out. Millican hits a left hand, de Lima lands another leg kick, then follows that with a jab and a right hand. It's hard to keep up with this. Millican lands another two left hands and this time moves out before de Lima can hit the leg kick, Millican goes for a big right hand which de Lima avoids and lands a jab/right hand combination, then Millican connects with a pair of left jab but de Lima responds with a left and right before he can connect with the big strike. Perhaps unsurprisingly Millican looks to be tiring a bit, this fight has been 100mph from the start. With a minute left in the round de Lima hits a left hand, but Millican responds with a powerful right hook which knocks de Lima down! HERE WE GO AGAIN. Millican joins de Lima on the ground and rains down punches to the still stunned Brazilian, de Lima can't offer any defence and after several hard shots land the referee pulls Millican away to stop the fight! Millican runs off like a mad man, the crowd are ecstatic, and I'm still in disbelief about what we're seeing here tonight. Six fights, six first round stoppages. Nobody's even tried to clinch yet, let alone go for a takedown.

Winner: Vic Millican (21-7) via TKO (Strikes) - 4:18 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Good

Post-Fight: Vic Millican is pretty tired but still manages to thank his sponsors and fans, he then says he wants to fight Souleymane Ya Konan, another recent signing from SIGMA - and the SIGMA Heavyweight champion. I'll let your imagination work out how much an out-of-breath Millican's Geordie accent butchered Ya Konan's name.

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Main Event

Lightweight Division

Tim Oldacres (9-1) vs. Juan Pablo Rique (18-9)

The Britain/South America score is now tied at 2-2 making this the decider, but most people are more interested in seeing if the entire show will be first round finishes. Surely it can't happen. Oldacres is happy to simply walk down Rique from the start, and he hits a jab and a hard right cross to start things off, Rique tries to respond but can't in time. An exchange between the two sees Rique land a jab but miss with a right, Oldacres then counters with a jab and right hook. These two are following the lead of everyone before them it seems. Oldacres misses a jab but does connect with a hard right cross, Rique keeps firing off jabs whenever he can to try and keep Oldacres away but the Englishman is just taking them on the chin and moving forward. Oldacres lands a combination of two left hands but Rique moves back to avoid a leg kick, however on the next exchange Oldacres uses a jab to set up a brutal right uppercut and, you've guessed it, Rique is knocked down! The inevitable happens as Oldacres begins pounding away on Rique who cannot do anything to stop him, and after seven powerful strikes land the referee steps in to stop the fight! We have our seven first round finishes from all seven fights, I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before in modern MMA, and it's Britain 3-2 South America too in that meaningless scorecard. Now I've got to go and find something else to do for the next two hours.

Winner: Tim Oldacres (10-1) via Knock Out (Punch) - 2:53 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Great

Post-Fight: Oldacres thanks Leamington Spa Muay Thai for his training camp, his sponsors and his fans. He says he is glad he got the chance to put things right after his loss to Nigel Collett, but for now he's fighting exclusively for the BCF. He hopes to be back in Bulldog MMA someday. That's a lot nicer than Osi Lewis' goodbye at the last show.

(In case you're thinking "surely, he's made all this up so he can write a quick show with a load of first round finishes, here's the end of show card. I couldn't believe what was happening.)

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Show Details

Attendance: 191

Critical Rating: 72%

Commercial Rating: 33%

Popularity Changes:

UK: +1.6%

Europe: +0.6%

Africa: +0.6%

Central America: +0.6%

Asia: +0.6%

USA: +0.6%

Australia: +0.6%

Mexico: +0.6%

Canada: +0.6%

Russia: +0.5%

Japan: +0.5%

South America: +0.9%

Fight of the Night: N/A

Submission of the Night: N/A

KO of the Night: Tim Oldacres, Vic Millican, Colin J L Capes, Brian O'Flaherty, George Brabazon-Plank, Vagner & Antonio Santos

In lieu of other prizes, all the winners were given KO of the Night bonuses to mark the craziness of the evening.

Income

Gate: $16,831

Sponsorship: $13,344

Merchandise: $2,219

Expenditure

Fighters: $34,531

Drug Testing: $5,600

Production: $3,046

Total: -$10,783

Worth it though.

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Other News

- The big news is the names that GAMMA have allowed to leave, JJ Reid, Neil Napier and Thomas Smith have all been cut after suffering recent losses. Napier is still a world ranked Middleweight with an 18-3 record, and I would be amazed if ALPHA-1 don't make a move for him.

- Lots more signings, although BMMA have been a bit less active than in previous weeks. GAMMA on the other hand have brought in Vasily Klyushev, John Fitzwallace, Matas Fialkowska, Guy Broom, Justin Brannagh, Kramer Mayweather and Bill Brown.

- ALPHA-1 continue their strategy of hiring local fighters, it's strange to see a company of their size continue to hire fighters with less than 3 fights of experience.

- KDM FC continue to expand their roster as well, some thought they might not last the year but getting their TV show may be enough to save them and see them continue on for many years.

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Other Shows

Saturday Week 1 of August

GAMMA 58: Mack vs. Reid

Petey Mack def. JJ Reid

Frank Paul def. Marvin Stevens

Gary Sampson def. Terry Shakespeare

Ross Smith def. Floyd Haywood

Dwayne Alleyne def. Neil Napier

Stuart Strange def. Thomas Smith

Saturday Week 2 of August

BCF Lightweight champion Georges Nouri remains on top

Georges Nouri maintained his status as the #1 Lightweight in Britain with a clinical victory over challenger George Astaire, a rear naked choke put away Astaire in the first round. Some believed that Astaire was not really a worthy challenger, but with nobody else available he was given the call and was subsequently massacred.

Lenny McFadden was able to defeat Crow Leddy to bounce back from his recent title loss, however perhaps the biggest attraction on the show was the debut of Aleksander Ivanov who scored a decision win over Christopher Drew, it should be noted that Ivanov was a heavy favourite and Drew showed amazing toughness to keep in the fight and even take a round off the former SIGMA Heavyweight champion.

Gregory O'Hara staked his claim for a title shot against Nouri by defeating former champion Doug Hansen, and Heath Kaladaris handed Charlie Oakley is first defeat by knocking him out in the first round. The biggest fight on the prelims was Evgeni Medtner defeating Iain Fussell, there was also a massive upset as Bernard Long, in only his second fight, tapped out Silvio Leite. There were also wins for Gordon Idle and Perry Potenkin.

GAMMA Battle Lines 7: Sorkin vs. Watson

Mike Watson def. Tony Sorkin

Norman Pike def. Tony McCall

Alex Cole def. Tyrone Malik

Wes Hersch def. Vivinho

Moses Amokachi def. Fred Goggins

KDM FC 27: Togo vs. Alcala

Lito Alcala def. Kanji Togo to win the KDM FC Bantamweight title

Lian Hung def. Po-Han Yue

Chiyo Yanagimoto def. Taniko Uchiyama

Ikeda Kenkichio def. Reza Afshar

Naruhiko Yonai def. Jeffrey Lin

Sunday Week 2 of August

WEFF 32; Vaughan vs. Addams II

Sara Vaughan def. Michelle Addams to retain the WEFF Bantamweight title

Karen Curtis def. Sandy Oliver

Layla Holmes def. Nina Belle

Hester Maclean def. Helen Fox

Monica Masters def. Nanette Girard

Friday Week 3 of August

ALPHA-1: Hasegawa vs. Yamada

Tadamasa Yamada def. Jiroemon Hasegawa

Terron Cabal def. Gerson Mauricio

Hisamitsu Susaki def. Taizoh Chung Man

Claudio Palacios def. Lucas

Norihide Kusonoki def. Muhammad Hamzah

Fernando Peragon def. Samba Nakamura

Saturday Week 3 of August

GAMMA 59: Rushton vs. McInleen

Davey Rushton def. John-James McInleen

Ricky Heath def. Bill Cumming

Perry Madison def. Aaron McBroom

Diego Arteta def. Randy Carsley

Tora Mizwar def. Eriverton Laurentino

Nate MacReary def. Harv Dennis

SIGMA: Kurri vs. Karabatsos

Matti Kurri def. Alekos Karabatsos to win the SIGMA Light Heavyweight title

Nicolai Mickiewicz def. Adrian Swall

Marco Bernacci def. Pedro Alves

Edgar van den Hoogenband def. Jacob Matthaus

Juozas Skerla def. Alexandre Montador

Sunday Week 3 of August

XCC: Baldwin vs. Zoff

Chad Zoff def. Henry Baldwin to win the XCC Lightweight Title

Sammy Gaffigan def. Wallace Everett

Brock Youdale def. Kenny Magilton

Aubrey Bassington-Bassington def. Riveron Potter-Pirbright

Brian Claremont def. Dominic Ash

Chris2K · June 22, 2020

Sunday Week 4 August

Harry: "In all my years in MMA I've never seen anything like that. 7 first round finishes, all of them by KO or TKO. It was almost becoming absurd by the end of it."

Jim: "It was new to me as well, when I put the show together I realised there were a lot of strikers, but I certainly wasn't expecting there to be that many quick finishes. Good job it wasn't on Euro Cable Sport or we'd have had 90 minutes to fill with no fights left. Nobody wants to hear me jabber on for that long."

Harry: "What did SportTube do?"

Jim: "They just replayed the whole show from the start. Made sense I guess."

Harry: "Shame we don't get paid twice for it. What's our next show looking like for Brawl? Any hope we'll get a similar level of action?"

Jim: "Well you can always hope, but a show like that last one is once is a lifetime. We're in a bit of a no-lose situation with these Brawl shows, as long as we get a good main event together, we can put anything else on the show, Euro Cable Sport are only interested in content. That gives us the opportunity to try and establish potential stars by giving them the extra exposure on the TV show."

Harry: "This sounds like a wordier way of saying that the show is full of people nobody in the UK has heard of."

Jim: "Well that would be one way to look at it, but I've done my scouting and a lot of the guys we have on the show have been hand-picked. They're undefeated and have looked goods in the fights I've seen, we have to assume that their talent will get them to the top of the rankings soon enough, the goal is to get their popularity to match their ability. Look at the big names in MMA, James Foster, Raul Hughes, Hassan Fezzik, all megastars because they were given the opportunity to showcase their abilities at the highest level in front of the most people. We don't have the highest level yet, but we can at least put these young guys out there in front of our TV audience."

Harry: "Any idea on what that number is yet?"

Jim: "No, apparently the number of people watching a TV show still isn't deemed to be important. I'd give anything to know it, but it's not going to be an option."

Harry: "That's madness. We have no idea of whether we're gaining or losing viewers."

Jim: "I know, it's ridiculous, but it is what it is. All we can do to monitor our success is keep an eye on the profit margins. The money we brought in from last month's Brawl show was a game-changer, but it means nothing if we don't get a similar number this time. Realistically it should be more given the growth we've had since last time."

Harry: "And the likelihood of that is?"

Jim: "Not too bad. The other good thing about these young, unknown fighters is that they don't command too much of a wage, so even with one extra fight it won't be that much more expensive. Drug testing will be more too, but we can't avoid that. Anything over $40,000 profit will mean the company makes a profit at the end of the month."

Harry: "Sounds good. Maybe we'll have another 7 first round stoppages? You'd better get your filler material ready just in case..."

------------------------------------------------------------------

Press Release

BULLDOG BRAWL RETURNS FOR SECOND SHOW, HEADLINED BY FIRST LIGHTWEIGHT TITLE DEFENCE

by Mike Thomson

After the success of Bulldog Brawl 1 it's a swift return for the show exactly one month after the inaugural one, with the expectation being that the show will be on the first week of every month going forward. Euro Cable Sport were delighted with the ratings for the first show, although nobody but them seems to know what they were and are willing to get behind Bulldog MMA to provide regular content. Good news for all us fighting fans then. This show is headlined by Stephen Conti's first Lightweight title defence following his miraculous tournament victory, he takes on one of the men he beat on the way to winning the title in Graeme Spark.

The first fight on the show will be in the Heavyweight division between newcomer Shing Lai (2-0) and Tommy Cowan (1-0). Shing Lai comes over from China, Asia is a difficult place for fighters in the larger weight classes to get exposure so moving base is his best chance at getting noticed by one of the bigger companies. He is a massive man trained in folk wrestling, and despite his size he has explosive takedowns which he is happy to follow up with brutal ground and pound, particularly with hammer fists. He could be someone to look out for as his size makes him difficult to deal with and he's only going to improve his technique. Lai has fought once this year, knocking a local Chinese fighter out in 24 seconds at an independent show. Tommy Cowan may be someone who can match Lai when it comes to both size and athleticism, the Scotsman is the same height and still takes part in strongman contests as part of his training for MMA. What Cowan lacks at the moment is the technique to go with his athletic prowess, but after only one professional fight it would be hard to criticise him given his lack of experience. Cowan's only professional fight was in Bulldog MMA where he defeated Simon Youngman at BMMA 7, his ground and pound proving so brutal that Youngman verbally submitted before the referee stopped the fight.

In the show's second fight we will see two newcomers to the still developing Light Heavyweight division, Jim Bell (1-0) takes on Renan Heleno (4-0). Jim Bell is very much an unknown quantity; he only began even training in MMA this year and certainly hasn't had the time to develop much actual skill. He is said to have a wrestling background, but it wasn't noticeable enough for anyone to actually know who he is. It's very much a case of the lack of Light Heavyweight talent in the country causing BMMA to take a shot on these kind of guys. He has fought once, defeating a local fighter on an independent show. Renan Heleno is thankfully a bit more well-known from his time in Brazil prior to moving to the UK, prior to moving to MMA he was a competitor in Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournaments and has brought that dangerous submission game into the cage. If Heleno can get a fight to the ground he may be unstoppable, with a penchant for locking in armbars that borders on the obsessive. The rest of his game still needs some work but having that weapon available will always be useful. Heleno has fought twice this year, both times beating local fighters in the first round by submission, the first by armbar, the second by arm-BAR.

The third fight of the evening will be in the Welterweight division when Canadian import Craig Hulme (6-0) takes on Scott Gillespie (5-4). You won't find many examples of male models moving from their modelling career into the more violent world of mixed martial arts, but Craig Hulme is someone who has done exactly that. Thankfully, he has actually done a lot of MMA training having done BJJ since he was in his early teens and has already developed a good striking and grappling game to go with those skills. His all-round ability makes him one to look out for, although if he doesn't reach a lot of success, we will at least always be the most attractive man in the cage. He's certainly better looking than Scott Gillespie who is certainly has more of the stereotypical MMA fighter appearance. A tall and lanky kickboxer, Gillespie's main game plan is to use his reach to keep the fight as a ranged striking battle, not allowing better grapplers to get close enough to take him down. That worked well in his early career which saw him join the BCF, but things started going downhill when Jerome Atkins got close enough to knock him out with a knee strike, and he has since lost to Ragnar Gunnlaugsson and Jayden Karp causing the BCF to cut him.

The Canadian invasion continues here as two more collide in the Light Heavyweight division, Alex Maitland (3-0) takes on Ricky Driver (1-0). Maitland is a student of Shaolin Kung Fu, which I believe is the same martial art that Liu Kang of Mortal Kombat fame trained in, and as such he enjoys standing and trading strikes with anyone. Maitland's specialty are scything low kicks which can do a significant amount of damage even within one round, they can also do enough damage to stop fights as a local fighter from Canada found out earlier this year, they couldn't continue after Maitland had kicked him so often in the same part of his lead leg. Maitland has decent if unspectacular grappling skills so striking will always be his first choice. Ricky "Pile" Driver has the tools to be a difficult opponent for anyone, he has very heavy hands to do damage on the feet and has good grappling skills to either control a fight or to defend if necessary. Where he lets himself down is in his cardio, something that should be standard for any professional fighter in this day and age, but he is known to struggle with anything going past the first round. He's really good in that first round though, as he proved by finishing off a local fighter by TKO in the first round earlier this year.

It's another Welterweight fight next and one of Brazil's most dangerous free agents has found his way to BMMA, Procopio Golias (17-6) will make his debut against Mando Romero (9-0), who is also debuting. Procopio Golias is a short, stocky fighter, think of him as a square with arms and legs, but he is nasty inside the cage with relentless grappling either on the feet or on the ground, if he gets a hold of someone he is not likely to let go. It's not the prettiest of tactics to watch, but it has brought him success with a 5-1 record in FLB before the company closed. On the flip side however his lack of entertainment may be why neither of the big companies offered him a deal when FLB stopped operating. He has fought once this year, defeating Origenes Salgado in South America before he moved to the UK. Mando Romero comes in from Mexico as a former amateur boxer who has both speed and decent power in his punches. Despite not tasting defeat in his 9 professional fights the method to defeating him seems pretty obvious as he has little in the way of grappling skills, and if taken down he will likely be in trouble. He has fought once this year in Mexico, knocking out a local fighter at an independent show.

The co-Main Event of the evening will be in the Middleweight division, and one of Mexico's rising stars debuts here as Esteban Vega (9-0), takes on British veteran Richard Smith (22-18). Esteban Vega is considered Mexico's premier future talent, however the lack of opportunities to fight have caused him to move over to the UK. He has everything you would expect from a potential superstar, strong wrestling both in attack and defence, he is decent on the ground, but his prime weapon is his excellent boxing skills, frequently using body punches to weaken up his opponents for a big shot to the head. He has fought once this year, knocking out a local fighter in Mexico in under 2 minutes. Richard Smith has been around the British MMA scene for a long time, as you would expect from someone with 40 fights under their belt, but a lack of consistency has prevented him from ever getting offered anything than independent fights as a somewhat recognisable name. He is a crafty fighter, which basically means he wins by decision a lot due to a lack of offensive options, his many defeats come from being weak off his back, his striking game deteriorating, and his weak chin. Omar Calvert exposed that further by defeating Smith in under two minutes during the Middleweight tournament.　

And finally, the Main Event of the show will be the first defence of the BMMA Lightweight title, champion Stephen Conti (4-0) fights one of the men he beat in the tournament to become the champion in Graeme Spark (10-2). Tim Oldacres was due to get the title shot, but that was pulled after he committed to an exclusive contract with the BCF, so Spark gets the shot instead, and is considered the favourite despite Conti beating him during the Lightweight tournament. That tournament was very much a standout moment for Conti, he only had the call to enter it with six days’ notice as an injury replacement, and he defeated Swithens Corcoran, Spark and finally William Powell to take home the gold. Conti showed just how well-rounded he is despite only being 20 years old, a testament to his work ethic and willingness to train in every necessary discipline and surely must be considered a future British MMA superstar, perhaps the new Jake Keane. That said, he has to get past the very tough Graeme Spark again first, and this time both fighters will be coming in fresh instead of having fought once already. Spark is traditionally a Featherweight but fights at Lightweight due to the lack of Featherweight divisions in the UK, and his main tactic is to grapple with opponents due to his wrestling background. He is certainly not one-dimensional though due to having a good striking game and the ability to finish fights on the ground as well. In the Lightweight tournament he defeated Ryan Fenniman with a first round TKO before losing to Conti in a very close split decision.

Bulldog Brawl 2: Conti vs. Spark II Fight Card

Heavyweight Division

Shing Lai vs. Tommy Cowan

Light Heavyweight Division

Jim Bell vs. Renan Heleno

Welterweight Division

Craig Hulme vs. Scott Gillespie

Light Heavyweight Division

Alex Maitland vs. Ricky Driver

Welterweight Division

Procopio Golias vs. Mando Romero

Co-Main Event

Middleweight Division

Esteban Vega vs. Richard Smith

Main Event

BMMA Lightweight Title Match

vladjarca · June 22, 2020

Heavyweight Division

Shing Lai vs. Tommy Cowan

Light Heavyweight Division

Jim Bell vs. Renan Heleno

Welterweight Division

Craig Hulme vs. Scott Gillespie

Light Heavyweight Division

Alex Maitland vs. Ricky Driver

Welterweight Division

Procopio Golias vs. Mando Romero

Co-Main Event

Middleweight Division

Esteban Vega vs. Richard Smith

Main Event

BMMA Lightweight Title Match

CageRage · June 22, 2020

Heavyweight Division

Shing Lai vs. Tommy Cowan

Light Heavyweight Division

Jim Bell vs. Renan Heleno

Welterweight Division

Craig Hulme vs. Scott Gillespie

Light Heavyweight Division

Alex Maitland vs. Ricky Driver

Welterweight Division

Procopio Golias vs. Mando Romero

Co-Main Event

Middleweight Division

Esteban Vega vs. Richard Smith

Main Event

BMMA Lightweight Title Match

Chris2K · September 12, 2020

BULLDOG BRAWL 2: CONTI vs. SPARK

Match #1

Heavyweight Division

Shing Lai (2-0) vs. Tommy Cowan (1-0)

Lai is spoken of in high regard as being a potential Heavyweight star, but this is his first competition of any note. He starts out well with a crunching right hook, and soon he is shooting in for a takedown which he successfully completes to get Cowan to the ground. Lai quickly moves through from half guard into the mount, done with frightening ease for a man of his size, and from there he can start landing what we are told are his trademark hammerfists. Cowan can deal with them to begin with, but once one big one gets through the seal is broken and Lai has almost unrestricted access to Cowan's face with his fist. One shot in particular lands really hard and Cowan appears to go limp, the eagle-eyed referee spots this and dives in to stop the fight! Cowan wasn't out for long, but he was certainly unconscious at one point and probably got woken up by another punch. Lai wins on his debut, and it's now 8 consecutive first round finishes in Bulldog MMA. Surely it can't happen again?

Winner: Shing Lai (3-0) via Knock Out (Punch) - 2:01 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Great

Post-Fight: Shing Lai doesn't speak English and the regular translator Dave White isn't good enough at Mandarin yet, so the sensible decision is made not to interview him. He looks happy though, which is nice.

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Match #2

Light Heavyweight Division

Jim Bell (1-0) vs. Renan Heleno (4-0)

Not many people know who Bell is, and even fewer give him any hope of winning here. We get a striking battle to start the fight, Heleno is the aggressor in the exchanges and lands some nice straight right hands during them, Bell does however manage to land some counter jabs here and there. Another right from Heleno lands and given the amount of blood on Bell's face you have to think he has a broken nose now, that seems to stop him from engaging as much and Heleno is left picking him off with jabs from a distance. When Heleno does get closer he continues to land good punches with his right hand, Bell is left seemingly unclear on what to do at this point. He attempts to clinch with Heleno which doesn't work to begin with, but he does finally initiate a grapple with the Brazilian only for the round to end seconds later. Don't be alarmed people, but we're into a SECOND ROUND. The streak.... is over. Bell is more aggressive to start the second round and lands a couple of good left hands, it's at that point that Heleno shoots in for a takedown attempt, Bell manages to remain standing on one foot though and Heleno has to settle for trapping him against the cage. It doesn't last long as Heleno executes a leg trip which leaves Bell sitting against the cage, and Heleno is effectively in the mount now and able to start landing some powerful shots. Bell can't offer much defence and the punches continue landing until the referee steps in to stop the fight! The result is perhaps not unexpected, but at least Bell lasted to Round 2 which is more than can be said for the losers of the previous 8 Bulldog MMA fights.

Winner: Renan Heleno (5-0) via TKO (Strikes) - 1:44 of Round 2

Fight Rating: Good

Post-Fight: Dave White is on hand to translate Heleno's interview comments, which are as simple as thanking his sponsors and saying he was happy to win.

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Match #3

Welterweight Division

Craig Hulme (6-0) vs. Scott Gillespie (5-4)

When you look at Hulme you do have to wonder why someone with that face would want to put it in the way of other peoples' fists. That's only if he gets hit of course, and here he can land a right cross to start the fight, then ducks under a right hand from Gillespie to execute a single leg takedown and get the fight to the ground. Hulme is an infinitely better fighter on the ground than Gillespie and quickly proves that by passing the guard and getting in to side control, Hulme is a bit of a submission specialist as well so it's no surprise to see him go for an armbar straight away, however Gillespie is able to defend it. Hulme works his way into a kimura position and this time he can get it secured, Gillespie rolls to try and escape but its locked in tight and he must tap out! And back to the first round finishes we go. Hulme wins to remain undefeated; his submission skills could prove decisive in the UK where ground skills aren't as well trained as other countries.

Winner: Craig Hulme (7-0) via Submission (Kimura) - 2:03 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Great

Post-Fight: Hulme is as good a talker as he is a model, not that I'm jealous or anything, and cuts a very well-spoken interview thanking his sponsors and fans, before saying he can't wait to get back into the cage and fight again. Stick around Craig, if we have any more quick finishes, they might need you to fight again tonight to fill the TV time.

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Match 4

Light Heavyweight Division

Alex Maitland (3-0) vs. Ricky Driver (1-0)

These two Canadians throw national allegiance out of the window and waste little time in getting involved in a striking exchange with each other, both fighters land some good shots to begin with but after an opening minute of action the fight begins to settle down. Maitland is the fighter doing most of the forward movement but that only results in Driver landing some jabs to keep him at bay, Maitland tries a big head kick but that misses. Maitland tries that head kick again moments later, but Driver is easily able to avoid it and returns fire with some more jabs and a clean right hand. Driver is really putting his reach advantage to good work here, and in the final thirty seconds of the round he can avoid a right hook from Maitland and counter with a jab/hook combination. The opening of the second round is a lot more cautious and it's not until 90 seconds in when the first meaningful strike lands, a hard leg kick from Maitland, and it soon becomes evident that Driver's notorious lack of stamina is starting to come in to play. Both fighters land some ineffective jabs before Maitland connects with another leg kick, only for Driver to catch him with a left hand before Maitland can get back out of range. The excitement picks up in the later stages of the round, Maitland lands a jab and another leg kick, Driver responds with a jab and a powerful right hook, then avoids a right hook from Maitland to deliver a jab/hook combination which causes a cut under Maitland's right eye. Driver is very tired now though and in the final moments of the round he must clinch to get some energy back, Maitland tries to use this to get a takedown, but Driver is able to defend it.

Into the final round we go for what feels like the first time in decades for a Bulldog MMA fight, again the opening minute of the round sees both fighters willing to stand and trade strikes, and again it's Driver who gets the slight advantage thanks to his reach. The next minute is the complete opposite as neither fighter tries to push the pace, however Maitland does finally manage to land the head kick he's been trying for all fight, only for Driver to shrug it off. With both fighters now exhausted they end up clinching, however Maitland uses that to execute an outside leg trip to take Driver down and manages to take Driver's back straight away in the process. Maitland starts working to lock in a rear naked choke, but Driver does a good job of defending it, and over the next three minutes Maitland tries to get that choke in without any success. Unfortunately, this doesn't result in a lot of action to watch, the referee isn't going to stand them up when a submission could happen at any time, so we're left with the same scenario until the fight ends. The judges will have to make a decision for the first time in a while, about time they earned their money, the first judge scores it 29-28 to Maitland, the second scores it 30-27 to Driver, and the final one scores it 29-28 to... Ricky Driver. I have no idea how anyone could give Driver the final round, he spent over half of it lying on his stomach, however he did do enough in the first two rounds to scrape the win.

Winner: Ricky Driver (2-0) via Split Decision (28-29, 30-27, 29-28)

Fight Rating: Decent

Post-Fight: A tired Driver manages to muster the energy to thank his sponsors and fans, he says he's happy to win his BMMA debut and looks forward to fighting again soon.

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Match 5

Welterweight Division

Mando Romero (9-0) vs. Procopio Golias (17-6)

There is some concern from people who think that Golias' fighting style isn't one that suits the entertainment level needed for TV, but we'll see soon enough. Golias immediately shows his grappling skills by getting a clinch and executing a takedown inside the first thirty seconds, he lands in side control and from there he locks in an arm triangle, it looks to be in tight but Romero is able to squeeze out of it before having to tap. Well that was quite the start. Golias continues to try and overwhelm Romero on the ground, and after some punches he drives forward with a brutal knee strike to the ribs, that seemingly opens up an opportunity for an armbar, again it looks to be locked in tight but Romero somehow gets his arm free of Golias' grip and survives again. Golias' next stop on the submission world tour is a kimura, however this doesn't get close to being locked in, and in the ensuing scramble Romero is able to get Golias back inside his guard. Golias throws some elbows from the guard which land but don't do much damage, and the remainder of the round is spent there. So much for lacking entertainment. The second round spends much more time on the feet and that is where Romero holds the advantage, during the opening minute alone he scores with a jab, a right hand, another jab, a right cross, two left hands and a straight right. Golias tries to grapple but Romero uses his speed to keep away, and then connects with some more punches which cause a cut on Golias' eyebrow. Romero is completely dominant on the feet, but Golias is tough enough to withstand the strikes and eventually gets the grapple he's been looking for with two minutes left in the round. He quickly sweeps the leg of Romero to take him down, and straight into side control he goes. It's back to the kimura for the first submission attempt of this round but Romero defends it, so Golias gives him another powerful knee to the ribs as a punishment. Golias tries to move to the mount but Romero does well to prevent that, so Golias lands another knee to the ribs to try and soften him up more. Golias lands some elbow strikes to the head and that seems to be enough to get Romero to break his defence, but Golias can't do anything else in the remaining time.

Romero has to make something happen on the feet in the final round, but disaster strikes from him inside the first twenty seconds, he catches Golias with a beautiful straight right but in the process seems to damage his own hand, taking away his major attacking weapon. Romero fights on as best he can using his left hand to jab more, but when he does throw his right hand there is significantly less power behind it and Golias has no trouble simply walking through the shots, even if his cut does get opened up again. Golias moves in to clinch with Romero and does so, from there he takes Romero down in an ugly looking fashion, ending up on top of a turtled up Romero with a loose facelock. Golias goes for another different type of submission from this position, an anaconda choke gets applied and Golias rolls over to lock it in deep, this time Romero has no way of escaping the situation and is forced to tap out! It was a valiant effort from Romero who showed good promise on his feet and some decent submission defence, but Golias was simply too strong for him to prevent getting taken down and the Brazilian was vicious when the fight hit the ground.

Winner: Procopio Golias (18-6) via Submission (Anaconda Choke) - 2:23 of Round 3

Fight Rating: Great

Post-Fight: Dave White is on hand to do translations for Golias, but the Brazilian doesn't have a whole lot to say. He says he's happy to win and that's about it.

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Co-Main Event

Middleweight Division

Esteban Vega (9-0) vs. Richard Smith (22-18)

Vega is considered one of the best up-and-coming fighters in the world, Richard Smith is probably two years past his retirement date. This doesn't seem like a fair fight. Vega immediately moves forward but gets met by a jab from Smith as he does, that doesn't stop Vega though who lands a jab of his own and follows that with one of his trademark body punches. Smith tries to jab but Vega uses good head movement to avoid it leaving Smith wide open, Vega takes advantage of that with a crushing right hook to the jaw, and that's enough to knock Smith out cold! He crumples to the ground and Vega has no need to follow up with any more strikes, the damage is more than already done. Vega takes his expected victory, but it was a bit of a depressing sight seeing Smith sent out there as pretty much a sacrifice.

Winner: Esteban Vega (10-0) via Knock Out (Punch) - 0:32 of Round 1

Fight Rating: Good

Post-Fight: Vega speaks decent enough English to get out that his thanks to his sponsors and to his team Camp Ortega for helping him prepare. He then demands a fight with Vagner for the vacant Middleweight title, which sounds like a very good idea if they can get it organised.

Post-Post-Fight: Richard Smith announces his decision to retire from MMA competition, and after that fight it's not a moment too soon.

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MAIN EVENT

BMMA Lightweight Title Match

This is the re-match of their semi-final tournament bout, and whilst it would be easy to criticise a company for running a re-match for their first Lightweight title defence, the previous fight was at least a very marginal split decision. The fight starts with Conti landing some good punches including a left cross/right hook combination, but soon Sparks shoots in for a takedown and succeeds in getting Conti down to the mat. Spark lands in the guard and tries to advance, but Conti can use that as an opportunity to scramble and gets back to his feet. Spark keeps of Conti in a grapple and moves him back against the cage, but after a few foot stomps land Conti can wrestle his way out and back to the centre of the cage. The remainder of the round is a striking contest and that falls into Conti's game plan much more favourably, he dominates with quick punches, out-striking Spark 19-8 and not showing any signs of tiring. The second round continued in the same manner with two minutes of stand-up fighting which Conti continued to dominate, his powerful left hand doing most of the damage with exquisite technique being able to set up any strike he wanted. Things changed mid-way through the round when Spark secured another takedown, this time Spark wasn't as anxious to advance his position and remained on top of Conti for the remainder of the round, frankly he wasn't doing much in the way of attacking other than a few punches to the body of Conti, and it was surprising the referee didn't stand them up given that Spark was only in half guard.

The second round should have shown Spark the game plan he needs to adopt, and he grapples early with Conti in the third round to press him up against the cage. Whilst that works for Spark it's not great for the people watching the fight as they spend over three minutes against the cage with only the occasional strike landing. When the referee finally does separate them Conti is given a brief window to land some strikes, and a left hook cuts Spark under his right eye, but as soon as he misses a punch Spark takes the opportunity to move in and clinch again. Back to the cage we go again, and that's where the fight stays for the rest of the round. That wasn't exactly fun to watch. The first of the championship rounds begins with Spark doing the exact same thing again, and we find ourselves with a stalemate against the cage yet again. Spark smothers Conti against the cage and lands some punches on the inside for over two minutes, but eventually (and thankfully) Conti can work himself free. Back in the centre of the cage Conti can get his striking going again, a left hook catches Spark to reopen that cut, and Conti follows that with a jab/straight left combination. Spark desperately wants to move in and grapple again, but as he moves forward Conti can land a stunning left hook which drops Spark to the ground! The crowd wakes up as Conti moves in quickly and kneels beside Spark to start dropping powerful punches to his grounded opponent, some heavy left hands land to the head of Spark and the referee is forced to stop in and stop the fight! Conti wheels away to celebrate with his team, he worked hard for that victory, and by winning he becomes the first Bulldog MMA champion to defend his title and not immediately vacate it. Given what he's done so far at such a young age I'm amazed the BCF haven't made an approach for him yet, after all, they signed Shawn McCarthy and he's done nothing.

Winner, and STILL BMMA Lightweight Champion: Stephen Conti (5-0) via TKO (Strikes) - 3:44 of Round 4

Fight Rating: Good

Post-Fight: Conti thanks his fans, family and sponsors for their support, and declares how happy he is to be the Bulldog MMA Lightweight champion. He wants to defend his title again as soon as possible, something I'm sure BMMA would be happy for him to do as well.

--------------------------------------------------

Show Details

Attendance: 78

Critical Rating: 71%

Commercial Rating: 35%

Popularity Change:

UK +0.5%

Europe +0.2%

Russia +0.2%　

Fight of the Night: Mando Romero

KO of the Night: Esteban Vega

Submission of the Night: Craig Hulme

Income

Gate: $6,874

Sponsorship: $8,210

Merchandise: $2,253

Advertising/Subscriptions: $82,473

Expenditure

Fighters: $32,221

Drug Testing: $5,600

Production: $15,530

Total: +$46,459

-------------------------

Post Show News

- The big news in MMA has been the shocking downfall of Sutton Ripley, who has been sentenced to six months in prison for an assault at a nightclub. Ripley, who was cut from GAMMA in May, was arrested shortly afterwards after he instigated a brawl in his hometown of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Despite pleading not guilty, evidence clearly showed his part in the event, and he was found guilty of common assault, battery and public affray.

- In lighter news, GAMMA have signed a game-changing distribution deal with North America Prime Select, the biggest PPV distributor in North America. Their PPV events will now be available in every home in America and given their stranglehold on the MMA market in the eastern hemisphere this can only mean a massive financial windfall for every show they run.

- GAMMA celebrated this deal by signing more young talent, Dean Capers, Barrett Fforde, Kramer Mayweather and Hunter Scribbins have all joined.

- Bulldog MMA have signed some of SIGMA's main stars to deals that allow them to work for both companies, Stian Agdestein, Matti Kurri and Edgar van den Hoogenband will all likely be featuring on a BMMA show sometime soon.

- One person who won't be is Owen Oggleberry-Pipp who has chosen to join the BCF after they made him an offer. It is not thought that BMMA did a lot to try and keep him, partly because his fighting style is not that exciting, but also because his surname is very hard to type.

Other Shows

Friday Week 1 of September

Rafael van der Moot def. Hyun-Shik Lim

Datuk Ong Ka Ting def. Naizen Hamacho

Faas Smit def. Naoki Itoh

Jutaro Honma def. Taroemon Abukara

Davi Carlos Ramos def. Edson Edmilson

Renato def. Noddy Pascow

(That's it, there was only a week between the last two shows.)

Chris2K · September 18, 2020

<div style="text-align:center;"><img alt="7uPcFWq.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/7uPcFWq.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /></div>

Harry: "That Stephen Conti is something else isn't he? 20 years old and already fighting at an elite level. He might be the best British Lightweight fighter we've seen in MMA by the end of his career."

Jim: "Better than Jake Keane?"

Harry: "Why not? The kid's got all the tools, he's winning by TKO, submission, decisions to show he has stamina too, the sky's the limit for him."

Jim: "You could be right, unfortunately that makes our job a bit harder as keeping hold of him is going to take a lot of effort. His contract came up after his win over Spark on Brawl, and he's resigned with us without much negotiation required. Only problem is that it's still an open contract, and he's also signed a contract with SIGMA in case we can't get him the fights he wants."

Harry: "Well then we get him the fights he wants, simple."

Jim: "Yes and no, obviously we run more shows than SIGMA which gives us more opportunities, the problem at the moment is that we have a lack of credible challengers for the title. If Stephen decides he wants to get better competition he might want to move on, maybe even fight in SIGMA instead of us."

Harry: "Then we need to try and strengthen the Lightweight division as best we can."

Jim: "Way ahead of you, given that SIGMA seem happy in offering our guys the opportunity to fight for them, I've switched the positions and started offering their guys the chance to fight for us if their schedule permits."

Harry: "And what do SIGMA make of that?"

Jim: "I've not heard anything from them yet, they can't be too upset though as they were the ones who started trying to use our guys first. The difference between them and BCF is that they're not big enough to simply poach our talent with exclusive contracts, the best they can do is offer a standard contract and hope they can find fights for the fighters before we do. The key for us is to keep on top of booking our shows as far in advance as possible so we get anyone who might have two contracts tied down to fighting for us and not SIGMA."

Harry: "We already seem to be at war with the BCF, is it really worth stoking the fires with another company as well?"

Jim: "At the moment it's more of an uneasy alliance, as far as SIGMA and us are concerned we have a shared enemy in the BCF, and while we're never going to work together properly we can at least not directly undermine each other too much. Of course, the time will come when one of us hits the level of being able to offer exclusive contracts, then it becomes every company for themselves again."

Harry: "Then the key is that we need to be the ones to get to that level first."

Jim: "Agreed, and that's where the TV deal is going to give us a huge advantage, even though SIGMA have been running for significantly more years than us they've never been able to get a TV contract, so they're not best pleased we got one so quickly. Not only that but it's on a channel which broadcasts directly into the region they're based in, so we're effectively invading their territory without even physically leaving Manchester."

Harry: "It's a shame, I've got nothing against SIGMA but this is business and we have to do what we need to in order to keep going and grow the company. What's the situation with our vacant titles?"

Jim: "The Light Heavyweight title will be sorted on the next Brawl show, and the Heavyweight title on the show after that. Middleweight is still an issue, we've got some really solid contenders but it's proving difficult to get them to be available at the same time. Plus people like Vagner, Esteban Vegar and Omar Calvert are prime targets for bigger companies to go for, which will put us right back to square one if they're the champion."

Harry: "Do what you can to get it sorted, I don't like having these title belts cluttering up the place when they should have champions looking after them."

--------------------------------------------------------

Press Release

<img alt="utuqXXn.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/utuqXXn.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" />

BMMA 11 TO SHOWCASE NEW TALENT, HEADLINED BY LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION CLASH

by Mike Thomson

Bulldog MMA will be back in Manchester for their latest show, this will be their 13th in total and their fifth to air on internet broadcaster SportTube. As with many of these SportTube shows the bigger fights are not going to be seen here, instead we are given fights between people making their BMMA debuts, although in this case there are a lot of familiar names due to fighters who have previously fought with the BCF making their way here. Headlining the show is Neville Granville, one of those former BCF fighters, against Brazilian newcomer Gustavo Spagnol who comes to the UK with a fearsome reputation for brutal finishes on the ground.

The first fight of the evening will be in the Lightweight division as Duey Rickert (9-5) takes on Tommy Ray (1-0), with both fighters making their Bulldog MMA debut. Rickert has been fighting around the regional shows for a few years with a mixed bag of success, he is naturally a Featherweight but has had to move to Lightweight in order to get more recognition. Rickert follows the formula of using punches in bunches to overwhelm his opponent with strikes, that does however mean he sacrifices power for quantity and isn't likely to be able to get a finish. This style does however lend itself to entertaining fights, and given his lack of skill in other areas it's the only style he can really do. Rickert hasn't fought since early 2001, so either he's going to show some significant improvements to his game or he will be very rusty. Tommy "Sting" Ray comes from a kick boxing background and is a very dangerous striker as a result, his particular weapon of choice being low kicks to pulverise his opponent's legs. Ray has had the sense to train hard in defensive grappling to stop wrestlers from taking him down, therefore giving him the opportunity to keep the fight where he wants it. Ray has only fought once in his career, a fight at a local show which lasted just 27 seconds before Ray knocked his opponent out with a head kick. Whilst that means we don't have a lot of tape to study when it comes to Ray's performance, it was certainly an impressive way to begin his MMA career.

The next fight will also be a clash of Lightweight fighters as Ryan Fenniman (5-1) squares off against the debuting Cyril Kamoze (6-3). Ryan Fennigan has been a kick boxer since his early teenage years giving him a decent amount of experience in combat sports, and whilst striking will always be his number one option he has trained himself to be versatile enough in other areas of MMA to get by. Whilst he should be credited for expanding his skillset, it may be that his persistent training in grappling has been at the expense of some of his striking skill, he suffered his first professional defeat to Graeme Spark in the Lightweight tournament by TKO, and Spark is not known for his prolific striking abilities. Cyril Kamoze is the second-most famous Jamaican MMA fighter given the recent success of Coltrane Anderson, but 2nd place is still pretty good. Kamoze has become known for his orthodox style, mostly revolving around kicks that most people have never seen before, something he is able to do thanks to his very quick feet. Grappling is very much his achilles heel as his career has proven, after moving to the UK from Jamaica and going 6-0 on the regional scene he was signed to the BCF, however in his first two fights he was taken down and submitted (both armbars) by George Astaire and Dom Yorke. He did better in his third fight by going the distance with Rupert Lennox, but still found himself on the losing end and shortly afterwards found himself cut from the company.

Moving up a weight class now, Paul Duffell (23-16) takes on Ethan LeGrange (10-0) in the Welterweight division, a classic fight between a veteran and a youngster. Paul Duffell is a long-time veteran of the UK regional scene as evidenced by the 39 fights he has had, and whilst he has never shown any form of consistency during his career he can still put up a good fight against any opponent due to his decent kick boxing skills and willingness to engage. Duffell took part in the BMMA Welterweight title tournament and defeated Julian Banham in the first round, only to be submitted by Javid Khan in the semi-final. Ethan LaGrange is another of the many Canadians who have moved to the UK for better competition, and brings with him an impressive undefeated record. He is a kick boxer by trade and has a tidy striking game with his hard punches the centrepiece of his attacking options. LeGrange does not have much of a grappling game to speak of though, and frankly it's almost a miracle that he has got a 10-0 record considering that if he gets taken down he's not got a clue. Training with team Strike Force is going to help at least. LeGrange has fought twice this year in Canada, defeating Van Jolson by Knock Out and Zachary Gilbert by TKO.

Next up will be a Middleweight division clash between two new fighters, Scott Houghton (1-0) from Northern Ireland taking on Wederson de Oliveira (8-1) from Brazil. Scott Houghton brings to the cage the worst nickname in MMA history, "Dukin' and Jivin'" which automatically makes me want him to lose. Houghton is a wrestler from Northern Ireland who did not make any waves in the wrestling community as one to watch, however his stock greatly increased at a recent regional show where he knocked out a local fighter in 12 seconds. A performance like that is enough to get you a shot with a proper company, Houghton had just better hope it wasn't a fluke... Wederson de Oliveira, or WDO as he will be known here, is a highly-skilled Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter from Rio who is very dangerous if the fight goes to the ground, particularly if he ends up on his back and in a position to apply one of his many submission holds. As with any fighter so dependent on one particular skill he can be defeated by sticking to the opposite of what he's good at, but for any fighter opposing him they will know they are one mistake away from being in real trouble. So far in 2002 he has fought once, submitting Welvis Andre de Arruda with a first round Armbar on a South American local show.

Back we go to the Welterweight division for a fight between two competitors in the BMMA Welterweight tournament, Roy Lynch (9-9) takes on Roger Quince (1-1). Someone will leave with a winning record! Unless they draw. Roy Lynch is usually a Lightweight fighter still competing at a higher weight class, he a former boxer who has decent punching technique, but no power behind them for any opponent to worry about him knocking them out. The concept of learning other MMA skills is not one that Lynch is interested in, and his 9-9 record is pretty much indicative of him only being able to defeat people he can out-strike. He has fought once for Bulldog MMA, a unanimous decision loss to Javid Khan in the Welterweight tournament, a fight that was much closer than people expected. Roger Quince has a very strong judo background which he aims to use in his MMA career, a very technically-sound grappler he has a wide variation of trips and throws to get the fight to the ground, and good submission skills to use when he gets there. Striking is still very much his weakness and it is an area he is going to have to work on if he intends to be a big name in UK MMA, Brian O'Flaherty made that very clear in the Welterweight tournament by knocking Quince out cold. If he can get his stand-up game sorted out he could definitely be one to watch for the future.

The co-Main Event of the evening will be in the Lightweight division as Dominick Oppenheimer (6-4) makes his BMMA debut against Jonjo Whiteley (5-1). Dominick Oppenheimer is one of the bigger names to be cut by the BCF this year having previously challenged for the BCF Lightweight title against Jake Keane, he lost that fight and things have gone tumbling downhill since then. Oppenheimer is a very technical striker with fantastic speed around the cage allowing him to get in, land a punch or two, and get back out. Where he falters is his non-existant grappling skills, and in addition to losing to Keane he has suffered consecutive losses to Gordon Idle, Rupert Lennox and Sid Morgan all by being out-wrestled, resulting in the BCF letting him go. Jonjo Whiteley is a very similar fighter to Oppenheimer in many respects, he also has good speed around the cage with fast strikes learned during his kick boxing background, and just like Oppenheimer he isn't a fan of grappling so neither fighter will have to worry about that in this fight. Whiteley is young enough to be able to develop a more well-rounded game, but he is also from Swindon which makes his development all that more difficult. Whiteley has fought once this year, a decision loss to Jazz Snide where Snide's taunting almost caused Whiteley to attack him after the fight.

And finally the Main Event will also be the fight with the biggest fighters on the card physically, a Light Heavyweight division clash between Gustavo Spagnol (6-2) and Neville Granville (6-3). Gustavo Spagnol arrives from Brazil as someone with a reputation for having a very simple gameplan, and if he able to execute it then he is very difficult to stop. He has fantastic takedown skills to get the fight to the ground, and after that he can pummel his opponent with powerful ground punches until the fight is stopped. The rest of his game isn't much to write home about, but if he can use his ground and pound it won't be an issue. Spagnol was one of the last fighters signed to FLB before it closed, and he managed to defeat Brazilian legend Pedro Sousa before it did, however this year he has lost to Carlos dos Santos on a South American show. Ironically, dos Santos has recently lost to Pedro Sousa to complete the triangle. Neville Granville is your stereotypical Yorkshireman who doesn't take any nonsense from anyone, his background is in boxing having been a professional in the sport until deciding to move into MMA. As you'd expect his punching is his biggest weapon, he has power that can stop any opponent no matter how tough they are, and he has the speed and accuracy to back it up. Grappling is his weakness and he doesn't have a lot to offer in defence if he gets taken down or put in a clinch. Things started going badly for Granville in the BCF when he was knocked out by the vicious power of Danny Akabaro, and following a submission loss to newcomer Danko Jelavic he was shown the door, straight into a BMMA Main Event.

BMMA 11: Spagnol vs. Granville Fight Card

Lightweight Division

Duey Rickert (9-5) vs. Tommy Ray (1-0)

Lightweight Division

Ryan Fenniman (5-1) vs. Cyril Kamoze (6-3)

Welterweight Division

Paul Duffell (23-16) vs. Ethan LeGrange (10-0)

Middleweight Division

Scott Houghton (1-0) vs. Wederson de Oliveira (8-1)

Welterweight Division

Roy Lynch (9-9) vs. Roger Quince (1-1)

Co-Main Event

Lightweight Division

Dominick Oppenheimer (6-4) vs. Jonjo Whiteley (5-1)

Main Event

Light Heavyweight Division

Gustavo Spagnol (6-2) vs. Neville Granville (6-3)</div>

Chris2K · September 22, 2020

<div style="text-align:center;"><img alt="utuqXXn.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/utuqXXn.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /> BMMA 11: SPAGNOL vs. GRANVILLE Fight #1 Lightweight Division <img alt="6lYvNrQ.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/6lYvNrQ.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /><img alt="qz1uyh4.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/qz1uyh4.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /><img alt="dtgJtWU.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/dtgJtWU.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /> Duey Rickert (9-5) vs. Tommy Ray (1-0) Local boy Rickert gets a decent reaction from the fans in attendance, and that fan interest is multiplied during a first round full of action. Both fighters have no problem in standing and trading strikes, Rickert uses his hand speed to deliver some very good combinations whilst Ray is more varied in using both punches and kicks. Not all Rickert's strikes land but he maintains a frenetic pace throughout the round and never seems to take a step back at any point. Ray is more strategic in the strikes he throws, but the ones he does land have more behind them such as a roundhouse kick to the body. In the final moments of the round Rickert can land another combination and Ray comes away from it with a cut over his right eye, Rickert himself has gash under his eye so both fighters are already bleeding. Shortly into the second round we get the strange occurrence of the doctor coming in to check a cut for both fighters, both are fine though so on we go. Rickert continues his pure volume of strikes but gets caught by a right head kick from Ray which leaves him stunned! Ray follows up with a right cross but Rickert is able to avoid it, and then dodges a second head kick moments later so is seemingly back to his senses. Rickert starts throwing some kicks of his own to end his combinations, however his accuracy is starting to fall, meanwhile Ray is continuing to land good shots at the same rate as the rest of the fight. The fight seems to be pretty evenly balanced as we enter the final round, which isn't quite as crazy as the first two with both fighters starting to feel the burn from their activity in the opening ten minutes, Ray is able land a jab/leg kick combination but gets met by another blitz of strikes from Rickert, however another leg kick lands from Ray shortly afterwards and Rickert is starting to limp a bit which will hinder his manic style. Ray loads up a big right hand which misses leaving himself open to some jabs from Rickert, and the same thing happens shortly afterwards when Ray misses a right hook. With just over a minute left in the fight Ray misses a jab but follows it with another head kick which lands flush, and again Rickert is stunned! This time Rickert stumbles back against the cage and Ray follows up with another head kick which knocks him down! Ray starts unloading with punches to the grounded Rickert with most of them getting through, and the referee is forced to jump in and stop the fight. It was a really good performance from Rickert who has probably won himself some new fans despite his defeat, however it's Ray who walks away the winner thanks to those punishing head kicks. Winner: Tommy Ray (2-0) via TKO (Strikes) - 4:19 of Round 3 Fight Rating: Fantastic Post-Fight: Tommy thanks his sponsors and fans for their support, he says he is happy to fight whoever but also directly challenges Stephen Conti for a Lightweight title shot. Got to aim high, I guess, but I think he might be waiting a bit longer for that sort of opportunity. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fight #2 Lightweight Division <img alt="hsZKUhb.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/hsZKUhb.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /><img alt="qz1uyh4.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/qz1uyh4.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /><img alt="b6ncuMW.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/b6ncuMW.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /> Ryan Fenniman (5-1) vs. Cyril Kamoze (6-3) Kamoze cuts a significant amount of weight in order to get to 155 pounds, and he certainly looks to have a weight advantage in the cage. Fenniman starts the fight with an impressive four punch combination, but Kamoze responds with a jab/right hand combination of his own. After they take some time to size each other up Kamoze goes one better than Fenniman by landing a five punch combination, can anyone get to six? Fenniman hits a left/right combo, but as he backs away, he accidentally pokes Kamoze in the eye, and the referee suspends the fight while he has time to recover. Once we're back fighting Fennigan glances a kick off the head of Kamoze, he follows that with a couple of jabs, Kamoze fires back with a flurry of punches but can only get one of them to land. Kamoze continues to throw a lot of strikes but isn't able to connect with many of them, Fenniman throws smaller combinations which land, but don't look to be doing much damage. An entertaining first round ends with another four punch combination from Kamoze, but a big right hand misses its target. The second round starts with Fennigan landing a decent leg kick, but Kamoze responds with a pair of jabs and a head kick which catches Fennigan on the side of the head and sends him down! Fennigan looks to recover but Kamoze is on him too quickly, trapping him in amount and landing hard punches to the head. Those punches take away Fennigan's chance to recover and he is left just lying there trying to cover up, and that forces the referee to stop the fight! Cyril Kamoze wins his MMA debut, and its two losses in a row for Ryan Fennigan who many thought was going to a talent to look out for. Winner: Cyril Kamoze (7-3) via TKO (Strikes) - 0:43 of Round 2 Fight Rating: Great Post-Fight: Cyril Kamoze is his usual charismatic self as he thanks his sponsors and fans, he also gives credit to Ryan Fenniman for being a tough opponent, I guess he's already forgiven him for the eye poke then. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fight #3 Welterweight Division <img alt="RofNiH3.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/RofNiH3.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /><img alt="qz1uyh4.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/qz1uyh4.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /><img alt="0g4exOI.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/0g4exOI.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /> Paul Duffell (23-16) vs. Ethan LeGrange (10-0) After the excitement striking action of the previous two fights this one seems to be a bit more sedate, LeGrange lands a left cross to start and Duffell lands a jab, but other than that there isn't much action to speak of. Things pick up when LeGrange connects with a spin kick, Duffell then lands a one-two combination, and follows that up with a second one shortly afterwards. Duffell goes for a bigger punch but ends up getting countered with a LeGrange jab and a roundhouse kick to the ribs. LeGrange connects with another good body kick but missing a spinning back kick, he is at least bringing in some entertainment with his flamboyant strikes, and he is able to land another body kick before the round ends. The second round begins slowly as neither fighter lands a meaningful shot until LeGrange hits another body kick over a minute in, LeGrange misses a left allowing Duffell to counter with one of his own, before Duffell avoids another LeGrange spinning kick. Halfway into the round LeGrange scores with another body kick which must be starting to cause Duffell some problems now, he follows that up with a jab/left hand combination. Yet another body kick lands for LeGrange, and moments later he lands a spin kick to the body for good measure. There is a noticeable welt on the side of Duffell, but he carries on going, he avoids the next body kick from LeGrange at least but there's still time in the round for LeGrange to hit one more. LeGrange has certainly been oustriking Duffell throughout so you'd think Duffell would need a finish in the final round, he starts throwing some bigger punches but LeGrange has no problem in avoiding them and hitting another body kick. Duffell is starting to look very tired, those body kicks cause stamina loss just as much as damage to the ribs, and after a period of inactivity from both fighters LeGrange decides to take the fight into a clinch and Duffell can do nothing to stop him. LeGrange backs Duffell against the cage and traps him there for a while, he is relatively active though with some dirty boxing and some uppercuts, as well as some knees to the body and the occasional elbow. Despite LeGrange landing quite a few strikes the referee decides to intervene and bring them back to the centre of the cage, perhaps in a last ditch attempt to make this fight interesting, but it doesn't take long for LeGrange to clinch again, and the remainder of the fight is spent against the cage with LeGrange continuing to land more punches and knees. We go to the judges for their decision, and it's a fairly simple one to make. All three score the fight 30-27 to Ethan LeGrange, not the most entertaining of fights but LeGrange got the job done. Winner: Ethan LeGrange (11-0) via Unanimous Decision (30-27 x3) Fight Rating: Average Post-Fight: Ethan LeGrange thanks his team, Strike Force, for getting him prepared for the fight. He also says he is enjoying his time in the UK and thanks the British fans. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fight #4 Middleweight Division <img alt="vGf20QN.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/vGf20QN.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /><img alt="qz1uyh4.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/qz1uyh4.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /><img alt="UnsxSFV.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/UnsxSFV.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /> Scott Houghton (1-0) vs. Wederson de Oliveira (8-1) It feels like Houghton is so out of his depth here it's not even funny, but he has proven he has one hit knock out power so there's always a chance. Wederson is the one moving forward to start the fight, he throws a couple of strikes which Houghton avoids, Houghton then connects with a couple of left hands before Wederson lands a jab/cross combination. A minute into the fight the inevitable finally happens, Wederson shoots in for a takedown, Houghton does well to defend it initially but Wederson keeps hold of him and presses him against the cage. From there Wederson executes a leg trip and that gets Houghton down to the floor with Wederson in half guard. Wederson moves through into the mount in under fifteen seconds, and that allows him to set up for an armbar. Houghton doesn't have the skills to defend against a BJJ expert and the armbar gets locked in deep, leaving Houghton with no choice but to tap out to save his arm. Wederson de Oliveira takes a simple victory, and if you had said "Wederson de Oliveira wins by submission" before the fight started you weren't exactly making a bold prediction. Winner: Wederson de Oliveira (9-1) via Submission (Armbar) - 2:40 of Round 1 Fight Rating: Great Post-Fight: Dave White gets his first job of the evening translating for Wederson, he thanks his family, friends and fans and says he is happy to start his Bulldog MMA career with a win. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fight #5 Welterweight Division <img alt="HowKceL.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/HowKceL.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /><img alt="qz1uyh4.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/qz1uyh4.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /><img alt="amTKiIK.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/amTKiIK.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /> Roy Lynch (9-9) vs. Roger Quince (1-1) Lynch starts the fight with a nice jab/hook combination, but he is soon having to defend himself from a takedown attempt by Quince. Lynch sprawls well though to prevent Quince from securing the takedown, then lands a jab and a straight right whilst Quince is trying to get away. Lynch continues to hold the advantage in striking by landing a left hand and a right to the body, following that with a right hand and a jab but missing with a big right. Lynch lands another couple of jabs and another body shot, and at the halfway point of the round Quince hasn't actually thrown a strike yet. That changes when he lands a jab, and uses that to move in for another takedown, however again Lynch is up to the task of defending it by sprawling and then moving out of range. Lynch connects with a left/right combination and follows that with a jab and a right cross, his next attempt at a combination misses though giving Quince the opportunity to move in, and instead of a double leg takedown he chooses to clinch with Lynch instead. This allows Quince to use his judo skills which are far superior to his standard wrestling skills, and a simple judo throw is enough to get Lynch to the ground with Quince in side control. Now in a position of dominance Quince wastes little time in going for an armbar, and he is able to sink it in deeply without any trouble, Lynch is left with no choice but to tap out pretty quickly, and just like that the fight is over. You have to wonder why Quince took so long to use his judo skills, but he got there in the end and takes home his first Bulldog MMA victory. Winner: Roger Quince (2-1) via Submission (Armbar) - 4:44 of Round 1 Fight Rating: Great Post-Fight: Quince takes the time to thank his sponsors and supporters, he then praises Lynch for his skill and toughness, which is nice. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Co-Main Event Lightweight Division <img alt="0Unoq06.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/0Unoq06.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /><img alt="qz1uyh4.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/qz1uyh4.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /><img alt="Uxr55Se.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/Uxr55Se.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /> Dominick Oppenheimer (6-4) vs. Jonjo Whiteley (5-1) Based on how these two fight the expectation coming in was for a fast-paced strike-fest, and the opening minute showcases that with both fighters engaging and landing some strikes, it's Oppenheimer who lands the most including a nice three punch combination. After that though the fight settles down and things almost grind to a halt, both fighters seem to be more interested in waiting to counter the other than make the first move, with Oppenheimer the only one to break that tactic with the occasional flurry of punches. When Whiteley does throw a strike, it is countered by Oppenheimer, and that seemingly makes Whiteley over-cautious about making the first move. The round winds down with Oppenheimer landing another flurry of punches, but neither fighter throws anything with any real power behind it. Whiteley is definitely more aggressive to start the second round, but again Oppenheimer is too quick for him and is able to counter a missed right cross with a jab/cross combination. Whiteley tries the same a few moments later and gets the exact same counter back before a missed right hook allows Oppenheimer to counter with some jabs and a body kick. That spells the ends of Whiteley's aggressive tactics and he reverts to waiting for Oppenheimer to move first, unfortunately for Whiteley he can't avoid Oppenheimer's precise combinations, he lands a five punch combo and follows that with a double-jab/hook flurry. In the final minute of the round Whiteley again misses a hook and gets countered by a hook from Oppenheimer, and Oppenheimer is able to land another five hit combination before the round ends. Whiteley is being counter-struck to defeat here and needs to do something to get things going his way, unfortunately Oppenheimer starts the final round by landing a quick six punch combination. For the first half of the round Whiteley continues to let Oppenheimer move forward waiting to counter, however Oppenheimer doesn't give him the opportunity to counter by being accurate enough to land his punches. Whiteley finally lands a decent shot with a powerful fight hook, Oppenheimer even does the "I'm smiling to pretend that didn't hurt" routine when it obviously did, Oppenheimer lands a left kick to the body, Whiteley responds with another right hook but can't follow that up with a kick himself. In the final minute Whiteley is much more aggressive again as he hunts down Oppenheimer knowing he needs a finish to win, but Oppenheimer manages to stay alert and keep himself out of trouble. Whiteley lands the final punch of the fight with a right cross but it doesn't do enough damage to make a difference. We head to the judges for their decision, two of them give Whiteley the final round which he probably deserved, but the scores of 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28 are all in favour of Dominick Oppenheimer who takes the victory. Winner: Dominick Oppenheimer (7-4) via Unanimous Decision (30-27, 29-28 x2) Fight Rating: Good Post-Fight: Oppenheimer gives the standard interview response, thanks his sponsors, thanks his fans, he's happy to win his debut, and he's looking forward to his next fight. It's like they're all reading off a template tonight. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Main Event Light Heavyweight Division <img alt="zygyrUL.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/zygyrUL.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /><img alt="qz1uyh4.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/qz1uyh4.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /><img alt="qsMg40O.png" data-src="https://i.imgur.com/qsMg40O.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /> Gustavo Spagnol (6-2) vs. Neville Granville (6-3) Granville gets a good reception from his fellow Northerners in attendance, his game plan is pretty simple here; he has got to do some damage to Spagnol before the Brazilian can get close enough to take him down. Spagnol does move in early but Granville catches him with a left jab and a right to the body, then follows that up with a jab and a right cross. So far, so good for Granville, however that was only the first thirty seconds of the fight. Forty seconds into the fight and Spagnol has shot in for a takedown and successfully gets Granville to the ground, even landing in side control for good measure. Spagnol immediately starts working for submissions, first he attempts a kimura which Granville is able to defend, then applies an armbar which looks to be in tight until Granville is able to get his arm free at the last moment, Spagnol is able to maintain side control though. Spagnol goes back to working for the kimura, and this time he is able to get the hold fully applied! Granville quickly taps out, knowing the writing was very much on the wall, and is probably a bit relieved that Spagnol didn't feel the need to use his brutal ground strikes to finish the fight. It's an impressive victory for Spagnol which immediately makes him a contender in the not-very-stacked Light Heavyweight division. Winner: Gustavo Spagnol (7-2) via Submission (Kimura) - 2:35 of Round 1 Fight Rating: Great Post-Fight: Dave White heads back into the cage to provide translation for Spagnol, who thanks his sponsors and the fans (of course), before calling out Allen LeFleur, the undefeated Canadian fighter. He then attempts what could best be described as "bad comedy", as Dave tries to translate whatever Spagnol is saying and it's really not working. This is very much a "stick to the script" situation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Show Details Attendance: 183 Critical Rating: 75% Commercial Rating: 29% Popularity Changes: United Kingdom: +0.8% South America: +0.6% Europe: -0.1% Russia: -0.1% Central America: -0.1% United States: -0.1% Canada: -0.1% Africa: -0.1% Australia: -0.1% Mexico: -0.1% Asia: -0.1% Japan: -0.1% Fight Awards Fight of the Night: Duey Rickert vs. Tommy Ray Knock Out of the Night: Cyril Kamoze Submission of the Night: Gustavo Spagnol Income Gate: $16,126 Sponsorship: $11,975 Merchandise: $2,314 Expenditure Fighter Pay: $26,667 Drug Testing: $5,600 Production: $3,369 Total: -$5,221 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other News - GAMMA have made a move to sign Heiji Endo, one of ALPHA-1's premier Middleweights, who is in the last month of his current contract with the Japanese company. If GAMMA are successful in signing him it would be the first time a major native star has moved from his home company to the overseas competitor. - GAMMA continued their hiring spree by signing Chuck Dooley away from his Bulldog MMA contract and into their exclusive control. BMMA tried to match their offer, but the American juggernaut had far more resources at their disposal, and Dooley had never fully moved across the Atlantic as he was still training in Canada. Dooley had been scheduled to fight at the next Brawl show, but after his decision to leave the BMMA management cancelled the fight and released him from his contract early. His scheduled opponent, Gary Goodbody, will be found a new opponent for a future show. - In response BMMA have signed Ruben Rua and Mathieu Aumont. A relatively quiet fortnight on the signings front. - Brazilian legend Zaco has retired from MMA following his defeat at the last ALPHA-1 show. With an astonishing record of 47-16 he has more than earned the chance to hang up his gloves and have a rest. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Shows Saturday, Week 1 of September <blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="48581" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>BCF CROWN NEW LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION Niko Soldo, the 4th highest ranked Light Heavyweight in the world, has done what most expected him to do and stormed his way to the BCF Light Heavyweight title in his third fight with the company. For the second fight in a row he won with the final shot coming from a body kick, his brutal kicks doing enough damage for his opponent, this time Fabian Schar, to have to stop fighting. There surely can't be anyone in the country able to stop him... ... Unless Tikhon Diev can be that man, the Russian is now 13-0 after choking out Danko Jelavic, who was unconscious before he even had a chance to submit. A duel between Soldo and Diev must be coming, and it should be a heck of a fight. The other big fight was the BCF debut of former BMMA Heavyweight champion Aston Merryman, however he found himself suffering his first defeat at the hands of Roope Kuqi by split decision. Elsewhere on the card there were wins for Mike Shearer who defeated Max Rebottaro, and Mills Mullally who beat Timothy Latchkey. Again, the BCF were only able to get a card with five fights together and given how many fighters there are in the UK at the moment it's hard to understand why they don't have enough people available.</div></blockquote> SIGMA: Crumb vs. Halle Templeton Crumb def. Jens Halle to win the vacant SIGMA Welterweight title Jozef Jankowski def. Stratos Papaioannnou Filip Hristov def. Willem van Ommen Lubos Plasil def. Folke Dalen Nestor Morozov def. Makhak Kirakosyan Casim Yenkini def. Omar Calvert (in a Fantastic rated 3 round war) Bastian Neske def. Malcolm Stew (Annoying that both BMMA fighters who I accidentally let SIGMA book both lost. So I've approached both the people that beat them, naturally.) Saturday, Week 2 of September GAMMA 61: Potter vs. Ryan Hanley Potter def. Kel Ryan to retain the GAMMA Super Heavyweight title Helio def. Fiyero Lermontov to win the GAMMA Lightweight title Lars-Gunnar Ekberg def. Christopher Sharp David Allen def. Delroy Rhodes Warren Scumboon def. Jarno Zijlstra Tarcisio Dantas def. Luis Basora Ramon da Silva Ramos def. Ashley Ballard KDM FC 28: Sik vs. Huat Chan Kim Huat def. Min-Soo Sik to win the KDM FC Lightweight title Michael Tsay def. Ahmed Mohamed Farag Ramin Boloorizadeh def. Ronald Chen Tossapol Puangchan def. Ryozo Ozawa Tilly Hall def. Noel Chai Teeratep Nutnum def. Kazuy Chano Sunday, Week 2 of September WEFF 33: Arroway vs. Page Alyson Arroway def. Kirsten Page Alison Beattie def. Katherine Williams Honey Due def. Hazel McClay Honor O'Neill def. Diana Marr Samantha Sachs def. Rose Nessa Chelsea Lawson def. Alisha Wood Friday, Week 3 of September ALPHA-1: Fezzik vs. Arai II Hassan Fezzik def. Hiro Arai to retain the ALPHA-1 Heavyweight title Heiji Endo def. Zaco Fukusaburu Hirano def. Simon Vine Khru Duangjan def. Elzo Alves Moura Yosheetora Kanegawa def. Washi Siganori Will Kane def. Jin Yamanes</div>

Chris2K · September 26, 2020

*ring ring*

Jerome: "What do you want?"

Harry: "Oh you know, thought I'd give my former boss a ring, see how things are going. Ask how those fighters you've poached from us are getting on."

Jerome: "Well firstly, things are going great, the BCF has had its most profitable quarter in our history thanks to our PPV shows. You might not know what profit is, it's when you run a show and you're not running around afterwards looking for loose change on the ground to pay your fighters with."

Harry: "I'm well aware of profit thanks, our TV shows bring in a healthy profit every time."

Jerome: "Well that's not really your money is it, it's what your TV network feels like giving you. Since TV viewing figures became an impossibility to register nobody really knows what numbers to work from."

Harry: "Yes, it is weird how the ability to calculate viewing figures was suddenly forgotten by the human race on one Thursday in 2001."

Jerome: "You're telling me. Anyway, run a show which people actually pay to watch then you can talk profit, rather than viewers leaving the TV on after watching something else. Secondly, the fighters we completely legally signed who were under no contractual obligation to stay at your company have not been faring well. My guess is that the huge step up in competition from your rinky-dink organisation has shown they're not ready to compete at our level."

Harry: "Profit is profit Jerome. I remember you mocking us about going out of business, offering me a deal to go back to fighting, but now Bulldog MMA is making money every month and we're only going to get stronger. And you're talking out of your backside, Aston Merryman is going to be a top star in the Heavyweight ranks and your first idea is to put him against someone who exploits his weaknesses and lose his undefeated record."

Jerome: "If he's as good as you think then he should have won the fight, simple as."

Harry: "Young fighters take time to develop, you should know thatm being the mega-promoter you claim to be."

Jerome: "There's no time to develop here Harry, it's the BCF, we're where the big boys play. There's no easy fights, no warm-ups, no lesser talent to feed to young up-and-comers, every fight are two warriors. If you want to challenge us you're going to have to realise that the fans care about rankings and champions, not wins and losses or what might happen two-three months down the line."

Harry: "Well that's where we disagree. Obviously we want to put on the best fights in the present, but looking to the future is just as important. We've got a really strong base of young fighters with great potential but we're not going to throw the strongest ones at each other right away."

Jerome: "That's madness. This is MMA, you can't control the outcomes, one upset loss and your big start of the future has lost every bit of hype they ever had. Anyway, I don't know why I'm giving you advice, but thanks for letting me know about those young fighters and their potential, I'll make sure our guys give them a call and offer them a spot with us. You know they won't turn us down, or you'll bankrupt yourselves trying to keep them."

Harry: "You keep making these threats, yet we keep on getting stronger both financially and in our footing in the MMA world. We're not going anywhere, and I think you're finally starting to realise that now."

Jerome: "You're forgetting that we're growing every day as well, and as far behind as you are now is the same distance you'll always be. There's nothing you can do to overtake us, and maybe you're the one who should start realising that."

Harry: "We'll see. Goodbye Jerome. Pleasure chatting, as always."

------------------------------------------

Press Release

by Mike Thomson

BULLDOG BRAWL 3 TO CROWN NEW BMMA HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION

Bulldog MMA return for the third installment of their TV show on Euro Cable Sport 1, and due to the ever-growing roster for the British company they have been able to expand their card to 8 fights, with 1 preliminary fight and 7 on the show itself. Headlining this show will be the crowning of the second Bulldog MMA Heavyweight champion, Vitor de Melo takes on Hayden Ellery to see who takes home the title that Aston Merryman vacated back in May.

The only preliminary fight on the card will be in the Lightweight division as BMMA newcomer Kevin Sponge (3-0), and what a name that is, takes on Duane Kyle (0-1). The wonderfully named Mr. Sponge arrives in Bulldog MMA from Canada where he has competed on the regional scene, and during the three fights he had he stood out due to the flashy kicks he used. In many ways he's the Canadian Liu Kang. A trainee in taekwondo from an early age, Sponge is a very good striker and is happy to stand and trade with anyone no matter their reputation. This year he has fought twice at Canadian shows before he moved to the UK, both fights ended in head kick knock outs inside 2 minutes, so he definitely has power in those feet of his. Duane Kyle only started competing in MMA this year having previously had a successful time on the British amateur wrestling scene, but that doesn't pay anything (hence the amateur) so fighting was where he went. His grappling is unsurprisingly his strong point, his striking definitely isn't as was proven when he lost by second round TKO to Shawn McCarthy at BMMA 6. Kyle is going to need to improve the rest of his game quickly, particularly as he is already at a disadvantage by being a Featherweight having to fight up at Lightweight.

Starting off the main show will be a Light Heavyweight division match between two very talented fighters, Stephan de Winter (11-0) will take on Ranieri Fernanda (10-3). Stephan de Winter is considered one of the best counter-strikes in the world thanks to his lightning fast reflexes and hand speed, he also possesses good technique and power for good measure. When you also consider he has trained hard on his takedown defence to stop grapplers from getting him to the ground it seems like he has all the tools to be a major player. De Winter has been a regular in SIGMA over the last couple of years and has won all four fights there against Gavriil Sviridov, Jacob Matthaus, Nicolai Mickiewicz and Sebastian Pardo. Ranieri Fernanda is another one of the many Brazilians who has moved to the UK for more fighting opportunities, and he is one of the best ones to have arrived. Fernanda is a powerfully built man who is primarily a wrestler, his main tactic is to get in close with opponents and use his raw strength to overpower them. This game plan often results in Fernanda grinding out victories rather than getting finishes which doesn't make him a particular fan favourite, however his talent cannot be denied. Fernanda has fought twice in 2002 at South American shows, first a win over Oscarino Baptista, but he suffered a very surprising defeat to Magno Peres Arruda in his most recent fight.

The second fight on the main card will be in the Middleweight division when Frederico Vergara (8-0) takes on Edu Gattai (8-1). Frederico Vergara is one of Mexico's brightest young fighters, and given his look and talent many people are surprised that GAMMA have not snapped him up to help their attempt to build a stronger presence in the Latin American market. Vergara comes from a boxing background and utilises that to have very fast hands with decent power behind them, however he is one of the sensible fighters of the current generatiion who has trained significantly in all areas of MMA to fill the holes in his game. What might work against Vergara is that he hasn't fought in over 18 months, not even on a local Mexican show, so may be a bit rusty when he gets inside the cage. Edu Gattai is another immigrant from Brazil looking for more regular fights in the UK, he is one of the larger Middleweights around and could probably fight at Light Heavyweight without too much of a problem. He puts his bulk to good use with powerful punches and the ability to smother opponents with his grappling, however the disadvantage he has is that he is often outpaced by his opponents. He signed for Bulldog MMA almost as soon as he stepped off the plane and has fought once already, losing via decision in a close fight to Thom Billings, who is now in the BCF, at BMMA 6.

One of Europe's best Light Heavyweight prospects takes on a South American veteran next when Dag Kreuger (10-0) squares off Leandro Piquet (20-11). Dag Kreuger represents the future of Swedish MMA, taking over that mantle from Featherweight Lukas Mellberg, he is the true definition of a powerhouse fighter who uses his strength to set up his excellent takedowns, and once on the ground he has brutal ground and pound to finish the fight with. The remainder of his game is solid and consistent, and he has shown a truly Scandanavian level of coolness under pressure in his fights so far, if he is able to develop a striking game to a good level he is going to be a force to be reckoned with. Another SIGMA fighter, he has fought three times for the European company with wins over Andranik Paletilolu, Alekos Karabatsos and Emil Karlsson. Leandro Piquet is a veteran of Brazilian MMA heading back to the early days of FLB, and has a cult following in his homeland thanks to his flashy and unorthodox striking game usually providing a lot of entertainment for the fans. Piquet was considered an elite level Light Heavyweight during the peak of his career, but he has suffered a drastic decline in the last couple of years, going 1-5 in his last six fights for FLB, and suffering a defeat to fellow veteran Pedro Sousa on a South American show this year. This move to the UK might be the last chance Piquet has to rebuild his career.

It's an all Brazilian affair next when Teco (16-6) takes on Juan de Castro (10-1) in the Welterweight division. Teco is a fighter who loves to use a spectacular head kick to try and finish a fight, even if a simpler option would be more suitable. As well as the spectacular he tries to overwhelm his opponents with a high volume of kicks, and if you think this makes him sound one-dimensional, then you're right; he has very little in grappling skills. After arriving in the UK he immediately signed with Bulldog MMA, and fought against Thomas O'Cann at BMMA 6 in what may the biggest mis-match in MMA history. Naturally, Teco destroyed him in just 79 seconds. Juan de Castro is a solid fighter who comes from a Muay Thai background, that gives him the technique to be a dangerous striker and has some good power too, meaning he can do damage with strikes either standing or on the ground. What he certainly doesn't have is any grappling skills, and if he is put in a standard wrestling clinch or taken down he is pretty much done for. Having spoken to a South American journalist there are a lot of people who think his 10-1 record is more to do with clever match-making than his actual talent. He has fought once 2002, a win over Washington Nogueira Santos on a South American regional show, Santos being a 35 year old journeyman fighter, perhaps proving the point about the level of his opponents.

We're back in the Light Heavyweight division once more for the next fight as two undefeated fighters collide, Allen LeFleur (9-0) takes on Emerson Mori Nunes (3-0). Montreal's Allen LeFleur is one of Canada's biggest young talents, both in terms of ability and in size, he's not nicknamed the Chunky Monkey for nothing. A former wrestler, he uses his ability to cut significant weight to get down to the 205lb limit for Light Heavyweight, giving him a significant size and strength advantage over everyone else in the division. His wrestling skills are his biggest weapon, but he has trained hard in kick boxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu to make him a threat in most areas of the game. His wide skillset has been shown this year with two victories on the Canadian regional scene, one via TKO and one via submission. There is no questioning his talent, so realistically it is only a matter of time before one of the big two companies try to go for him. Emerson Mori Nunes is no small fry either, he would be the bigger man in most fights, just not against LeFleur, and he is very much a submission specialist with the armbar his go-to move in most situations, he can seemingly grab an arm and get an armbar applied from almost any position. As with most fighters who have such a primary focus the rest of his game has fallen way behind, and his striking skills are barely worth mentioning. His takedown defence is not great, but given his skill off his back that may actually work in his favour. Nunes has fought twice this year, both on South American shows, and both times scoring submission wins with first round armbars.

The co-main event sees two former BCF fighters find their way into a BMMA cage following their release from the "other" UK promotion, Tucker Plumm (17-12) will take on Augustus Shorrock (8-3) in the Middleweight division. It is hard to think of Tucker Plumm fighting outside of the BCF, he was their first ever Middleweight champion when he defeated Rob Baines all the way back in April 1996. He has good stand-up skills and loves throwing out a head kick, his grappling does not seem to have improved with age but he has studied to be able to defend himself against submissions on the ground. Winning the title was very much the peak of Plumm's career, he lost it to Davis Spyrou shortly afterwards and never even got another shot afterwards. Recently he has suffered losses to Hans-Peter Schneider, Snuffy Fontana and Ram Phookan, and his history with the BCF wasn't enough to stop them from cutting him. Augustus Shorrock also knows what it's like to be cut by the BCF, even if he wasn't there for half the time Plumm was. Shorrock's usual game plan is to use his power and grappling ability to get the fight to the ground, and from there pummel his opponent with ground and pound. This game plan is very much his only tactic, and as soon as he was put in with stronger fighters in the BCF it was quickly noted and his lack of striking ability was exploited. That said, he did win his BCF debut against Billy Fish, but subsequently lost to Ivor Orr and Snuffy Fontana before being cut despite his relatively strong record.

Finally the Main Event of the evening will crown a new BMMA Heavyweight champion as Vitor de Melo (8-1) takes on Hayden Ellery (4-0) fight over the currently vacant title. Vitor de Melo is yet another Brazilian now plying his trade in the UK, but he also may prove to be the best of the lot. Despite suffering a surprise loss to Raimundo Pinheiro in the dying days of FLB he is still a dangerous competitor due to his incredibly powerful punches, with that natural strength also transferring to his grappling ability. His only real weakness is if he ends up on his back, as was proven in the loss to Pinheiro, but if he is able to improve that facet of his game he will be a force for years to come. He earned this title opportunity by defeating Fritz Phipps with a brutal knock out BMMA 6 in a fight that many expected Phipps to win, but it was a display that catapulted him to the top of the Heavyweight rankings. Hayden Ellery began his MMA career more known for his talking and personality than his actual fighting, but in recent months he has shown himself to be perfectly cromulent in the cage as well as on the microphone. His preferred tactic is to get in close and tie his opponent up in a clinch, something he does to try and make up for the lack of striking skill he has despite training in kick boxing from an early age. His first fight in Bulldog MMA was a fairytale story, he was a late replacement for Fritz Phipps with only six days notice before the fight, but still was able to defeat Lachlen Bowen by first round TKO, evidently his kick boxing skills aren't completely gone. He has fought a second time in BMMA with a unanimous decision victory win over Henry Hooper at BMMA 7 in what was a Worst Fight of the Year contender due to the amount of clinching and lack of action, and by fighting here he will be the first person to have three BMMA fights.

BULLDOG BRAWL 3: DE MELO vs. ELLERY FIGHT CARD

Preliminary Card

Lightweight Division

Kevin Sponge (3-0) vs. Duane Kyle (0-1)

Main Card

Light Heavyweight Division

Stephan de Winter (11-0) vs. Ranieri Fernanda (10-3)

Middleweight Division

Frederico Vergara (8-0) vs. Edu Gattai (8-1)

Light Heavyweight Division

Dag Kreuger (10-0) vs. Leandro Piquet (20-11)

Welterweight Division

Teco (16-6) vs. Juan de Castro (10-1)

Light Heavyweight Division

Allen LeFleur (9-0) vs. Emerson Mori Nunes (3-0)

Co-Main Event

Middleweight Division

Tucker Plumm (17-12) vs. Augustus Shorrock (8-3)

MAIN EVENT

BMMA Heavyweight Title Match (vacant)

Vitor de Melo (8-1) vs. Hayden Ellery (4-0)

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Bulldog MMA - A True Underbulldog Story

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