Saturday, March 28, 2009

Liveblog: Mayhem at the Marina Part 4

Jay Silva of Team Rampage and Mike Johnson of Fight Factory make their way to the cage. Silva has Jorge "Macaco" Patino in his corner, while Johnson seems to have an entire Philly neighborhood on his side. Silva comes out taunting Johnson, daring him to trade with him, so of course Johnson engages in a grappling contest with him, the two trading positions and sub attempts and Silva getting the better of them. Silva gets his wish in Round 2, though, and after tagging Johnson repeatedly in the face he plants a knee to the ribs that has Johnson crumpling to the canvas. Silva wins via TKO at 1:26 of the round. Next up: Tim Bradley, who is apparently some badass wrestler from out west, against Steve DeAngelis of Team Pellegrino. DeAngelis seems to have superpowers, as all he needs to do to make Bradley verbally submit is to chill out in Bradley's guard and somehow pop the wrestler's rib. It's over at 1:50, and I'm not sure DeAngelis even broke a sweat. Last bout of the night and it's Tara LaRosa and Sally Krumdiack. Of course every opponent is a challenge, but will Krumdiack challenge LaRosa "extremely"? (See what I did there?) Not so much in Round 1, as LaRosa takes her down and pummels her intermittently for the duration. Round 2 is just like the first, while in the final round LaRosa punches Krumdiack in the face a couple times before taking her down and tapping her out with a keylock at 1:25. And that's it.

Liveblog: Mayhem at the Marina Part 3

It's time for Kevin Roddy of Team Pellegrino vs. Biff Walizer of Lionheart MMA. Once again, Roddy is firing off sub attempts like a Marine SAW gunner firing off rounds at Taliban irregulars, but Walizer dodges them all and punishes him return. Round 2, however, is when Roddy finally finds his groove, as he rocks Walizer on the feet then nails the triangle off a scramble. The official time of the tap out is 3:19 of the second round, and Roddy proves he's still got it. Schnake is in the cage introducing some Airforce "Special Forces" dude, and the Airman is pitching the US Airforce. Special Forces? Are they called in when the bird crap on the runway gets too fierce? I kid! Next up are Rich Edwards of Gold Team Fighters and Team Pellegrino's Dave Church. This is Edwards' first pro fight, and Church's only pro bout was a loss to Greg Soto about 10 years ago, so, um, yeah, I don't know what my point was. Oh wait, Richards favors boxing and Church grappling. How does this one play out? Church gets Edwards down, nearly gets him with a guillotine, then after a scramble gets Edwards with a head/arm choke at 2:29. Matt Kocher of some school in Pennsylvania and Troy Maxwell of Extreme Performance are up. I'm tempted to go up to Kocher and ask him if he only eats Kosher foods, but I don't think it would be well-received. Round 1 is pretty back-and-forth, with Kocher landing a hip toss and working for an RNC, and Maxwell almost hitting an RNC and some ground-and-pound. Round 2 has Kocher running out of gas and Maxwell beating him up standing and getting the RNC at 2:51.

Liveblog: Mayhem at the Marina Part 2

"Big" Poppa Schnake is announcing tonight and it truly is utter mayhem here at the Marina. Okay, not really. First bout is Pat White vs. Mervin Rodriguez, a featherweight match-up between two guys who weigh very little and probably eat a fraction of what normal-sized humans eat. Round 1 is all about Rodriguez beating the living hell out of White from every position possible, and while White manages to hang in there and even reverse at one point, he takes some serious punishment. The second round is more of the same until Rodriguez snags the armbar at 4:31. Dominant performance. Now it's Daniel Straus from Cincinatti taking on Lester Caslow of Kurt Pellegrino's Academy of Coolness. Straus' entrance music is an esoteric Queen song called "Keep Yourself Alive", which means he's either a fan of obscure classic rock or flamboyantly gay. Hmmm... he doesn't look gay. As usual, Caslow's entrance involves young girls swooning and throwing their panties into the cage. The opening round sees Caslow almost put his opponent to sleep with an arm-in guillotine, almost snag an armbar and punish him with knees on the feet. Straus gets some licks in, but I give it to the Team Pellegrino fighter. Things slow considerably in the second round, as an exhausted Caslow finds himself on the bottom losing the positional war. Round 3 is close, with both men scoring takedowns and blasting each other on the feet, and when time runs out the judges have the unenviable job of having to pick a winner. They pick Straus via split decision. That one seriously could have gone either way. Maciej Linke of Gold Team Fighters against Jeff Lentz of Rhino Fight Team are up. Linke is a Mundial winner or something, and from my vantage point I can see one of his cornermen praying and crossing himself. Hey, that's not fair bringing God into this. Wow, okay, I guess Lentz's purple belt courtesy of Carmine Zocchi is enough to keep him out of trouble, as he avoids Linke's ground game to drop bombs to knock Linke out. Linke is left unconscious on the mat at 1:45 of Round 1. Very impressive.

Liveblog: Mayhem at the Marina Part 1

MMA Journalist is cageside for Extreme Challenge's "Mayhem at the Marina", a Monte Cox event at Atlantic City's Trump Marina. This is the first New Jersey MMA show to take place at the Trump Marina, and the cage is set up in the ballroom of a casino full of elderly people and what I think may be zombies (or they could be just really old people). So, yeah, Trump Marina seems to be where old gamblers go to die. Here's hoping tonight's show doesn't give them heart attacks. Anyway, Tara LaRosa came in at 125 pounds, which is pretty light for her. Jay Silva is chilling with the Gold Team Fighters crew - I guess he's one of them now. Sally Krumdiak is pretty small, and up close it's apparent she does indeed have eyebrows (they're just very light).