Thursday, June 16, 2011

Raw Combat YouTube Page

Raw Combat YouTube page here. Think of it as a visual aid.

Epic ROC 36 Card is Epic

Friday night, another Ring of Combat installment, Pete Sell, Al Iaquinta, Sean Santella, about seventeen fights.  Woo.  There are epic cards – once, Ed Hsu put together an amateur card that had 43 bouts and lasted until 3:00am – and there are epic cards, where there are a ton of fights and just about all of them are worthy of attention.  ROC 36 is the latter.  So sit back, relax, and enjoy this preview of a select number of the anticipated matchups.

  • Pete Sell vs. Elijah Harshbarger – UFC vet Sell returns after two years of sitting on the sidelines cheering on other Team Serra/Longo fighters.  Opponent Harshbarger is going to try to out-wrestle and out-jiu-jitsu him.  Will he succeed?  No!
  • Al Iaquinta vs. Gabriel Miglioli – The experienced, undefeated and well-rounded Iaquinta returns as well, though his hiatus was only a year and a half long and was due to his holy mission to spread the word of Christ to the natives of the isolated Pacific island of Wakandu.  Miglioli is overmatched here, and will tap to a… wait for it… crucifix.
  • Claudio Ledesma vs. Aljamain Sterling – Sterling is one tough cat, but Ledesma is a hard-hitting, aggressive jiu-jitsu hunting dog that will chase him up a tree and bite him if he dares come down.
  • Sean Santella vs. Tito Jones – Santella is one the best “little” fighters in the Northeast.  Jones is going to die.
  • Munah Holland vs. Marissa Caldwell – TSMMA’s Holland debuted strong when she defeated Kim Couture, but Justine Kish put the kibosh on that win streak.  Expect her to rebound by battering Caldwell until the bitter end.
  • Carlos Eduardo vs. Arsen Tlisov – Funny story about Eduardo.  He was a product of Brazil’s local fight circuit, and they’ve never even heard of the Unified Rules down there, so in his first fight in the US (Extreme Challenge 78 in 2007), he soccer kicked Lewis Pascavage in the head like it was nothing.  Boy, I’ve never seen Nick Lembo so mad.
  • Mervin Rodgriguez vs. Jason McLean – McLean got a gift decision against Kevin Roddy at Strikeforce earlier in the year, but he’ll find no such luck against Rodriguez, who is going to stuff all his takedowns and punish him against the fence.
  • Jimbo Hoffman vs. Mike Benoit – HOFFMAN SMASH!  GRRR!
  • James Jenkins vs. Steve Perez – This is a great match-up.  On one side, you have Jenkins, who’s proven to be both a capable striker and able submission’s guy, and on the other you have Perez, who fights like Clay Guida hopped up on meth.