Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Aggressive Combat Championship Primer

Confession time: I have a rare medical condition that requires that I see live fights at least once every few weeks. Yes, it's true. It's a condition I've had for years now, and because of my illness, I've ended up attending everything from nice, big Ring of Combats in Atlantic City to intimate UCLs in basement boxing gyms in Washington Heights to ill-advised fist-fights in the park. Of course, Muay Thai at the Mecca the week before last did me some good, but the symptoms - the fever, hacking cough, slight coating of fur growing on my palms and my cursing in Yiddish - are returning. What do, WHAT DO?

Thankfully, Aggressive Combat Sports has an event on Saturday night on Long Island, at a boxing gym called Heavy Hitters in a town called Bohemia (yes, that's a real place - I've passed through it many times en route to the idyllic shores of Fire Island). It is, remarkably, a sanctioned show (USMTA, thank you very much), and the menu is set to include bouts of the Muay Thai, American Kickboxing, Combat Jiu-Jitsu and Submission Grappling variety. There's even a theme to the card, which is Long Island versus Hudson Valley. I also know that UCL vet Doug "Lionheart" Ahammer is supposed to fight, as is the esteemed James Funaro, so hey, bonus, right?

Other facts: the organization holds events north of NYC and in Connecticut (UCL fight Smash Evans fought at a recent one in Connecticut and KO'd his opponent), and somehow the league is related to Jerry Mendez and his Aggressive Shoot Championship event, which took place in Queens back in 2005 and featured JA Dudley, Carmine Zocchi and Tom Velasquez. I don't know much more than that, but that's cool. I'm going be there on Saturday, gathering facts and taking in the fights, and my rare illness will be kept at bay for another week.

I hope.