Saturday, October 23, 2010
Liveblog: ROC 32 Part 3
Liam Kerrigan of Tong Dragon returns after a hard loss to Ed Guedes, and his foe is Evan Chmielski of Xtreme MMA. Kerrigan is like a runaway locomotive for this one, meeting Chmielski head on in an attempt to wrestle him to the ground. Though he winds up on bottom, the Tong Dragon rep slips on the omoplata, and when Chmielski defly work out of it, Kerrigan has the triangle locked tight. Chmielski goes to sleep at 1:51 of the first round. TSMMA's Mike Murray enters the cage to take on North Jersey MMA's Claudio Ledesma. Murray winds up on the bottom early, and though Ledesma lands some hard punches from above, the TSMMA bantamweight comes insanely close with a deep armbar and deep triangle. But Ledesma wisely stays out of submission range in Round 2, choosing instead to stand within Murray's guard and drop leather. Round 3 plays out in similar fashion, and though Murray manages to snake out onto Ledesma's back in the dying seconds of the fight, the North Jersey MMA rep escapes and takes the unanimous decision. AMA FC's Tim Troxell and MMA Institute's George Sheppard are now squaring off for a lightweight contest. These guys are content to strike and it's pretty even for about the first two and a half minutes. But Sheppard lands a right cross that stuns Troxell, and the ensuing follow up of fists has the ref stepping in at 2:33 or Round 1.
Liveblog: ROC 32 Part 2
First up at bat is TSMMA rep Melissa Bopp, who's making her MMA debut against Ashley Nee of Top Notch. Is she top notch? Or is Bopp going to bop her and she goes down? People, these jokes practically write themselves. Round 1 is mostly a Muay Thai battle as the two clinch and trade knees. But Bopp edges ahead with a lateral drop and some ground and pound. Round 2 is a carbon copy of the first, and it becomes evident that Bopp's biggest advantage is her takedowns and ability to punish from above. She continues with the ground assault in the third and easily cruises to a unanimous decision win. Next up is Chris Connor of MMA Institute vs. Giedrius Karavackas of LINK. When last we Karavackas he was getting laid out by red-hot prospect Chris Wing, but he's since won the Bellator tryouts, so we'll see if his momentum is truly angling towards the "win" zone. Round 1 is all about Karavackas throwing a kick and slipping and Connor seizing the opportunity to get on top. Time runs out with the two more or less stalemated on the ground. Karavackas makes no such mistake in the second though, and after some furious scrambling Karavackas gets on top and completely brutalizes Connor's ribs with punches and elbows. To his credit, Connor comes out swinging in Round 3, but it's the Karavackas Show, and the Lithuanian throws him to the canvas, beats on him, and secures an armbar with his legs at 2:46 of the round. A very dominant win.
Liveblog: ROC 32 Part 1
MMA Journalist is here at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City for ROC 32 - a bastion of legitimate martial competition in a sea of kung fu, body building and what I think is a tanning contest. That's right, folks, there's some sort of expo going on here, so for every skilled true believer in the MMA way strolling by, there's about six lunatics who think their chi or a well-timed flex of their glutes will stop a takedown. In short, it's marvelous. Anyway, hold tight for 11 MMA bouts featuring the likes of John Cholish, Tim Troxell, Munah Holland and Melissa Bopp (and then maybe a post-show brawl where 22 MMA fighters kill a thousand kung fu dudes).
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