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Cage Rage 26; i went on a whim, then wrote about it
Yo scroll down to the first bolded underlined bit if you just want the results
Cage Rage were in town tonight, and my buddy and I decided to roll up and buy us some tickets. It's my first live event, and it turned out to be a great night of fights with some random cool shit happening to me.
Got me a cool cage rage tee-shirts. I likes it a lot.
Michael Bisping and his misses were essentially guests of honour at the event. During the interval, I saw him get up to walk around the commercial part of the NEC Arena..
Of course when I got there, he was surrounded by 'tards with camera phones, none of whom seemed able to take a picture in less than 3 minutes. Goddamn thumbless throwbacks. Finally I got to shake his hand, and ask him about the latest Leben clown show. He was sharp and the point saying to me “He's out...and I'm pissed off”. I wasn't surprised, he was surrounded by tarded grins and infrequent illuminations that happened when the stopped clocks were right. I left to him to his fate, and headed to the bar for a swift ale.
Ross Pointon got booed for escaping an armbar and voiding the hometown boy's sub attempts. I almost left in a bout of rage because this clearly was a massive improvement from Ross and some of the crowd were just being wamkers. Seriously, booing a great fight at an MMA event should be rewarded with being made to dig your own deep grave before you're shot in it.
After that bullshit, Brad “One Punch” Pickett was up in the stands chatting with fans that had traveled from his ends. Fortunately for me, we were sat right in front of them Desperately needing the cut above his right eye stitched, he took the time to chill with the fans, get hugged by a very drunk old man, and graciously accept compliments on his excellent head movement from some random guy. Possibly from the guy writing this right now. Probably. It was sweet tho, pretty much nullified his opponents Paul Reed's reach advantage when they were in stand up phases.
In between some the fights, a little pre-recorded analysis piece from the Fight Professor was played on the big screens. Whenever this happened, I stood and took up the lonely chant of “Ste-ven...Ste-ven” and clapped his appearance. I think the people that witnessed me must have thought I was some crazed, messed up dude that had no idea what i was doing or what was going on. How wrong they were; I knew exactly.
Fights.
Harvey Harra Vs. Gary Kelly
If you are one of the twits that didn't bother to get to the show up on time to see the prelims, punch yourself in the nuts. This quickly hit the ground, and to my surprise no one booed at all. I remember myself vaguely entertaining the notion that the event might be boo-free, but sadly I was in the midst of the more hardcore early fans that had a clue. Oh well. Kelly attempted to choke Harra out, but quickly dropped his catch and fell into his opponents guard. His lack of positional awareness cost him the fight, as Harra was allowed to retake guard and then pull Kelly in a neat triangle choke which quickly became a triangle arm bar and finished the fight in the first. A give-me for Harra.
Edgelson Lua Vs. Chris Rice:
The Edge was a game, but ridiculously overmatched turkey to be cooked by the home team hero Chris Rice. Rice's vocal fans weren't disappointed, as the green belt wearing karate practitioner he faced in “The Edge” couldn't box or submit a cadavar. His hands looked like he was about to close grip bench press, and his method of dodging strikes to the face was to snap his head back a little- which probably works well for him in dojo slap-tap point sparring, in the cage, he just got hit. To be fair, he had limited kicking ability that was enough to stop Rice from destroying him on the feet and attempted a ankle hold in the second round. However, Rice finished him in the third with a armbar Lua just gave him, after the second round ended with Rice rolling from a kneebar to a heelhook and back again before the bell went. It looked the Edge's knee was in dire need of surgery as he struggled to his corner. It's a shame really, Edgelson was obviously durable and pushed the pace, and most likely would be pretty handy in the fight game if he trained in an effective manner. Rice should be congratulated for not letting the pressure of the fans mentally screw up his fight in this event, but his victory won't put him in anyone's top ten lists despite its decisiveness. Like a Pride mismatch, this was a strangely engaging and entertaining battle.
Kev Simms vs Popek Rak:
Polish gangsta vs 40 year old nfl player. Um...ended quickly, Kev Sims lost by quick ref stoppage after being pounded by the cage. Popek was visibly moved by his fans support, the Polish community in Birmingham were joined by Brummies in massive cheering and stomping at his entrance and victory.
The Polish fans were awesome thruout this event. They applauded sweeps, counters and sub transitions and takedowns , clapped off the losers and displayed serious class later by applauding a guy who beat one of their countryman. Good lads, the lot of them.
Paul Reed Vs. Brad Pickett:
Those of you with ball ache, punch yourself in the nuts again.
Beautiful fight. Pickett's boxing prowess and sickeningly good head movement and footwork meant the powerful and much bigger Paul Reed couldn't land much other than stiff jabs as he backed up or Pickett re-set. Reed's hand s were heavy tho, causing mad damage above Pickett's right eye. In the first round Pickett smacked Paul around and once he sat him down quickly pounced with strikes before taking his back and trying for the RNC. Stood up after failure, the exchanges and clinch attempts from Reed were met with a superman punch (one of five from Pickett in this fight) and a takedown into side control. From there Pickett passed with little effort to full mount before the end of the round.
In the second after being taken down by the ginger ninja Reed, One Punch stood up as if the larger Reed was a small child clinging to him. He goes on to pick him apart whilst generally looking like he's been possessed by Ali and Sugar Ray.
This remained the case in the final turn, tho the stunning standup display was punctuated by a spectacular flying knee and the fight ended with Pickett taking the fight to ground to be re-set for the few last seconds. Decision victory for Pickett. Later in the stands, he responded to a fan's appreciation for the jumping attack by saying, “Well, I wanted to finish him!”. Wicked fight. Fans loved it. I loved it.
Henrique Nogueira Vs. Marc Goddard
This fight was a draw. Uninspiring, but it was one of those fights where you can't fault the fighters for being equal in skill. Really was straight down the middle but I can't bring to mind what happened exactly. Still, it wasn't terrible.
Mark Epstein Vs. Matt Ewin:
I could relive the Beast losing this fight, but I'm not going to torture myself for anybody. Suffice to say, I'm a little unhappy about the result.
Ross Mason Vs. Ross Pointon:
Ross “Submissions are silly” Pointon beasted the local fighter Ross the Boss Mason in a fight which constitutes a formal proof of Darwin's Theory of Evolution. The Gladiator outstruck Mason in the opening seconds and then went to ground with his opponent on bottom. From his guard Mason thrust up his hips and hit an armbar. Fight over at this point you'd think as the armbar is Pointon's green kryptonite , but the Gladiator postures up sharply and removes the offending elbow from between Mason's legs with the quickness to put himself in control of the legs he's escaped. Dude swiftly drops into a perfect heelhook like he's the product of sato rumina and aoki shinya's combined DNA and schooled in the art of catchascatchcan and submission wrestling by God. Pointon by heelhook. Now there's something you'd never had seen coming.
The arena filled before this fight. Pointon was booed heavily by the dickheads that had surrounded those members of the crowd that were born with brains, love mma and had learned a little something about sportsmanship. Twats, they need culling before they pollute the gene-pool. Very nearly left the arena disgusted. Mad props to Ross, he's always looked like a guy that like to bang and little else, tonight he looked like a Back To Our Roots regular that should have been plastered in Inspirit.
James Zikic Vs. Rodney Glunder:
Dutch thai fighter Rodney and the Messenger clashed without much fanfare in the first two rounds. They were evenly matched on the feet to the point of mexican standoff. Zikic ended it on the ground in the third, the experienced Glunder falling victim to a very slick guerrilla armbar in the third.
Ch'e Mills Vs. Marios Zaromskis
Shame this ended by cut, it's back and forth looked very promising at the second bell. Both fighters had some success on the ground, Che in terms of sub attempts, Marios in terms of positioning. The standup was exciting too. Oh well, at least the one round was a good round.
Ian Freeman Vs. Paul Cahoon
um...this is randy couture vs chuck liddell 1 / randy vs tim / tea and crumpets. Ian Freeman showed us what the phrase “old man strength” really means, after ruining Boom Boom's gameplan by outstriking him to the point he was too busy trying to avoid being ko'd or cut down by leg kicks to even recall what takedowns are- the exact moment this happened ian would start shooting, slamming, dragging and jacking him him to the floor. On the ground the machine bullied him for three rounds, coming out of retirement to retake his previously vacated title at forty one years old. Legend revived. Screamed, stomped chanted and jumped thruout. The crowd was behind Ian all the way, and his victory went down extremely well with the casual and more seasoned fans alike.
Throughly enjoyable card, go to the next one if you can, or watch it.
TL;DR,MF
__________________
"A good gym smells like a mix of body odor and liniment and supplies their members with a big box of chalk." Glenn Pendlay
Er, any danger of a cuppa?
Last edited by VicDienekes : 05-10-2008 at 10:09 PM.
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