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 Good evening, munchkins, and thanks for tuning in for GAMMA Gossip again. I am your host, AC Jimbo, and we have lots to keep you interested tonight. We’ll look back over the main talking points of the recent GAMMA 278 and GAMMA 279 shows, including an interview with one of the major players involved, as well as looking forward to GAMMA 280. We may even have time to squeeze in one or two more of your questions that you’ve sent in.
We’ll start today’s show by quickly running through the main results from GAMMA 278 and 279. Previously we previewed these fights, with GAMMA 278 focusing on the heavyweight division and GAMMA 279 shining the spotlight on the guys slugging it out at 170 pounds.
GAMMA 278 included a number of the highly ranked big guys, with the undercard containing former champion, Trent Pope, and perennial contender, Kuiskaaja Rajantakaa. These two veterans of the Las Vegas fight scene experienced mixed results on the night. Pope was looking to try and find that winning feeling again but instead fell to a second round knockout loss, meaning he has now lost five of his last six outings. He obviously still has a puncher’s chance when that cage door slams shut but these days it doesn’t look like much more than that. His opponent, Mark Makers, simply bum-rushed Pope into the clinch and then used his dirty boxing ability to take the fading star apart. It looks like Pope could be fading from the scene. On the other hand, Rajantakaa put on a decent and varied show of mixed martial arts by schooling his older opponent, Michaels, and this for the second time in a GAMMA cage.
In the event’s co-main event, Livingston Barclay continued his unbeaten run in GAMMA, extending his record here now to 6-0, by taking home a unanimous decision win over Jorge Cruz, and thus ending Cruz’s own hot run. While the fight before might have been a formality by the time it came to announce the judges’ scorecards, this one was less so. Whilst Barclay certainly did enough to win the first round, the second was a much closer affair and then in the final round Cruz had him wobbling midway through the round and then sent him to the canvas with only about 30 seconds remaining. It was probably a tactical error from Cruz that he stood back at this point to allow Barclay back to his feet. With so little time left on the clock he should have followed him to the ground to pound his way to a finish. If the judges had been asked to award their decision on a whole fight basis, I’ve no doubt Cruz would have been walking out of the arena the happier man, but as it was he had to settle for just being the man who could walk out of there unassisted, which is more than can be said for Barclay! It could be a while before we see him return to action as he recovers from that final round comeback.
Finally, in the GAMMA 278 main event, the fans didn’t have to wait around to find out what the judges thought of this one as Buster Grimes finished this one in decisive fashion. Grimes came out throwing bombs from the opening moments and so it quickly became a question of whether Colossus could avoid these shots for long enough to build some momentum of his own. He couldn’t. It was all over with a crunching left hook and you could see later on the slow-mo cameras that Colossus was out cold before he hit the deck. That’s the kind of action the fans pay to see!
We hardly had time to draw breath, though, before we were being treated to top quality GAMMA action again, this time at GAMMA 279. The welterweights put on a great show, and the under-card even included that rarity of a draw. However, in the co-main event, we saw Vladik Fedotov defeat Justin Bieber, using some nasty looking knees in the clinch. Bieber had probably done enough to get the nod from the judges for the first round, but that all changed in the second round when an elbow in the clinch from Fedotov landed flush and opened a cut. As Bieber then sought to protect that cut, he left himself increasingly open to body shots, which Fedotov took full advantage of. These really took their toll on Bieber, before he took him by surprise with another elbow, opening the cut up further. By now, Bieber was clearly beginning to wish he’d stayed at home and it was just a few seconds before a series of knees to the head finished the contest. I suggested that I thought Fedotov would find a way to win on my last show, and that was proved to be correct.
As for the main event, well so much for me bigging up Barker’s famed jiu jitsu skills, because he was given zero opportunity to show them off here. I was right to predict that he would likely end the evening with a reduced amount of blood flowing around his body – even though the fight lasted less than three minutes, St Juste still put the hurt on Barker in that time by causing a significant gash. This turned out to be a fairly easy win for St Juste, as he dominated from start to finish and ended up also leaving the event with the knockout of the night accolade, the eighth such of his career.
The top of that welterweight division now looks like it could possibly be the most hotly contested in GAMMA, with St Juste, Fedotov and Forest Gump all looking like dangerous men to be agreeing to accept to fight. Gump still holds the title, despite losing his last fight as it was a cross-promotional super-fight, but it is hard to pick who will be the next contender for the belt. As we record this show we understand that the latest is that negotiations are ongoing but nothing has yet been signed. Nothing is likely to be scheduled for a month or two yet, though, because all three of them are nursing injuries.
Now we’re very happy to be able to tell you that we have the winner of the GAMMA 278 main event, Buster Grimes on the line to speak to us.
AC Jimbo: Hi Buster, thanks for agreeing to speak to GAMMA Gossip. We received a lot of messages of support for you in the run-up to your fight against Colossus. They’ll no doubt be really happy to see you come back with the win, do you have a message for your fans?
Buster Grimes: Well, just keep the faith, peoples ‘cuz I’m not going anywhere. You keep filling up them seats and I’ll keep filling up them caskets.
AC Jimbo: Many people had expected it to be a really tough fight, but in the end it looked like you hardly broke sweat. How did you see it?
Buster Grimes: I live by the motto “Train hard, and the fight’s easy”, so I’m not surprised the fight ended early. I’ve been training my ass off trying to work my way up the ladder. We’ll see how far it gets me.
AC Jimbo: Thanks to the fact that the fight was over relatively quickly, it also looked like you managed to escape any significant injuries. How long do you think we can expect to wait for you to step back inside the cage? Do you have any preference on who you might want to take on next, or are you happy to leave it in the hands of GAMMA management?
Buster Grimes: Yeah, I’m not injured and am ready to go as soon as I get the call. I’m ready to get back in there and knock some motherf*ckers out. I don’t give a shit who they put in front of me, I just wanna get that money.
AC Jimbo: Before you go, one final question – what’s your favourite cheese?
Buster Grimes: Well I don’t have a favorite, but I will say one thing...I like me cheese like I like my women and weed...the stinkier the better!
AC Jimbo: Okaaaay, great. *AC Jimbo raises an eyebrow at the thought of that last answer* Um, thanks for sparing us a few minutes, Buster. We’re looking forward to seeing you action again soon.
Now moving on from the past and looking to the future, the next event is GAMMA 280: Kuduro v Hannibal.
Before we reach the main event, though, we have the intriguing match-up between “The Hammer” Danny Tanner (14-6, GAMMA 7-5) and Adis Djurdjevic (12-5, GAMMA 4-1). However, there if the rumours are to be believed then there remains bad blood between these two since their first meeting at GAMMA 262 last year. This remains Djurdjevic’s solitary loss while at GAMMA, as he has put together a largely impressive string of results since joining from UPG Vegas.
So how is this rematch likely to go? Both are highly regarded light-heavyweights, and based purely on the latest rankings are right in the mix at the top of the 205 pound division, along with the main eventers at GAMMA 280. If Djurdjevic wins then it would not be a complete surprise to see him and his manager try to make a claim for a title shot but whoever it is who wins this one they are likely to have to bide their time for a title shot as it looks destined to go to the winner of the Kuduro and Hannibal fight.
Each of them possess elite level skills, with Djurdjevic being the more talented striker, and “The Hammer” benefiting from extremely potent grappling skills, including a much coveted jiu jitsu black belt. Both of them carry very good form into this fight, having won four of their five last fights. This is a bit of a turnaround for Tanner as he had previously been disappointingly inconsistent since joining GAMMA but he now appears to have found a way to achieve his aims on a more regular basis. Both of them can withstand a lot of punishment, and that was proved to be the case in their first fight as it required the judges to decide who the winner was, with “The Hammer” taking a close, but unanimous, decision. The pattern for much of the fight was that tanner’s striking skills were sufficient to prevent Djurdjevic gaining too much of an advantage there, and vice verse when it came to the ground game. I can’t see anything changing this time unless one of them is prepared to be a little more adventurous, and if either of them is likely to make that step I’d suspect it will be “The Hammer” but even then I don’t think that is a high probability outcome so I fully expect the judges to become the center of attention after 15 minutes of back and forth action.
The main event at GAMMA 280 sees “Lord of Middleport” Danza Kuduro (14-5-1, GAMMA 1-0) front up to “The Horse Man” Hannibal Die Rucksichtslos (25-11, GAMMA 8-2) in what is a contender for strangest clash of nicknames this year, between a man who is delusional in proclaiming himself to be a Lord against a very confused chap who thinks he is a horse, or at least half-horse and half-man. Perhaps they’ve each taken a few too many concussive shots in the past. Perhaps they know something I don’t – in which case there might need to be an investigation as I don’t believe the state athletic commission should be sanctioning fights involving mutants, even if it does present the opportunity to land a blow for the working class (if half-horse, half-man beings work?) against blue-blooded nobility.
Aside from the suitability, or otherwise, of their chosen monikers, this looks to be an interesting fight. The classic tale of the younger man entering his prime against the more experienced gatekeeper and veteran of the fight game.
Kuduro boasts an impressive record, and 11 of his 14 wins have been knockouts, proving he knows how to get the job done in an efficient way. He comes from the highly successful Convicted Inc group, and looks to be on track to join their collection of champions at some stage in the future. In fact, he’s already won a couple of titles are smaller organizations before he set about competing in the big leagues. He fought in New York for some time, within the organization now known as Empire, where although he only won one fight there his opponents included some top class fighters, including Pat McDermot. When the chance to sign with GAMMA arose, it is understood that he jumped at the chance at revitalizing his career.
In the opposite corner will stand Hannibal. Despite having fought in a number of different cities in a busy career, he has never held a title previously and only actually took part in his first title fight a few months ago when he took on the current GAMMA light-heavyweight champion, Degen Gambler. Whether it was stage fright, or that he simply wasn’t up to the task, Gambler wasted no time in destroying Hannibal in that bout and winning by knockout in under two minutes. If Hannibal wins this one, it is far from certain that it will guarantee him a rematch for the title, such was the gulf between the two previously.
Hannibal will enjoy a three inch height advantage, which given that all areas of their game appear to be so evenly matched could prove to be a deciding factor. We might see Kurduro try to gain the take-down and work some ground and pound into his tactics, or to get inside on the clinch to neutralize the height advantage. I’m going to stick my neck out and plump for a Kuduro knockout.
And finally, there is just about time for us to sneak in one question from you, the viewers, so I have picked the most interesting one received since the last show. I will always try to get around to giving a public response to all your questions so please don’t be offended if it is not your question. In fact, if the mailbag keeps growing then we might have to run a special Q&A session to deal with them.
This one asks where do I think Raz Matazz will end up in the history books of GAMMA. Well, let’s make one thing clear, although he’s 32 there appears to be no sign of “The Atom Smasher” giving up anytime soon, but when he eventually does call it a day then there is no doubt in my mind that he is a dead cert for a spot in the GAMMA Hall of Fame. In fact, it’s such a foregone conclusion that I expect the press release has already been prepped and just has space left to add his final career stats before it gets circulated approximately 30 seconds after he announces his retirement! Matazz stands second only to Jack Burton in total fights within GAMMA, and I am sure he will stick around long enough to overhaul that, and barring serious injury I expect he will become the first fighter to step into the GAMMA cage on 50 occasions, which by itself is an incredible achievement to keep going that long. Of course, longevity is not the only thing that he has going for him. He already holds the GAMMA record for most wins (currently 34) and most knockouts (currently 20, ahead of the legendary Jeremy Tonal in second place). Of course, there is always a newer generation of fighter coming through the ranks but thus far Matazz has shown no signs of letting his standards slip, which combined with years of experience make him one of the toughest competitors in the MMA world today. He did lose his title middleweight title to Fred Ettish last time out, but he has the chance to put that right at GAMMA 282, and he is no stranger to having to bounce back given he has held the belt on no fewer than three times in the past, including a monster run when he first won it that included 15 successful defenses. He only lost the title then to an inspired Jeremy Tonal, who also defeated him in their rematch, for which there is no shame as Tonal is an all-time legend of the sport.
As for the middleweight division as a whole, it is possibly the GAMMA division with the greatest depth currently. In addition to the current champion, Ettish, and Matazz, there are several other hugely talented contenders including those with great experience, such as Doc Thomas, Usain Watts and Tank The Razors Edge, and some exciting newcomers like Keith Green and Brodie Sinclair. It is a safe bet to say that there will be plenty of violence in the coming months for these guys at 185 pounds.
Anyway, I have my producer yelling in my ear that we’re about to finish, so peace out people, I’ll see you next time!
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