By far the busiest weekend we’ve seen yet. For the first time ever, we had 20 fights in one night at MMA Hype by combining Hype 7 & 8 together for one massive event. This gives us twice as many awards to hand out, so here we go!
Hype 7 Fight of the night went to Darryl Pitts and Ratibor Volkov who gave the fans an all out standup war that got the judges in all sorts of troubles. Pitts ended up with the split decision win, by getting the edge with his body shots. Volkov tried to use his height advantage throughout the fight to stay out of range of headshots, but his opponent came in swinging low more often than anticipated. With this win, Pitts is now 2-0, which puts another contender to the top of the stacked 145 division.
Hype 7 KO of the night went to Billy Leighton who only needed 22 seconds to send his opponent on the mat and finish the fight. Leighton had a clear counter strike game plan ready for the fight, and it worked flawlessly. He stuffed 5 takedowns in 15 seconds, then he timed a perfect overhand right, and that’s all his opponent remembers. Tip of the day: if you’re predictable, you won’t be comfortable.
Hype 7 Submission of the night went to Charles Luciano who got ragdolled for 2 rounds, then finally got to a comfortable position on the ground and locked in a beautiful kimura from side control that forced his opponent to tap. Luciano barely survived the fight by being dominated in all aspects of the stand up game. When his corner told him he was behind in the fight at the end of the second round, he had no choice but to turn it around and go all in, which gave us one hell of a slick submission.
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Hype 8 Fight of the night went to Allan Randolph and Kyson Everett for a close well rounded fight. We got to see all aspects of MMA in that fight, and Everett scored points in all of these aspects, but Randolph was the most dominant in the clinch, where they spent half of the fight. Randolph won by a close decision. He brought the fight to the ground in the first round and learned from his mistake when he realized his opponent was toying with him down there. The rest of the fight was pretty much his.
Hype 8 KO of the night went to Leo Mcknight for something I like to call a game changing KO. Mcknight was being served on the ground in the first round, and he needed something to turn the fight around. He adjusted in the second round and came swinging until he rocked his opponent with a nice combo. He then followed with a flurry of punches that ended the fight rather quickly. Less than a minute in the second round is all he needed to turn that fight around.
Hype 8 Submission of the night went to Abel Harper, who literally just waited for an opportunity. A fight between two BJJ brown belts, both fighters wanted to grapple and nothing more. Harper got taken down a few times but waited and waited until the last takedown, he landed exactly how he wanted to and quickly grabbed his opponent's arm for a sweet armbar. That my friends is a 100% success rate fight for Harper, who only needed that one move to win the fight. Patience is key.
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3 stars of the week:
This week is a little different. Since it was our first double header, we had quite a lot of fights happening. We had 1 manager that stood out with 3 wins, so we decided to give his 3 fighters, stars of the week.
Trainer DJ (manager) - went 3-0 over the weekend, his 3 fighters are the stars
Leo Mcknight - turned a fight around
Cael Compton - impressive striking abilities
Derrick Rojas - new org, new beginning
