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 Goooood evening! GAMMA Gossip is ready to roll, with me, AC Jimbo, as your host. We’ve got a whole host of stuff to get through tonight, so without any further ado let’s get started.
First we have GAMMA 289: Duberry v Chigurh II. Wow, now this really is one to make sure that there is absolutely no chance of getting double booked and finding you have to go and spend the evening visiting your wife’s great-aunt with no hope of being able to sneak out to watch it. Hell, if she’s open-minded, persuade her to come and visit you and take her along to Wandalay Bay as well, who knows but this fight could convert another fan to MMA!
Before we get onto that one, though, we’ll have an evening of middleweight action that culminates in the co-main event pitting Tank The Razors Edge (31-15-3, GAMMA 6-4-1) against Frank Sinatra (24-12-4, GAMMA 22-12-4). The battle of the pensioners, I could bill this one if I was, well, being honest actually. It’s remarkable that these two actually have enough brain power left to find their way to the cage each time given the number of shots to the head they’ve taken in their careers. This will be fight number 50 of Edge’s career, whilst for Sinatra it is 41. Probably the most surprising thing to discover is that despite the longevity of each man, this is the first time that they’ve actually fought. Both have endured some fairly patchy form recently but come into this having had the confidence boost of winning their previous fights. Both will, no doubt, have trained very hard for this, so we can be certain that they will be pulling out all the stops to get the win. However, Tank must be the favorite to win this, as he’s actually got some history of beating top competition – something that Sinatra has never managed to do, constantly falling short when called to step up.
This is one time, though, when the whole evening really is just the appetizer, simply there to help work the fans into a frenzy for the main event. This is the long-awaited rematch between Fidel Duberry (17-3, GAMMA 8-2) and Anton Chigurh (31-13, GAMMA 6-3). They previously faced off at GAMMA 258, which I can’t quite believe it but was almost two years ago now and we’ve had to wait this long for them to dance again.
The first time around, even though it was a heavyweight title fight – something that should never be taken lightly – the conventional wisdom was that this was not much more than a public workout for Chigurh ahead of further opportunities to showcase his amazing abilities on the world scale. Sure, Duberry had a decent record, and who knows, might even have been a champion one day but that was the emphasis – one day, some way off in the future. Not here, not now. For about 23 minutes that was exactly how things turned out. I suspect that Anton even felt strangely satisfied that he was being kept busy enough to go the full five rounds rather than simply blasting away his young opponent in the opening round.
But then something changed…Chigurh had just caught Duberry with a low blow – did that fire Duberry up somehow? Or did Chigurh take for granted that he was coasting to a shutout decision, as even Fidel’s corner knew full well that the judges would not be giving the decision a second thought, it truly had been that much one way traffic in the fight. A couple of leg kicks, a couple of stiff jabs and suddenly Duberry had a sniff of blood, literally, as it began to trickle from Chigurh’s nose and he launched into him with a big right hand. Seconds later, a bewildered Chigurh was looking up at the referee trying to protect him and asking him if he was okay.
It was one of those “I was there when...” moments. The arena fell silent for a moment, in shock at what they had seen, and then erupted. As it turned out, it didn’t seem to change Chigurh’s plans a great deal, as he continued to fight against the stars from other organizations, still pursuing his goal of regaining the worldwide pound-for-pound accolade he had previously enjoyed. Meanwhile Duberry has made a couple of successful defenses of that title, whilst losing on both the occasions that he has fought non-GAMMA fighters. Once against the highly impressive Kyle Carlton (who Chigurh actually beat not long afterwards), and at GAMMA 277 much more surprisingly against the fairly mediocre Cole Jamison – Duberry perhaps guilty of committing the same mistake as Chigurh by underestimating his opponent.
Wondering how Anton Chigurh views those events? Well wonder no longer, because we’re privileged to be able to welcome him to the show now.
AC Jimbo: Hi Anton, welcome to GAMMA Gossip! I cannot tell you how excited I am to have you on the show!
Chigurh: Thanks Jimbo!
AC Jimbo: Let’s not skirt around the subject and instead get straight onto it – we as fans are absolutely pumped for your rematch with Fidel Duberry: how do you manage to stay focused in preparation for something like this?
Chigurh: I have been fighting in the best orgs of this game like GAMMA, NFC, Blitzkrieg, Syn, IMMA, CFC, etc and the biggest shows there has ever been. And it’s never easy. I think I would be worried if I would not be worried before fight?
AC Jimbo: Now, I realize that you might not want to talk at length about it, but it would be remiss of me not to ask about it, what happened the last time you met? It looked like it was going so well for you!
Chigurh: Every top heavyweight has that power to knock you out if you are not careful. That night Fidel proved to be one of the best heavyweights in this game.
AC Jimbo: I probably don’t really need to ask, but I had better check – how confident are of you putting that slip-up right this time? I assume you won’t be interested in letting it go through to the fifth round this time?
Chigurh: I change my gameplan every now and then just to keep them guessing. A Hail Mary is something that usually doesn't succeed so I am not worried about that.
AC Jimbo: You’ve made no secret of your desire to climb back to the top of the world and be officially recognized as the baddest man on the planet once again, so where do you expect things will head next?
Chigurh: It’s very hard to climb to the top as heavyweight since there are some monsters on your way. But I am also one of them.
AC Jimbo: I must say, I really hope you and Emeka Shakur have the chance to settle things at some point. If it ends up being over in Europe then I think I’d have to persuade Mentor to get me a ticket to be his roving reporter this time! Do you think it’s likely to happen?
Chigurh: It will happen. I don't know when but it will. That dude is legit bad mofo. Very dangerous man. He has strange way to set up those high kicks! You just don’t see them coming...
AC Jimbo: Before you have to leave us, just time for one more question – if you had to be a type of hat, what type would it be?
Chigurh: I have better question and it is for you Jimbo. What’s the most you have ever lost on a coin toss?
AC Jimbo: More than I’d care to admit, Anton, more than I’d care to admit! Well thanks for being a great guest...oh wait, the line’s gone dead. Did he just hang up on me? No, it seems the phone line is dead – has Mentor forgotten to pay the bill?
Anyway, let’s move on. As I’ve already said, this is set to be an incredible fight. Despite being the challenger, Chigurh surely must be rated the favorite but we know how that situation turned out first time around. I’m backing Anton to get it right this time, though, and to finish it early.
Having the perhaps unwanted role of having to follow that event is GAMMA 290: Matazz v Watts II. At least that means loyal GAMMA man, Raz Matazz, is tasked with leading that, and being no stranger to headlining events I’m sure he’ll carry it off.
Before we get on to talking about our favorite middleweight, we must give some time to the co-main event, which is Jamie “Double Leg” Gillis (21-10, GAMMA 6-3) against “Doctor Science” Andrei Katchenko (17-6, GAMMA debut). Wow, this one could become arduous for “Doctor Science” – let’s hope that nickname is an indication of how quickly he can learn new skills as well because he needs to put all his energy into learning how to defend takedowns and how to defend himself on the floor.
Can I see it happening? Nope. Sure, Katchenko appears to be the better striker based on the clips we’ve seen of him, but “Double Leg” is no slouch and has mixed it with far better in the past. When it comes to wrestling and jiu jitsu, though, this is no contest. “Double Leg” hasn’t gained that notoriety for no reason, and he is also a black belt in jiu jitsu. I think it could even be considered an insult to him to be asked to compete against a blue belt. I can only see one winner here, and it won’t be the debutante.
After that, we’ll be able to sit back and watch as fan favorite “The Atom Smasher” Raz Matazz (37-9-1, GAMMA 35-8-1) returns to action against “The Chosen One” Usain Watts (30-12, GAMMA 2-2).
For Matazz it is his opportunity to return to winning ways following his recent defeat to Keith Green where he lost the middleweight title, while for Watts it is a chance to extend his two fight winning streak. They met before, on Watts’ GAMMA debut, where “The Atom Smasher” carried off a unanimous decision win after showing his advantage in all aspects of the fight. Arguably the only thing that Watts has been chosen for is to help get Matazz a nice, ease back into winning form.
Matazz is comfortably the stronger fighter in all possible areas that this fight can go, so I can only see one winner. With that one done, presumably it will set him up to face the winner of the Green-Ettish title fight, to either be a rematch against Green or the completion of the trilogy against Ettish, either way a fantastic fight will be on our hands.
Anyway, that’s all we have time for today. Thanks for joining me on GAMMA Gossip, and please do join us next time. Ciao!
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