The highly anticipated Eternal MMA 49 saw four of our amateur MMA team go to war at Southport Sharks on the Gold Coast, with Nick Field kicking off the undercard in a featherweight match up (three rounds) against Dean Abbott. Up against an opponent with a reach advantage of 16cm, Nick was cornered by Coaches Simon Carson and Raja Shippen in his debut MMA bout. Within the first thirty seconds of the opening round, Abbott took the fight to the ground, Nick doing well to get the fight back to standing. Slipping to the side and unleashing a textbook right straight, Nick knocked Abbott to the ground at the 1:15 minute mark, securing the win via TKO!
On fight three of the undercard, Korey Sutcliffe was matched up against Nav Goundar in a bantamweight bout. The announcers gave round one to Korey, who landed a clean head kick towards the end of the round. Round two saw Goundar get deep on a single leg, and take Korey down around the 2 minute mark. Korey attempted to lock on a triangle however his opponent slipped out to the side, grabbing Korey’s back, with the bell sounding the end of the action here. Round three began with plenty of strikes thrown from the two, Goundar driving Korey up against the cage around the 1:30 minute mark. With the fight going to the judges scorecards, Korey secured the win via split points decision.
Next up on the hard was the heavyweight division, with Absolute MMA’s Reon Mahima stepping into the cage against a tough opponent in Mohammed Mustafa. The first round kicked off with Mustafa firing punches towards Reon and driving him up against the cage. Reon defends and both fighters continue to exchange strikes, with Reon landing heavy shots. In an intense exchange just over a minute into the first round, Reon lands a big right cross to the chin of his opponent, dropping him to the ground. Putting the pressure on, Reon follows up, raining strikes down onto his shaken opponent. His opponent manages to get to his feet, however Reon keeps the pressure on, landing his finishing right hand to drop him to the ground once again, leading to the referee to step in and stop the fight with only 25 seconds left in the first round. A killer finish from Reon! Congratulations!
Finishing up the undercard with a welterweight bout, we had John Benson taking his fight on 7 days notice and making his MMA debut against local opponent Josh Kuhne. An energetic start to round one with both fighters exchanging strikes. Kuhne then began to put pressure on Benson with non-stop punches to the head and body, forcing John towards the fence, in defence of the flurry of strikes being swung his way. John goes for a body kick and his opponent counters immediately with a big right overhead right to the chin, dropping John to the ground. Showing great heart, John gets up straight away, however his opponent keeps the pressure on, forcing John up against the cage. After couple of seconds Kuhne lands another power shot, knocking Benson back to the ground and the referee rushes to stop the fight with only 38 seconds in to the first round. John showed great courage and character by stepping in to the cage on such short notice. We look forward seeing John back in the cage next year!
Overseas in Thailand, Kraisit of Absolute MMA Thailand (20-10-0) faced off against opponent Andrea (Italy, 17-3-0) on MX Muay Extreme. Despite being just 18 years old, Kraisit has 30 fights of experience behind him and we were excited to see his performance in this 55kg bout. A strong opening round for Kraisit, who threw solid kicks throughout, and utilized elbows and sweeps to great effect. Checking kicks consistently, Kraisit swept his opponent a total of 4 times this round! In round two, both fighters came out aggressive, throwing multiple elbows. After being separated from the clinch by the ref, Kraisit threw a right cross to knock down his opponent at the 1:10 minute mark to get the 8 count. His opponent stood up, however was swept once again, the ref calling the fight after the second knockdown. Congratulations to Kraisit on his TKO win in the second round! You can watch Kraisit’s full fight here.
Coaches Hope Douglass and Ariel Tabak of Absolute MMA St Kilda made waves overseas at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam after travelling all the way to Rio De Janeiro. Hope fought her way through five matches to achieve bronze, and Ari worked through six matches to also take away bronze. An amazing achievement from these two stellar black belts, with Ari’s division having over 35 competitors, and Hope’s over 15! Congratulations guys!
Sunday, November 3rd saw our Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competitors head to the mats to prove themselves at the AGC Melbourne Open. We would like to congratulate all of our students who competed, and whether you learned or took away a medal, we are proud of your efforts in undertaking competition and look forward to seeing how you are improved for your competition experience!