Tag: Brock Larson

Battlegrounds MMA Results and GIFs: Roan Carneiro Wins the One Night, Eight-Man Welterweight Tournament


(Imagine this but 30 pounds heavier / Photo via Getty)

Chael Sonnen. Jim Ross. One night tournament. Holy shit. Are you ready for this?

We certainly weren’t (and judging by the sparse attendance, nobody else was either) The event was probably one of the most “freakshow-ish” events of the entire year, and we loved every second of it. Here’s a brief recap of the festivities!

The tournament, which was in the welterweight division, started off with Trey Houston vs. Jesse Taylor. Taylor took Houston down early and after a period of inactivity on the ground Houston managed to grab Taylor’s arm and lock in an armbar. Check out the GIF (this and others via Zombie Prophet/Fansided):


(Imagine this but 30 pounds heavier / Photo via Getty)

Chael Sonnen. Jim Ross. One night tournament. Holy shit. Are you ready for this?

We certainly weren’t (and judging by the sparse attendance, nobody else was either) The event was probably one of the most “freakshow-ish” events of the entire year, and we loved every second of it. Here’s a brief recap of the festivities!

The tournament, which was in the welterweight division, started off with Trey Houston vs. Jesse Taylor. Taylor took Houston down early and after a period of inactivity on the ground Houston managed to grab Taylor’s arm and lock in an armbar. Check out the GIF (this and others via Zombie Prophet/Fansided):

In the next quarterfinal bout, Roan Carneiro took on Randall Wallace. Carneiro took Wallace down immediately and out-classed him on the mat. He mounted Wallace, then took his back, and then scored a brutal armbar, the second of the night.

In the fight CagePotato viewed as the main event, Cody McKenzie fought Brock Larson. McKenzie looked awful physically. He sported a sizeable beer guy, channeling his inner Chuck Liddell. Despite his physique, he nearly managed to sink a guillotine in toward the end of the first round. But in the second, Larson’s strength prevailed. Overpowered McKenzie on the ground, passed his guard, and submitted him with an arm triangle choke.

The last quarterfinal took place between Joe Ray and Luigi Fioravanti. Fioravanti started the fight by pressing Ray up against the fence. This ended up working to Fioravanti’s disadvantage as Ray landed a knee in the clinch that hurt Fioravanti. Then Ray landed an additional pair of knees which floored Fioravanti, who turtled up.

After the semifinals, there was an interlude. A dude who as 16-23 took on a guy who was making his pro debut. Ugh. The 0-0 guy won. Moving on…

Two young featherweight fighters in Zac Church and Ryan Hayes met one another in a great scrap. The first round had some surprisingly technical scrambles between the two relatively inexperienced fighters and some decent striking exchanges as well. Unfortunately, this torrid pace didn’t continue and the fight slowed down by the end. Zac Church was awarded with a unanimous decision victory.

In semifinal one, Trey Houston met Roan Carneiro. Carneiro controlled the first, taking Houston down and mounting him. He wasn’t able to get the finish though. Carneiro landed a HUGE hook in the second that made Houston limp. Carneiro took Houston down off the punch and ultimately scored a TKO finish via ground and pound.

The next semifinal pit Joe Ray and Brock Larson against one another. Larson controlled the first, taking Ray down and cutting his nose open with an ‘accidental’ headbutt. Ray reversed his fortunes in the second. He managed to take Larson, the wrestler, down and stay on top of him in side control. Ray attempted a D’Arce choke that appeared to be sunk in but he couldn’t finish it. Larson controlled the last round with some serious lay and pray up until a fruitless flurry in the last few seconds. Larson won a unanimous decision. There weren’t any highlights from this to GIF, really.

So the finals were between Roan Carneiro and Brock Larson.

An interlude bout saw bantamweights Tyler Shinn fight Chris Gutierrez. This bout was pretty forgettable and wasn’t that great, in all honesty. Gutierrez was awarded with a split decision win.

Finally, the FINALS of the tournament. Roan Carneiro controlled the first round by pressing Larson against the fence, something we expected Larson to be doing to be honest. The second round saw much of the same and was pretty lackluster, to be honest. No fighter had any real offense, which was understandable as they were depleting from fighting twice already. Carneiro nearly finished the job in the start of the third round. He dragged Larson to the mat immediately, took his back, and started landing ground and pound. Larson, fighting off instinct, managed to regain half guard and then later full guard. Carneiro coasted on top for the rest of the round to win the fight via decision, as well as the entire tournament.

Overall:

We give this event a B-. I was certainly fun but it was plagued with pacing issues later on. The problem was that each tournament fighter had to have a 30-minute rest period after their tournament bouts. That killed the pacing in the last half of the card and made it run to an inconvenient time to those on the east coast. An earlier start date would work wonders. The tournament overall was intriguing, fun, and a refreshing change. It was a bit of a bummer that the final wasn’t terribly exciting.

And, of course, there was Chael Sonnen and Jim Ross on commentary. They started off pretty shaky but managed to pull it together and did a wonderful job. Chael was composed and very informative. JR did great as well, and had some great zingers too.

To us, the event was worth the $20. Let’s hope Battlegrounds survives to do a second event.

 

‘OneFC 8: Aoki vs. Boku’ Spoiler-Free Results + Videos: _______ Subs _______, _______’s Downward Spiral Continues

(Aoki vs. Boku, courtesy of Youtube user mike devro. Check it out before it gets taken down.)

______’s smothering grappling game was once again on display at OneFC 8, which transpired early this morning from the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore. Looking to exact some revenge for his fallen friend/training partner, ______, who was defeated by ______ back at OneFC 6, ______ utterly dominated the 20-8 _____ en route to a second round submission via _____-_____ choke. With the win, ______ secured the OneFC lightweight title, which will fit nicely on his mantle alongside his DREAM strap.

In the night’s co-main event, a UFC and WEC veteran whose name sounds a lot like Block Arsen survived some dicey moments to secure a decision victory over renowned kickboxer _____ ___hoef. Featuring some truly impressive, albeit sparse exchanges in the first two rounds, ______ was able to brave the storm and use his patented ground-n-pound game to work over the Dutchman, who was clearly gassed by the time things hit the third round.

Now, onto ______. In the past five years, we have seen the career of the former _FC lightweight champion go from the staggering lows of a five-fight losing streak in the WEC (with 4 of those coming by stoppage), to a 2-0 win streak over a couple of cans in smaller promotions, to the current 3-4 stretch that concluded with a second round loss via, you guessed it, submission, in the One FC Bantamweight Grand Prix ___finals this morning. We can’t really say anything about _____ that we haven’t already said; he’s a great guy and a once great fighter who shouldn’t still be fighting but is for the simplest of motivations: money. It could be a lot worse, but it still breaks our hearts to see him continue to drift in the bowels of mediocrity.

A video of the ______/______ fight and the full list of results are after the jump. 


(Aoki vs. Boku, courtesy of Youtube user mike devro. Check it out before it gets taken down.)

______’s smothering grappling game was once again on display at OneFC 8, which transpired early this morning from the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore. Looking to exact some revenge for his fallen friend/training partner, ______, who was defeated by ______ back at OneFC 6, ______ utterly dominated the 20-8 _____ en route to a second round submission via _____-_____ choke. With the win, ______ secured the OneFC lightweight title, which will fit nicely on his mantle alongside his DREAM strap.

In the night’s co-main event, a UFC and WEC veteran whose name sounds a lot like Block Arsen survived some dicey moments to secure a decision victory over renowned kickboxer _____ ___hoef. Featuring some truly impressive, albeit sparse exchanges in the first two rounds, ______ was able to brave the storm and use his patented ground-n-pound game to work over the Dutchman, who was clearly gassed by the time things hit the third round.

Now, onto ______. In the past five years, we have seen the career of the former _FC lightweight champion go from the staggering lows of a five-fight losing streak in the WEC (with 4 of those coming by stoppage), to a 2-0 win streak over a couple of cans in smaller promotions, to the current 3-4 stretch that concluded with a second round loss via, you guessed it, submission, in the One FC Bantamweight Grand Prix ___finals this morning. We can’t really say anything about _____ that we haven’t already said; he’s a great guy and a once great fighter who shouldn’t still be fighting but is for the simplest of motivations: money. It could be a lot worse, but it still breaks our hearts to see him continue to drift in the bowels of mediocrity.

A video of the ______/______ fight and the full list of results are after the jump. 

Pulver vs. Ueda

Main Bouts:
-Shinya Aoki def. Kotetsu Boku by Submission (Rear Naked Choke) 2:01, R2
-Brock Larson def. Melvin Manhoef by Unanimous Decision, R3
-Masakatsu Ueda def. Jens Pulver by Submission (D’Arce Choke) at 3:52, R2
-Kevin Belingon def. Thanh Vu by TKO (Strikes) at 1:00, R2
-Eddie Ng def. Arnaud Lepont by Submission (Armbar) at 4:45, R2
-Leandro Issa def. Yusup Saddulaev by Unanimous Decision, R3
-Alex Silva def. Rene Catalan by Submission (Armbar) at 4:34, R1
-Bashir Ahmad def. Shannon Wiratchai by Unanimous Decision, R3

Preliminary Bouts:
-Jake Butler def. Swain Cangco by TKO (Strikes) at 2:52, R1
-Chen Yun Ting def. Ronald Low by TKO (Strikes) at 3:58, R1

–J. Jones

RFA 6: Brock Larson, 2 Other Minnesota MMA Fighters Set to Make AXS TV Debuts

Eleven-time UFC and WEC veteran Brock Larson will make his return to television on Friday night, as he battles former Strikeforce Challenger Eduardo Pamplona as part of AXS TV’s Resurrection Fighting Alliance 6 fight card.After purchasing Titan Fightin…

Eleven-time UFC and WEC veteran Brock Larson will make his return to television on Friday night, as he battles former Strikeforce Challenger Eduardo Pamplona as part of AXS TV’s Resurrection Fighting Alliance 6 fight card.

After purchasing Titan Fighting Championships in October 2012, the RFA has continued to grow and put on quality events. RFA 6 will take place at the Scottish Rite Temple in Kansas City. 

Larson, founder of the Minnesota MMA promotion Cage Fighting Xtreme (CFX) has been in battles with the likes of Mike Pyle, Jon Fitch, Mike Piece and Carlos Condit throughout his career. At 35 years old, he is still competing at a high level and will look to build on the back-to-back wins he had to close out 2012 against Lucas St. Claire and Anthony Lemon. 

Larson’s opponent will be Black House MMA’s Eduardo Pamplona, a veteran who has fought all around the world while training with some of the greats in the world, including Anderson Silva, Lyoto Machida and the Nogueira brothers. 

Joining Larson on the fight card will be two fellow Minnesotans who will be making their television debuts, Nick Compton and Mike Waverek.

For Compton, the move up to the big show has been a long time coming. A finalist for 2012 MNMMANews Fighter of the Year and winner of Most Improved Fighter of the Year, Compton will head to RFA with a 6-2 professional record after a very impressive year.

Things started off tough for Compton in 2012 as he lost a very close split-decision to another one of Minnesota’s top up-and-comers, Damion Hill, but it only seemed to motivate him. He remained very active for the remainder of the year, defeating Bobby Ferrier, Billy Christianson and Randy Kittelson before 2012 came to a close. 

Compton will battle Bobby Cooper, replacing his own teammate, Dan Moret, who was forced out of the bout due to an injury.

Cooper is considered one of the RFA‘s top prospects, holding a professional record of 7-4. He’s already been challenged by some of the other top up-and-comers in the area, including Chidi Njokuani (younger brother of UFC fighter Anthony Njokuani). It will be a step up in competition for Compton who, at 30 years old, is still looking to make a name for himself in the sport on the national level. 

Mikey Waverek will also get a chance to make his name on a bigger stage, having put together a 6-2-1 record as an amateur thus far. A well-conditioned fighter, Waverek has spent much of his amateur career competing at 160 and even 165 pounds, but will settle into his natural weight class of 155 in this one. 

As a young fighter, Waverek has used his high-quality wrestling skills and raw power to control many of his opponents. His bruising style earned him an impressive first round TKO win over Jurrell Skelton this past November. He’ll have his sights set on doing that against undefeated (4-0) Kansas native Dusty Spaulding. 

Spaulding, 4-0 as an amateur, has competed mostly in the 145-pound division, which should mean that Waverek has a significant advantage in terms of size and strength. Spaulding is a tough fighter with solid grappling, however, and he has experience in the RFA cage. This will be an interesting challenge for the Minnesotan who has his sights on making his pro debut in 2013.

All of these fights and others will take place as part of the Resurrection Fighting Alliance 6 event on Friday, January 18th. The event will be shown live at 9pm CST on AXS TV. 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Shark Fights 13 Live Blog: Brock Larson vs. Tarec Saffiedine Updates

This is the Shark Fights 13 live blog for Brock Larson vs. Tarec Saffiedine, a welterweight bout on tonight’s Shark Fights pay-per-view in Amarillo, Texas.

Larson has been undefeated in three fights since being served his UFC release in November 2009….

This is the Shark Fights 13 live blog for Brock Larson vs. Tarec Saffiedine, a welterweight bout on tonight’s Shark Fights pay-per-view in Amarillo, Texas.

Larson has been undefeated in three fights since being served his UFC release in November 2009. Saffiedine won both his Strikeforce fights this year. Both welterweights are southpaws.

The live blog is below.