VANCOUVER, BC – Battlefield Fight League took the stage at Granville Street’s iconic Vogue Theatre last Saturday night, November 24, 2012. They brought their well produced MMA event to an electric sold out crowd with three amateur titles on the line.
The main event showcased former Welterweight Champion Leo Xavier of Universal MMA against defending champion David Kennedy of West Coast BJJ. Near the end of the first round, Kennedy threw a punch that momentarily stumbled Xavier, but he recovered with a take down. The second round had a notable arm bar attempt from Kennedy that Xavier, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt, was able to successfully defend.
In the third round, Kennedy kept a tight guard preventing Xavier from passing for most of the round, but with the 10 second warning, a scramble ensued resulting in Xavier catching a painfully deep knee bar that forced Kennedy to tap convincingly with only 1 second left in the round. With the belt around his waist, Xavier announced that he will be turning Professional for his next fight.
The co-main event had 2 undefeated fighters, Rico Brinson of Team Mamba MMA and Levon Kinley of Universal MMA, competed for the lightweight championship. After a long, intense build up with the pre-fight video production and the ritualistic fighter walk-ins, Kinley took only 12 seconds to deliver a punch straight down the middle of Brinson’s guard that dropped Brinson and caused a referee stoppage. Kinley easily earns my vote for KO of the night.
The featherweight title was also on the line with a rematch of Andre Da Silva versus Tak Sassaki from Clinch MMA. The first fight between the two narrowly went to a decision in Silva’s favor after an all out toe-to-toe war. They picked up where they had left off from the last fight, again trading blows, but this time it looked like Silva was just a little bit faster and was landing cleaner punches and kicks. At the end, the judges gave Silva a more decisive decision victory, and the featherweight belt. After the fight, BFL announced the next contender for the featherweight title as Hanz Pangilinan of Franco’s Kickboxing and Pankration.
Other notes:
My fight of the night goes to a 130lbs catch weight bout. Elijah Goulding of Toshido MMA and Joshua Lam of Franco’s Kickboxing and Pankration both come from very respected gyms, and made their trainers proud. These two 15 year olds fought with extreme composure which allowed them to display a very technical skill set, both on the ground and standing. Lam landed several leg kicks that made the whole crowd cringe, but Goulding went straight forward trying to end the fight. Also, Goulding almost finished a RNC that Lam gritted his way out of. There are bright futures for both of these fighters.
My submission of the night goes to Terrence Chan of Universal MMA. He walked into the cage vexed, looking to show off his muay thai skills. After taking several hard shots, including several body knees from the clinch, his opponent Ryan Comber went for the take down, and landed in Chan’s guard (the last place you want to be, if you have ever seen Chan fight). Chan baited his finish by attacking Comber’s left arm with a high open guard and an under hook. As Comber went to defend with his right arm, Chan took it home with a slick face down armbar.
