(Photo by Battlefield Fight League)
Battlefield Fight League held their 31st event on Saturday night and it was easily one of their best cards to date.
The Hard Rock Casino in Coquitlam, British Columbia played host to BFL 31.
Even though the ten-fight amateur card was action packed, it didn’t come without a few hiccups. Leading up to the event there were a couple of scrapped fights — the one in particular that was tough to swallow, was the main event between Jer Kornelsen and Justin Doege. Kornelsen was expected to defend his amateur middleweight title, however on the day of weigh-ins he passed out in the sauna and came to in the hospital, ultimately forcing him out of the bout. Lucky for the champ though, he is doing just fine now. We at MMASucka.com wish him the best in his recovery.
The three title fights that went down were all fantastic battles.
First up was the amateur lightweight title fight between Saied Mirzaie and Eli Wyse. The bout was not officially a title fight by the commission’s standpoint and was contested at three rounds, however because Wyse’s team OK’d Mirzaie coming in over weight, BFL decided to hand out the belt to the victor. It was back and forth action for all three rounds — with many fans wanting to see those two extra championship rounds. In the end Mirzaie wound up winning a split decision on the judges cards and had the belt strapped around his waist.
In the co-main event, BFL fans were treated to a true heavyweight battle between Jamie Smyth and Daniel Spitz for the heavyweight title. The American, Spitz looked to have more of a pep in his step than Smyth, however the heavy hands of the Canadian shone through and forced the referee to stop the bout just over one minute into the second round.
That is the one complaint that I take away from the BFL 31 fight card was the officiating and it definitely wasn’t all bad, but there were two occasions when a fight was stopped way too early. It is understandable that these guys are amateurs, but when they are out there and looking to get a “W” on their record then sometimes you just have to let them fight. In the case of the heavyweights, yes, Smyth was landing some heavy punches on Spitz, but if he had weathered the storm which it seemed like he was doing then I can all but guarantee Smyth would have blown out his arms and been gassed. These guys train for 8-12 weeks to prepare for these fights, so let them do just that — FIGHT.
Arguably one of the best pound-for-pound fighters to step into the BFL cage, Curtis Harriot, displayed his skills in the evenings main event. Harriot showcased all facets of his fighting in his title fight against Justin Aujla-Fieldt. The challenger was undefeated coming into this bout and mostly known as a ground ace, however Harriot proved that his ground game was second-to-none by submitting Aujla-Fieldt via armbar in the second round. In his post-fight interview, Harriot declared that he would be turning pro following this title defense.
Other notable bouts:
There were a number of impressive performances on this night of fights.
Kicking off the card was a bout between females Amanda Pack and Jesse Brennan that ended in a majority draw. These two women put on a show, with some high punching volume, great grappling and hearts of true fighters.
The first three fights on the main card, many could argue were complete upsets. I’m sure in the winners eyes they weren’t, but if you were to look at the skills and records on paper then they were. Tylor Nicholson tapped out Marco Viedas with a very deep rear-naked choke in the second round, Gagan Gill earned himself number one contender status with a huge submission victory against the highly touted Oliver Vajda and by far the most impressive finish of the night came when Chris Anderson put a halt to Kiarash Moghaddam when he landed a nasty body shot that stunned Moghaddam and then dropped him with another in the very same spot.
MMASucka.com’s Top Three Fighters of the Night:
1. Curtis Harriot
2. Chris Anderson
3. Gagan Gill
MMASucka.com’s Top Three Finishes of the Night:
1. Chris Anderson
2. Anthony Nguyen
3. Tylor Nicholson
For full BFL 31 results, click here.
