Jason High makes Mike Ricci dance with a sharp one-two combo
Things weren’t looking too good for Jason High in round two of his fight with Mike Ricci at World Series of Fighting 31. Though he’d owned the first frame, ‘The Kansas City Bandit’ was being well beaten in the second. Yet despite breathing heavily with blood pouring from his nose, High fired a sharp jab-left hook combination that stunned ‘The Martian’, then made him pull some moves straight out of a GS Boyz video on his way down to the canvas. Sat the mat, Ricci was a sitting duck for a series of show-closing hammerfists that sealed the comeback of the night.
Despite appearing to be in serious trouble, High insists there was nothing to worry about. He’d lost the second round, but he was ready to pull out a performance for the final five minutes – though that turned out to be unnecessary.
“I really felt alright,” he explains. “My head was still there. It looked a little rough, but I felt pretty good in there. I was for sure looking forward to the end of the round. I was going to be like, ‘Oh f**k I gave this round up.’
“I could push through one more round no problem. I had to come out, definitely get the third one and dominate him. But I was able to whip that combination off and catch him pretty good.”
Catch Ricci they did, but it was sill a surprise the strikes did so much damage. “I reset my stance and I was waiting for him to come... Then he started falling, so I was like, ‘Oh! Here we go.’
“I feel like I landed high on his cheekbone, which is why he did the stumbling around. If I landed in a good spot a little lower he probably would have fallen out right there.”
He may be self-critical, but High isn’t complaining after a highlight-reel finish.
Got the feeling
“When you land a punch like that, you feel it. I felt like I punched through a screen door – like I just punched right through something.”
Bait & switch
“My body might have said I was a little tired but mentally and physically I felt pretty good. The body language part did its job to help draw him in a little, actually.”
Range finding
“I noticed our front feet were touching a couple of times. I said to myself, ‘He’s closer than he’s been all fight,’ so I knew I’d be able to touch him if I put a good combination together.”
Aesthetically pleasing
“I like to watch people fall. Not only does it look better, it’s better strategically instead of running up on a guy and letting him clinch or anything like that. I wanted to let him stumble around and be off-balance while I was in control.”
