Fighters Only

Issue 016

August 2006

Caesar’s Nightclub, London May 28^th 2006

Written by Leigh Remedios, photographed by Kjetil Kausland

There is no doubt that Cage Rage have come on leaps and bounds since their first event at the Elephant and Castle. They are selling out the Wembley Conference Centre and are moving to the Wembley Arena for their next event. They have had a number of PRIDE and UFC stars on their roster, including Vitor Belfort, as well as some of the most influential MMA personalities appearing as guests – Wanderlei Silva, Fedor Emelianenko and Dana White have all attended Cage Rage events.

It is this kind of success that has led many UK fighters to feel that Cage Rage is the place to be, and due to popular demand Dave O’Donnell and Andy Geer, the Cage Rage Promoters, have added a feeder show to their schedule of events. Cage Rage Contenders, as the new show is called, is held at Caesar’s Nightclub in Streatham, a venue once used by the flagship event. With some of the high calibre fighters on the show though, calling the event a ‘feeder show’ almost seems inaccurate.

Fight of the Night

The fight of the night was between featherweights (145lbs/65.8kg) Ashley Grimshaw of Pancrase London and Ronnie Mann of Trojan Freefighters, in a superb example of what MMA should be. As one of the judges, I was fortunate enough to get a seat at cage side, so I had a superb view of the action. The first round went heavily to Ronnie, who opened with some very sharp striking and dropped Ashley early on. Mann rushed in immediately to capitalise on the Open Guard rule and threw some vicious punches and stomps. Grimshaw tried to go for submissions but realised the futility and shot to a clinch off his back. Ronnie controlled the rest of the round with plenty of great striking and used some very impressive footwork to avoid Ashley’s take down attempts.

Round two was much more even, with Grimshaw composing himself well. Mann caught one of his kicks and tripped him, but he managed to do a backwards roll and get to his feet as Mann rushed in. Ashley landed a big uchimata-style throw and followed with some heavy ground and pound, but Ronnie managed to sink a close triangle. The young Londoner escaped and threw some heavy shots of his own, which forced Mann to attempt a takedown. Ashley sprawled and took the back, transitioning quickly to an armbar, but Ronnie escaped and ended the round on top. The blistering speed at which the two transitioned between standing striking, clinch, ground and pound and submission attempts would put most pros to shame.

The third period was a big round for Ashley. He came out throwing some big punches and forced Mann to shoot for a takedown, but Ashley’s wrestling advantage paid off as he repeatedly stopped Ronnie’s takedowns and forced his opponent on to his back. Some nice butterfly guard work by Ronnie kept him out of trouble but it wasn’t enough to take the round from the London based fighter, who was constantly going forwards.

The fight went to the scorecards and a majority draw was decided, which was a fair call. Hopefully we will get to see the rematch at Wembley, as both of these young fighters deserve a shot on the big show.

London Shootfighter’s secret weapon

Another explosive fight was Marios Zaromskis of London Shootfighters versus Afnan Saheed of Cambridge Freefight. Afnan came in three kilos under the weight limit, and was by far the smaller fighter. This is the second time in Marios’ short career (he is currently 3-0) that he has fought an opponent who has come in light, but all he can do is fight the man in front of him, and fight he did!

The fight was spent mostly on the feet, as Saheed is an accomplished Thai boxer and the Lithuanian import is a fantastic kickboxer. In fact, Zaromskis looked like he’d spent his whole life doing nothing but plyometrics. It was non-stop punching and kicking from both guys, with Marios the more powerful and explosive. He forced Afnan back against the cage, and though Saheed had some nice head movement he was ultimately forced to the canvas. He tried valiantly to kick off his back but Zaromskis was relentless and forced Saheed to tap out due to strikes.

Jiu-Jitsu vs Jiu-Jitsu

In the main event Denis Kelly (Carlson Gracie London) took on the Slough based fighter Dave Lee of Ze Marcello BJJ. Denis is a well-rounded fighter, whereas Dave is predominantly known as a grappler. Not wanting to stand with Kelly, Lee rushed in straight away for a clinch and landed a clean uchimata. Kelly managed to escape out the back but got caught in a tight triangle. Kelly tried powering his way out, but the two slams he landed weren’t enough to shake the lock off and Lee rolled Kelly over into triangle-mount where he landed a number of unanswered punches. Denis managed to roll back on top but was forced to tap to the submission only one and a half minutes into the fight.