Fighters Only

Issue 012

April 2006

20^th January, Blaisbell Arena, Honolulu, Hawaii

By Ken Pishna

Honolulu, Hawaii played host to the latest, and arguably greatest, edition of the Rumble on the Rock. In the past, Rumble on the Rock has played host to classic fights such as BJ Penn vs. Takanori Gomi, Tank Abbott vs. Cabbage Correira, and Matt Lindland vs. Tony Fryklund, but with their first ever Welterweight Grand Prix highlighting the night, it’s difficult to top the card of fighters that Rumble was able to secure for this one.

The main event was somewhat of a novelty act featuring Cabbage facing the “King of the Four Rounders” Eric “Butterbean” Esch in a special rules MMA match, but there was no denying the talent that was spread throughout this card. The tournament featured Ultimate Fighting Championship veterans Frank Trigg, Ron Jhun, Renato “Charuto” Verissimo and Dave Menne as well as Shooto Champion Jake Shields, PRIDE veteran Anderson Silva, and rising talents Carlos Condit and Yushin Okami.

Cabbage and Butterbean cook up a storm

In a special rules mixed martial arts fight, with the key special rule being that ground fighting was limited to 15-seconds per instance regardless of the situation, Eric “Butterbean” Esch and Wesley “Cabbage” Correira made for a rather exciting fight which revealed an interesting twist when all was said and done.

Butterbean scored early with some huge clubbing blows that rocked Cabbage, but the dwarfed 260-pound Hawaiian fighter (When was the last time you’ve heard of a 260-pounder being dwarfed?) locked up and took the much bigger Butterbean to the ground and pounded on him for the duration of the15-second limit. Make no mistake about it, Cabbage was a sure bet to have ended the fight right here had there been no limit to the ground fighting, but with the special rules in force the fight was restarted on the feet and the fireworks continued. Cabbage looked to edge ahead as round one ended with some good infighting and Muay Thai elbows that Butterbean seemed unprepared for.

The second round saw Butterbean come out strong, rocking Cabbage with more of his patented pounding. Cabbage continued to work for the Thai clinch and elbow strikes and seemed to be doing well, but during a heated exchange near the end of the round appeared to be injured. Most of us at ringside thought that Cabbage had suffered some sort of rib injury as he had taken plenty of heavy shots. He continued on to finish the round but clearly couldn’t answer the bell for the third, giving up the TKO to Butterbean. The official result indicated that Cabbage had actually suffered a broken arm, not a rib injury.

Following the show, it was confirmed that the fight was stopped due to the fractured arm, but also revealed that the injury did not occur during the fight. Cabbage had been warming up backstage where he slipped in a puddle of water, and injured his arm in the fall. The doctor in attendance checked the arm and believing it was broken told Cabbage not to fight. Not wanting to disappoint the fans and call off the main event, Cabbage made the decision to disregard medical advice and continue on with the fight, eventually having to give up his quest following the second round.

The Tourney

Despite the exciting main event, the meat of the show was definitely the welterweight tournament. In one of the more highly anticipated bouts on the card, Frank Trigg was good to his word as he stood and traded blows for much of the fight with Hawaiian favourite Ron ‘Machine Gun’ Jhun. He landed a few good inside leg kicks that set up some scoring combinations throughout, but didn’t appear to be able to hurt Jhun through most of the bout. Jhun also landed some good blows of his own and even appeared to have stunned Trigg at one point, but he wasn’t able to do anything to put the fight away either.

After some furious back and forth action, Trigg seemed ahead on the scorecards thanks to some solid takedowns, but he capped the fight off with a dominating third round performance. He landed two big takedowns in the round and was a little more aggressive with his ground attack, solidifying the decision. Overall, this was a fairly close fight and it was a little surprising that two of the judges scored all three rounds in Trigg’s favor.

Despite the loss, his third straight, Jhun showed a lot of heart in his performance and proved that, given the chance, he can still hang with the top fighters in the world. With the win, Trigg moves on in the tournament to face the surprising young underdog Carlos Condit.

Most people went into this tournament feeling that Charuto Verissimo was being “fed” a ‘tomato can’ in little-known New Mexico fighter Carlos Condit [Ed’s note: a tomato can is a fighter who is being ‘fed’ to a preferred name so as to be easily beaten and ensure an easy fight]. Making a splash on the regional scene in the Rocky Mountain area of the US, Condit showed the explosiveness that earned him a berth into this tournament and proved the doubters wrong. In just 17 seconds, he dispatched Verissimo and continued his streak of never having a MMA fight go to a decision.

As the bell sounded Charuto came across the ring and threw a couple of punches and immediately dropped down to shoot in on Condit. As he did so, Condit caught Verissimo with a knee to the head that sent the BJJ specialist sprawling to the canvas. Condit quickly pounced, landing a few punches followed by about three to four more knees to the head before the fight was stopped. Verissimo was taken to the hospital for stitches in his lip and for a routine check to make sure he was okay following the swift TKO.

A real wildcard, the lanky Condit is the dark horse in this tournament and has a build and style that could be trouble for most of the other fighters that are moving on to the next round. That, coupled with the brash confidence of youth, means he has a legitimate chance at contending the title.

In a fight that didn’t have the pop that many felt it would, Jake Shields and Dave Menne fought their way through three rounds with neither fighter coming very close to finishing. Menne, having a difficult time cutting down to the 175-pound weight limit, looked every one of his very experienced 31 years. Afterwards, his manager Monte Cox told me that Menne had struggled tremendously to make the weight and it had taken took everything out of him. It showed, as Menne was on the defensive throughout most of the bout and appeared sluggish, assuredly due to the difficulty in cutting weight.

Shields was constantly attacking and was able to keep Menne on his back for the majority of the bout, but was never really able to come very close to putting away the veteran fighter. Of course with Menne’s experience, he’s pretty good at foiling just about anyone’s attack and making them look bad. In the end, Shields scored enough takedowns and maintained offensive position long enough to earn a unanimous 30-27 score on every judge’s scorecard and move on to face Yushin Okami in the next round.

Pride veteran and Cage Rage champion Anderson Silva dominated his fight from beginning to end, including the finish. Unfortunately for him, the finish ended up being illegal. Silva hammered Yushin Okami with leg kicks throughout and stuffed all of his takedown attempts until about two minutes into the round. Following his only successful takedown, Okami was on his knees working a ground and pound attack from inside the guard when Silva reached up with his leg and clocked Okami across the jaw with his heel, knocking out the Japanese fighter. The technique was actually beautifully executed, acting much like a hook punch with the hands and not a traditional up-kick that is expected from a fighter on his back.

The fight was stopped with most people thinking that Silva had won, and there was plenty of confusion as officials sorted out the situation. It is unfortunate that Silva’s brilliant kick across the jaw was deemed an illegal technique as Okami had both knees on the ground. Thus, despite being knocked out, Okami was ruled the winner by disqualification and moves on to the second round of the tournament to face Jake Shields.

Highly regarded as one of the favourites to win this entire tournament, Silva found himself in a disappointing situation, which leaves him on the outside looking in. He will now return to the UK to face top five middleweight Matt Lindland at Cage Rage 16 in April.

On the undercard, Vilatonu Vonokalaifia got off to a good start taking Scott Junk down from the clinch and landing in a full mount position. He slowly started to mount up some solid blows, but as Junk tried to work his way out of danger Vonokalaifia went for a guillotine choke, which allowed Junk to reverse position and attain the mount. Unlike his opponent, Junk was able to rain down blow after damaging blow causing the TKO stoppage as Vonokalaifia made a vane attempt to cover up.

Originally slated to fight Ultimate Fighter Season 2 veteran Jason Von Flue, Ross Ebenez instead was faced with the last minute substitution Josh Donahue, a fighter from the Rage In The Cage promotion in Arizona (U.S.A.).

Though outweighed by 13 pounds, Donahue made a game attempt, continually shooting on Ebenez, but the bigger Hawaiian made it look easy. He took his time landing a solid shot here and there before finally dropping Donahue. From his back Donahue attempted to snag an arm bar, but Ebenez picked him up and tossed him off like a rag doll before pounding him into a TKO stoppage by referee Larry Landless.

In the first bout of the night, Kengo Ura, training out of the R1 camp in California with Frank Trigg and Enson Inoue’s Pure Bred in Japan, took out local Hawaiian favorite Mike Malone in the first round. After a short feeling out period, Ura nearly locked on a Kimura, but Malone managed to escape. Ura stunned Malone by dropping down from a standing position to the guard, stood back up, and then faking another big drop, slipped back into an ankle lock that immediately had the Hawaiian tapping out.

Rumble on the Rock’s first Grand Prix lived up to expectations and managed to give us a few surprises along the way. Frank Trigg and Jake Shields will surely be the favourites to move on to the finals in April, but Okami and Condit should not be overlooked. Despite the odd win over Silva, Okami is a strong fighter that could surprise in the next round, and Carlos Condit proved that he is a threat to anyone he faces with the stunning win over Charuto.