Walker Denied in Pittsburgh

A disappointing Doctor Stoppage loss marred Donny Walker’s return to the cage in the main event at Pinnacle Fighting Championships.

With his technical boxing, and hard won takedown defense Donny Walker was able to keep Mark Cherico at bay for much of the first round.  But Cherico’s dogged attack broke Walker’s defense and the fight went to the ground.  From there Cherico was pressuring with submissions and elbows, working his standard game to get Donny to give his back.  A solid elbow opened a gash in Walker’s face.  Round 1 ended 10-9 Cherico. 

Round two saw a more aggressive Walker use his boxing to force Cherico to the cage and scored a double leg takedown of his own.  In the scramble the cut on Walker’s face was re-opened and the referee stopped the fight to examine the cut.  The fight doctor intervened and despite the pleas of the crowd to let the fight continue decided the cut met the criteria to end the fight.  Under Unified Rules when a fight is stopped for medical reasons, the fight is awarded to the fighter ahead on points at the time of the stoppage.  The 10-9 score from the first round secured Cherico the win.

Images courtesy of Mike Wrobel at ShootItMMA.com

Written by Bob Donaghy

GriffonRawl Fight Team Grows by Two

 

Two of GR's most dedicated members, Cody Lewis and Alex Frenk, fought their way onto the Fight Team at Roctagon 27 on June 15th.  Both took on talented opponents and came away with dominating wins.

Cody won by armbar over Dib Haddah in the third round, and Alex KO'd Ben Horton just 45 seconds into the first.  Alex showed amazing maturity in his MMA debut fighting off a guillotine and capitalizing to get the KO so quickly.  Cody took his time, and in the 3rd round worked his ground game perfectly from his back to get the armbar at 1:34.  Training pays off.  Congratulations to both of them.

Alex Frenk stays busy at GR.  He volunteers with the jr MMA program (his son is in the program).   He's also entered (and won) Muay Thai events.

Cody Lewis is 1-0 on smoker fights and is one of the most active GR fighters on the grappling tournament circuit. Cody has two MMA bouts under his belt (a couple of disappointing squeaker decisions), but with this win he gets his first finish and made the team.  Hard work and dedication pay off

Be sure to congratulate Cody and Alex when you see them in class

Written by: Bob Donaghy

Comer Crushed Camozzi at FNF 9, GR goes 1-1-?

Fight Night in the Flats 9 got off to a rocky start for GriffonRawl.  Jason Dent's opponent missed the weigh-in, and never did turn up.  Sammy Callari got tagged early and ended up on the wrong side of a TKO.  It fell to 'Bonesaw' George Comer to put the evening back in positive territory, and he delivered a dominating performance and another Unanimous Decision victory.

Taking the events in the order they occurred:

Andrew Osborne (9-5 overall) is a veteran fighter with a grinding standup game.  All but two of his wins are decisions in standup wars, the other two are KO's.   He is not afraid of a long fight.    Which makes it all the more puzzling that he did not show up for the weigh-in.  Jason was very disappointed (read angry) that the fight camp might be wasted.  Never taking things lying down, when Jason learned that there was a possibility that Osborne would no show he was on the phone to other promotions looking to book himself a fight as soon as possible.

Izzy William (5-1) is currently ranked 3rd among NAAFS Amateur Lightweights.  All of his wins are by KO or TKO, and 4 of those are in the first round.  William came out fast and swinging wide, and Sammy countered well backing him up with straight counter rights.  But one of the wild swings got through.  Sammy is a warrior, but he was tagged hard and couldn't recover before the referee stopped the bout.  It's possible that Sammy could have recovered, but amateur rules dictate if there is to be an error, it will be on the side of an early stoppage.  Sammy's will come back from this and put another W on his resume soon.

On paper George Comer was in the most danger of the three GriffonRawl fighters.  His opponent was Brian Camozzi (younger brother of UFC Middleweight Chris Camozzi).  Camozzi fights out of Factory X in Denver, which boasts 3 alternates for the US Olympic Wrestling team on the training rotation.  Camozzi brought a 5-0 record to the fight, also, a half dozen kickboxing trophies, a Blue Belt in BJJ and at 6'2” and 76”, a significant height and reach advantage. 

But fights aren't won on paper, and George stuck to Jason's plan: nullify Camozzi's  reach and striking by taking him to the ground as fast as possible and keep him there.  Use elbows to open him up, stay busy and look to finish with a submission.  Camozzi did display excellent takedown defense, but crumbled against Comer's dogged persistence and insane conditioning.

A unofficial breakdown of the fight has it 2 minutes of standup, 11 minutes with Comer in control, and 2 minutes of Camozzi in control.  The judges saw it the same way with a Unanimous Decision for Comer (30-27, 29-28, 30-27).  Way to go Bonesaw.

Images courtesy of Mike Wrobel at ShootItMMA.com 

Written by: Bob Donaghy