Report: Cut Throat MMA's Brawl at Bourbon Street

(originally published on MMANuts.com on March 24, 2011)

March 23, Wednesday. It’s amateur night at 115 Bourbon Street, a large bar-and-grille joint 45 minutes outside Chicago, IL. The president of Cut Throat MMA, Mike Davis, is pressing palms when we get to the ticket table. He hands us a couple of passes and with a pat on the shoulder sends us in. “Go wherever you want,” he says, “ just so long as you’re not in the way.” He looks awfully familiar, and I realize that I’ve met him before, a couple of years ago at something called the Wes Sims Fan Expo—a gathering of about four fans and a dozen homeless people under an interstate overpass, where UFC-veteran and modern-day flaneur Wes Sims handed out sandwiches and engaged in arm-wrestling contests. That was the first mixed martial arts event I ever covered. “Oh yeah, that was me, I organized that, ” Davis says. “God, don’t remind me.”

Young men with broad shoulders and ropey forearms, dressed in garish t-shirts, mill around, do mild horseplay. Some of the older men, curious and unwinding after a day of work, stumble in from the bar the next room over. To my left, preternaturally tan young women in form-fitting sweatpants make small talk and inspect the ring cards. I take a spot by the blue corner. It’s the corner typically reserved for the fighter that’s introduced first—almost always the less popular of the two, or the underdog. Sure enough, across the first nine fights, not a single fighter from the blue corner manages a win.

Evan Eckhoff, of watery physique, makes an ill-advised debut at heavyweight against six-foot-seven, 252-pound Quinn Corbett. Corbett, undefeated in his amateur career, is a monster, heavily muscled and surely a head taller than his pot-bellied opponent. If Eckhoff shares my reservations, he doesn’t much show it, as the starting bell sounds and he walks right over to Corbett, clubbing him with an overhand right. It startles Corbett into a double-leg, and he lands in side control. Eckhoff holds onto an ineffective guillotine, and Corbett decides to clamp onto Eckhoff’s neck in turn. They ring each other’s necks until Corbett lets go in favor of some light ground-and-pound. He passes to mount and fires away as Eckhoff turtles up. The referee stops the bout at a minute and forty-six seconds into the first round. Eckhoff’s cornermen maintain a sunny disposition, and one says to the other, “He did good for his first time.”

Spencer Debendetti and Kyle Geary are fighting at a catch-weight of 160 pounds.

Debendetti, representing Victory Martial Arts, comes out trailed by a group of eight or ten, all wearing matching t-shirts. Debendetti’s coach takes a seat next to me, the first of three times he’ll conduct an underdog to the cage tonight. Geary walks out to what’s probably the dirtiest song of the evening. I do believe the n-word was uttered at least four times, along with ample references to fellatio and various forms of intercourse.

The fight is brief. Debendetti eats a jab before finding himself planted on his back. He closes up his guard and locks up what looks like a fight-ending guillotine joke, but Geary explodes out and transitions to side control. He pins Debendetti in the crucifix position and lets loose with short punches. They don’t seem to be doing much damage but, with Debendetti unable to buck out, the referee decides to call it early in the first round.

J.L. George looks uneasy standing across from Jimmy “Slice” Moreno. The heavyweight tilt runs for just over two rounds, and sees Moreno threatening with heavy punches on the feet before swiftly planting George on the mat. George very nearly stages a comeback in the second, taking Moreno’s back in a scramble and almost sinking in a rear naked choke, but he fails to slip the forearm below the chin, and burns himself out. Moreno reverses into George’s full guard, stands, and dives in with a heavy right. George wilts, covering his face and turtling up. Moreno wails away for the remainder of the round.

Moreno looks a little winded coming out for the third, and George advances too zealously, with his chin up in the air. Moreno clips him with a straight right that sends George crashing to the mat only seconds into the final round.

Lightweight Louis Robles makes the mistake of hanging around in Bobby Moffet’s guard. Too intent on ground and pound, Robles ignores the cries from his corner to stand up, and Moffet slaps on an arm bar. Robles can’t punch his way out, and submits in the first.

Bobby Andrews, of Victory Martial Arts, finds himself in over his head against Jason Ignacek, the fourth-ranked featherweight in the promotion. Ignacek’s much-improved striking leaves Andrews desperately working for a double-leg along the fence. Ignaceck takes advantage, jumping into full guard and trapping Andrews in a guillotine choke. The tap comes at 2:10 of Round 1.

Representing Coalition MMA, Zac “Three Piece” Feece, six feet tall and weighing in at a prodigious 245 pounds, wins the award for nickname most resembling a KFC value meal. His opponent, Chris “The Clinch” Hill, weights in at a similarly stupendous 270. Hill immediately dives for a takedown, and the two tumble into the corner right in front of me. Feece tries for a triangle, but Hill shrugs it off. He makes like a jackhammer and forces the referee to stop the fight after 34 seconds.

Lightweight A.J. Masters is the second Coalition MMA fighter to take to the cage, a slight young man tasked with the barrel-chested Jake “The Simian Smasher” Frias. Masters’s corner eggs him on: “He’s a short fucker, come on A.J.” Cold comfort, as Frias shoots in for a single leg right out of the gate, dumping Masters onto the mat before posturing up and unloading with punches. The fight is stopped within the first minute.

Heavyweights Tim Williams and Mike Petersen come out slugging. Petersen, the heaviest fighter of the night at 280 pounds, gets the better of the exchanges, and Williams resorts to a bull rush. He drives Petersen into the fence, and the cage shakes violently. They tumble to the mat, where Williams struggles out of a rear naked choke and into Petersen’s full guard. He postures up and lands a punch before the bell sounds.

Williams starts the second with a couple of lackadaisical kicks. Petersen promptly counters with a right. A second lands flush and Williams slumps to his knees. The doctor cradles the supine William’s head as the fighter answers questions through a mouthful of blood. TKO at seventeen seconds of Round 2.

There’s a distinct pattern developing, where underdogs are consistently drawn from the same training camps, as if these groups yet lack the savvy or clout to put their fighters in favorable matches. Victory Martial Arts has produced three such over-matched fighters this evening. The same goes for Coalition MMA, which suffers it’s third and final loss of the night, as lightweight Brian “Two-Time” Titus falls in the first round to the Uflacher Academy’s Derrik Malert. Titus started the round showing off, with a silly jumping front kick. Malert remained unimpressed, and surged forward with a flurry of punches, throwing Titus off-balance. Malert followed with punches as Titus stumbled to the mat. Titus was unable to scramble away, and Malert continued to level shots to the head, forcing the referee to stop the fight.

An intermission before the title fights get under way. As the night wears on, deciphering the verse tattooed on the ring girl’s upper thigh is becoming an increasingly important mission. Conducting this operation in a fashion both sly and gentlemanly is a tricky business that I handle with great aplomb. Congratulations all around. She’s wearing a skirt that falls far short of her rear end. She seems totally un-phased by this insufficiently tailored garment. A true professional.

In the co-main event, the undersized David “Baby Ruth” Booth takes on the Cut Throat MMA Light Heavyweight Champion, Bill Johnson. Booth draws laughs from the crowd as he walks out to the Lion King soundtrack. Johnson draws approximately zero laughs by walking out with Top-10 bantamweight Miguel Torres in his corner.

Despite the pair’s supposed grappling acumen, the fight takes a quick turn for the riotous. Johnson is strongest at range, with straight rights and uppercuts breaking through Booth’s guard. When Booth manages to collapse the distance, he makes a hockey fight of it, with looping punches in the clinch that frequently stagger the defending champion. He drops Johnson twice, once in the beginning of the second and again in the fourth, but absorbs tremendous punishment in the interim. By the fifth round, chants of “Simba” roll through the crowd, and Johnson is badly gassed. Booth takes the initiative, marching forward with slow but heavy hooks that win him the round and put an exclamation point on the fight.

The crowd is so moved by Booth’s tireless efforts that they forget how handily Johnson folded Booth up with kicks to the body, how often his uppercuts sent Booth’s head snapping back in the first few rounds. The judge’s suffer a similar bit of short-term memory loss, and Booth is awarded a split-decision victory and the Cut Throat MMA light heavyweight title.

Headliner and welterweight champion T.J. Rowley wins the award for best entrance song of the night, walking out to a metal version of Hall of the Mountain King, which has increased the room’s zaniness quotient ten-fold. He’s defending his belt against Ryan Storey. Both sport impressive amateur records—Rowley with nine wins, one loss, and Storey at twelve and three. Storey is the more impressive physical specimen, a rocky 170 pounds, but the more slender Rowley has the distinction of already having beaten Storey once before, by unanimous decision back in January of 2010. Both are poised to make professional debuts.

Rowley opens the fight with a lead-leg kick to Storey’s mouth. Storey doesn’t like the taste and takes the fight to the ground, where Rowley threatens briefly with an omoplata. Rowley cannot sweep, though, and has to content himself with full guard. He inches his legs up towards Storey’s shoulders, but Storey is mindful of any impending submissions and stands up. On the feet he plasters Rowley with a hard right cross that persuades the champ to dive for a takedown. Storey sprawls and slaps on a guillotine, but Rowley remains calm, advancing to half-guard and bruising up Storey’s rib cage until he lets go. They find themselves back on their feet only briefly, as Storey eagerly clinches up and slams Rowley to the mat. He begins to tighten up an arm triangle choke, but he’s short on time, and the round ends just as Rowley pops his head free.

In the second, Rowley again tries to kick and punch at range, but Storey barrels forward and drags Rowley back to the mat. Storey advances to full mount, where he puts Rowley to the guillotine. The choke is in tight, and though Rowley, only some twenty-four inches away, is likely falling into unconsciousness, his eyes are open wide, gazing I guess on some alter-earth, all the good things that must slip away as he taps out. The submission comes at 1:45 of Round 2.

With this victory, Storey has become the new Cut Throat MMA Welterweight Champion, improved his record to 13-3-0, and avenged every loss ever suffered in his amateur career. Before exiting the cage, he announces that, with this final bit of business taken care of, he’s leaving the amateur circuit behind.