Thursday Recap

Anthony fought the first fight of the night last Thursday against Hud Mellencamp. Naturally enough, there was a lot of interest in the outcome of this one. Hud looked like he has grown about six inches taller since last year and Anthony had a lot of trouble with his opponents longer reach. Anthony ducked under a lot of Hud's hooks but never got his offense going like he needed to in order to win. He got thumped with a few good shots (take a look a Surly's blog to see what I mean) but he managed to bloody the taller opponents nose. Anthony needs to sharpen up his offense in the future and work on his conditioning a little more but he never quit on us. That's the sign of a true fighter, right there.

Robert fought a tough fighter who after he got a taste of Robert's power, decided that clinching was the best approach. Robert wanted to fight him inside and developed a game plan from watching tape from his opponents previous fight. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to carry out his game plan when his opponent decided not to play along. Imagine that! As a consequence, Robert was smothering his punches too much instead of working on catching the guy coming in. Robert is just too intense sometimes. He needs to get a few more fights under his belt, facing a variety of fighting styles and he'll be an absolute monster in the ring. He trains almost too hard, listens to his coaches and punches hard with good speed. That's a recipe for success, if ever there was one. He's 5-0 now with two state titles.

The last fight before the intermission was the Battle of the Titans. Coaches Ernie and Mike squared off against each other in the Super-heavyweight division. Ernie took control of the fight right from the start using his jab and size advantage to keep Mike at bay. Mike managed to work inside a few times and scored some nice hooks but was no match for the Tattooed Wonder. Ernie showed a lot of movement and style, fighting out of a crouch to keep Mike on the outside. It wasn't Mike's best work but it's hard for two guys who are good friends to knock each other around. It was an entertaining fight, though.

I'll post some photos when they become available.

All in all, it was another good year for us and Jimmy and I are both extremely proud of all of our fighters. Regardless of their experience level, they all fought to the best of their ability and represented themselves and the club extremely well. All of these young men and their families have to sacrifice a lot to put the time in to train and compete. It's certainly not the easiest thing to do and there are lots of other things they could be doing with their time. For a young club we have a nucleus of talented fighters and it's a pleasure working with all of you.

Have to sign off now, it's fight night once again. Fun for the whole family!