Gracie and Slice win with superior jiu-jitsu at Cage Fury Fighting Championships 'Two Words – One Cage.'

I have to hand it to the folks at CFFC – when all was said and done, they put together a good event on the 23rd. Sure, there were a few kinks over the course of the evening. Some of the difficulties were technical; some of them spoke towards larger issues in the sport of MMA. There was, however, no problem in the entertainment value of the fights; on that front, CFFC 5 delivered, and with a bevy of exciting finishes, and quality match-ups

The Fights

Kimbo Wins… Off his back.

Excuse me? Come again? Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson, the man we all know for putting lumps on flailing thugs in various vacant lots across Miami? The man with hands of stone and a chin that eats bare-knuckle punches for breakfast? Kimbo Slice beat Ray Mercer by submission from the closed-guard? It's one of the simplest and most common finishes in MMA – and if your opponent is a one-dimensional striker it's usually available, literally sticking its neck out waiting for you to seize the opportunity. Kimbo has been training with Bas Rutten, an MMA legend who, like Slice, had his beginnings as a fearsome striker. Bas Rutten knows what it takes to adapt and did so very well as is evidenced by his impressive record. Will Kimbo Slice go on to achieve similar success? Time might tell; unfortunately, his fight against Mercer didn’t tell us much. The fight was billed as a contest between two worlds, Boxing and MMA. I found myself wondering if Kimbo Slice was really the best representative of the sport of MMA to prove that point, and furthermore, if that point really needed to be proven… Again. The real appeal in a match-up between a boxing champ and a street fighting hustler, is the battle between a craft honed in the streets, and a sweet science forged in the gym and ring. Did fans really want to see Kimbo sink a choke and finish his aging opponent from his back? I don't think so. I think fans wanted to see what happens when back-alley power meets ring-tested, ESPN-approved boxing skills. I was hoping to find out if the punches the made Kimbo Slice a YouTube sensation could fell a mastered boxer. But Kimbo forced the tap from mercer with a standard guillotine from his closed guard on the ground. As I think of it now, I imagine Kimbo going for a triangle choke, and it makes me chuckle – its just so wrong! But, hey its MMA and as 2007 has shown us, anything can happen. Incidentally, the one blow that landed with any clairity was a hook thrown by Mercer, shortly before he was choked by Kimbo early in the first. Nevertheless, the crowd loved the fight, and was on its feet the entire time – this is what many of them came for. It was announced that David Tank Abbott would square off in the cage against Kimbo in October.

Speaking of submissions…

Enter, Gregor Gracie

If your last name is Gracie, and your family hails from Brazil, chances are your family business is the suave art of jiu-jitsu. Back in the early 90's, the Gracie's sought to introduce their “scientific” take on no rules fighting to America. They made their point with the tall slender, anything-but-physically-intimidating, Royce Gracie as America watched him breeze through a steady stream of muscle-bound brawlers and masters of traditional martial arts in the early UFC tournaments. One by one he dispatched them with confidence and relative ease, and in doing so, changed the reality of no rules fighting forever.

Almost 15 years after Royce first stepped into the octagon, the name Gracie carries a great deal of cache. To beat a Gracie is to put your name firmly on the MMA map. When Frank Shamrock wanted to reignite his career, he knew it couldn't hurt to leverage the Gracie name to do so. And certainly, for young 2-1 fighter like Josh Lydell, a win over a Gracie would be a huge bullet on his resume. If you are the Gracie in question, having that kind of bounty on your family name might add considerable pressure – especially if you happen to be making your MMA debut. But Gregor didn't feel that way, or at least he show it. Gregor went about every moment of his debut experience with easy confidence and poise. In his mind, Lydell was the man who should carry the burden of fear.

From the onset of the fight, Gregor dominated. He blasted Lydell with a hook, took him down, got side control, and dropped a barrage of elbows and punches. He moved gracefully from one dominant position to the next doling out generous portions of punishment along the way before finally taking Lydell for one last roll and sinking in a rear naked choke. In his debut, Gregor, the 15^th Gracie to have entered recognized professional MMA, showed that he is well suited for his family trade, and I hope to see more of him in the cage and ring.

The first fight of the evening got off to a late start and pit NJ locals Al Buck and Brain Demuro against each other for three fast-paced rounds. Both fighters were in shape and vigorously sought to blast each other with hooks throughout the fight. It was Buck who connected with the telling blows throughout the fight including a powerful hook that rocked Demuro in the 2nd. Demuro nearly had Buck finished with a triangle choke that made the crowd gasp when it seemed that it was almost cinched, but Buck powered out and went on to dominate the rest of the fight, later landing a roundhouse kick to Demuro's face that could be heard all through the convention center. The Judges gave the fight unanimously to Al Buck after 3 rounds of action. It was a good start to the evening

Middleweights, Doug Gordon (team rush) and Lyman Good (Tiger Schulman) squared off in the Hexagon. This was mainly a showcase of Good's athletic abilities, as he was able to out muscle and out work Gordon both standing and on the ground for the majority of the three rounds. Gordon never managed to get his offense going and the judges had no difficulty awarding the unanimous decision to Lyman.

NJ Local and Crowd favorite Nick Catone (Ricardo Almeida/Renzo Gracie) would hand Boston kickboxer, John Howard, his second career defeat in professional MMA. Early on, Catone struggled to cope with Howard's powerful leg kicks, but as the fight moved to the ground Catone had no problem scoring on Howard with strikes from Howard’s guard, side control, and late in rd. 3, from mount and back mount. For his effort, Catone won the Unanimous Decision.

After a surprisingly entertaining undercard, 150lb fighters Jim Miller and Anthony Morrison met in the first televised fight of the evening. Morrison, a freestyle fighter, entered the ring wearing a big steel chain and could have passed for Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson 's mini-me. Miller, another fighter under Renzo Gracie, apparently undaunted by Morrison's cage couture, proceeded to treat his opponent to a smorgasbord of submission attempts from his hyperactive guard. Miller attempted a kimura, a triangle, an omoplata, and then back to the triangle which he closed tight to force the tap with 5 seconds left in opening round.

Next to meet in the cage were 170 pounders Nick 'The Mad Monkey' Serra and Mike 'the Boston Bad boy' Varner. It was clear from the onset that this was going to be an entertaining match-up. First off you have Serra, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt under Renzo Gracie, who makes his entrance wearing his Jiu-Jitsu gi and a monkey mask while tossing bananas in to the crowd. Then comes Varner (Boneyard), also wearing a Jiu-Jitsu gi, while proudly waving his white belt above his head. It's hard to say what Varner's message might have been with the belt waiving – either he was saying, ‘yeah, I'm a white belt, but I'll still smash you,' or 'I'm a white belt, so give me a break if I lose on the ground.' Either way, the match had a comical quality to it that never quite went away. The first round was mainly an even-sided clinch battle that had Varner scoring with foot stomps while Serra tried to connect with knees. If not for Serra's takedown and brief top-game, the first round would have been very hard to score. The second round, however, required no guesswork, as Serra quickly took Varner down, mounted, and forced the tap at 2:32 of the second round with a smoothly executed armbar. Apparently Serra was so happy to capture the CFFC welterweight title that he decided to share with the crowd a freakish anomaly involving the prehensility of his toes. Nick Serra, like his brother, is a crowd pleaser.

Dante Rivera pushed a heated pace in his effort to defend his NABC middleweight belt against Alexis Aquino. It was immediately clear that Rivera came out looking for a knockout. Aquino was tough but couldn't match Rivera's onslaught of hook combos and uppercuts. But Aquino hung on until the end of the round and Rivera looked like he might have emptied his tank. In the second round, the pace slowed. Both fighters scored with strikes and for a moment appeared to be friends rather than combatants, as they had begun to high five each other after landing hard shots. Aquino apparently thought he could use this to win the fight and called for the high five, but instead threw a high kick with lots of snap on it. The kick didn't connect with any force, but if it had, it might well have been decisive. It didn't matter though, because a moment both fighters were on the ground attacking each other's feet. It would be Rivera who secured the tighter lock on his opponent and Aquino tapped in visible pain. Renzo Gracie was in the ring to celebrate the victory of yet another of his students, when suddenly chaos erupted all over the cage. Apparently, one of Rivera's teammates didn't appreciate Aquino's high-five trick, and wanted to express it. The brawl was short lived no one was hurt.

Devidas Taurosevicius (say that three times fast) successfully defended his NABC lightweight belt from local crowd favorite, Kevin Roddy. Taurosevicius relentlessly imposed his ground game with relative impunity before skillfully applying a match-ending armbar. The crowd was audibly displeased.

CFFC light heavyweight champ, Josh Rhodes, would give the Jiu-Jitsu-heavy night its only TKO victory in his title defense against Noah Inhofer of TUF notoriety. There's not much to say about Rhodes other than he's a big, tough, country boy who knows how to bring some serious hurt. Round one was an absolute slugfest. Both fighters connected hard and often, and both were rocked at moments, but it was Rhodes who landed the more telling shots. Early in round 2 Rhodes was able to slam Inhofer to cage floor and finish him there with some mean looking strikes to the side of his head.

Questions

CFFC seemed to be working out its own identity in the ever more crowded market place of MMA, and in that process raised questions about the evolution of MMA's own infant image. CFFC utilizes a fight stat calculator called 'Compu-Combat Strike Stats,' which gives a tally at the end of each fight of the total 'strikes' landed. The first and most obvious problem with the stats was exposed by the string of submission victories inflicted mostly by the half dozen Renzo Gracie trained fighters. What does it matter if the fighter with the popped ankle threw 37 more jabs than the fighter that took him down and forced the tap? As the MMA audience learns more about every aspect of the sport, will they want to see submission attempts, guard passes, sweeps, reversals and take-downs accounted for in the Compu-Combat stats? And what about striking in MMA? In boxing there is little challenge in calculating the efficiency of strikes used in a match. Boxers either jab, or they throw a power shot. Both can determine the outcome of the match, and when tallied, they usually tell the story you'd expect them to – the fighter who lands the most, usually wins (unless you’re Winky Wright). But MMA is worlds apart from boxing, just ask Ray Mercer, who found his carotid arteries unable to function between Kimbo Slice's massive arms. MMA opens up a whole new world of strikes and positions to strike from. If fighter A threw 40 knees in the clinch and fighter B threw 30 punches from full mount, who would you guess was winning? What has more value, a leg kick or a body punch? A high-kick or a hammer-fist from side control? Could CFFC engineer a combat calculator with stats that could tell the story of an MMA fight? Probably, but I doubt they could find anyone capable of reading fast enough to finish the whole report between fights. Still, I've always liked the idea of fight stats for MMA – I hope CFFC finds a way to make it work.