"Art of War" 2 Review

by: DarthMolen 1 year, 6 months, 1 week, 1 day, 23 hours, 54 minutes ago

Release Date:

5/11/2007

Company:

Sun Sports and Entertainment

Series:

Art of War

 

There were five RNC in the evening and it was the submission “du jour”. The amazing thing is that each was different in how it was obtained. The secondary theme was horrible refereeing. They were atrocious and there was no excuse for a couple of the matches going as long as they did. We were literally yelling from the media seats to fire the ref’s as they totally bungled their job.

For a full re-telling of the events as they unfolded, you can read my blogged play-by-play that I did as I sat ringside and watched the action unfold. The purpose of this article is to convey the different impressions of the event that a play-by-play cannot communicate effectively.

When all the bouts first started, there were only about 500-1000 in the stands but by the end of the night, there were around 2000 people on hand. The small Austin Convention Center holds about 3200 so there was plenty of seats left empty. According to an internal source, their marketing plan did not net them what they thought it would and hence the poor showing at pre-sales time.

Some of the MMA celebrities on hand were:

• Mark Coleman - cornering for Wes Simms
• Pete Jackson - cornering for David Loiseau and is Diego Sanchez coach
• Loony - Best Damn Sports Show Period on FSN and was the ring announcer
• Frank Trigg - Had the ring chicks fawning over him by the end of the night
• Ed Fishman - Ex-PRIDE USA rep and all-around nice guy. Broke his wrist playing tennis and still showed up with Frank at the show. He even got a couple ring girls on his arm
• Saul Soliz - Tito’s coach and was there to corner Randy Hauer.

Wes Simms was constantly out and about cavorting with the media. He even sat ringside for the first 3 matches and appeared very confident and nonchalant about the whole event. He was essentially fighting a nobody and had drunk the Kool-Aid. More on that later.

At one point he gave an interview for one of the camera’s and was asked about Herschel Walker getting into MMA. He stated “Stay on the football field, stay out of MY cage, STAY ALIVE!”. Apparently he didn’t get it right the first time and had to re-do the scene a couple times to correct what mistakes he had done previously. Each take caused him to pantomime even more ferocity with hilarious results by the last take.

The first bout was prelim quality. Warren Stewart never had a chance. Daniel Pineda took him to the ground, got mount immediately, and the poor guy couldn’t seem to block the punches that were landing on his head. He had a lot of heart though and you could hear his head thudding solidly on the canvas as Daniel drove his fist into his face. It wasn’t a bounce, it was a solid thud with a sickening driving motion. After the third unabated and unblocked hit, we were literally yelling at the referee to stop the match. The pounding went on for about 4 more hits with Daniel literally looking up at the referee in a pleading manner before he would even step in and wave his hand to call off the match. Even then he didn’t look too sure. If the guy doesn’t know MMA, DON’T PUT HIM IN A POSITION TO ENDANGER A FIGHTER’S LIFE!

The second bout was Tony Lozano vs. Justin Howard and it was over before you could blink. Justin Howard immediately took Tony to the ground and fell into side control, isolated the left arm and threw a keylock on before Tony could say “What?”. It was over that fast. 6 weeks worth of work for 30 seconds in a cage.

The Jarrot Lewis vs. Aaron Flourney match was quite entertaining. Both were rolling around looking for submissions. Jarrot secured a nasty kimura that was in Aaron’s back pocket and up his spine so far that Aaron could have literally waved at his trapped hand. He amazingly gutted it out and eventually twirled and escaped after what seemed like an eternity. Flourney then staggers Lewis and turns the tables causing Jarrot to turtle on the ground in a fetal position. Flourney just stood on top and threw nasty hammerfist that were doing some good damage. The ref again wouldn’t stop the bout even though Jarrot wasn’t defending himself anymore except to turtle.  Flourney then jumped on top and sunk in a RNC to mercifully finish the bout.

The next bout between Edwin Figueroa and Whitney Brown was surprisingly entertaining. I walked in with Edwin Figueroa and mistook him for a corner man. His coach had to explain to me that he was a fighter on the card. He looked way young and was way short so I had my doubts. When the cage was locked, Edwin turned into a different animal. They both came out swinging with Brown gassing first and getting clipped going for a submission. Edwin turned on the juice and secured the RNC in his first professional match.

The next bout I dubbed as one of the fights of the night and it definitely was memorable. Matt Thompson had fought Ben Rothwell in the IFL, standing toe-to-toe with the heavy-handed Heavyweight and survived into the second round so I knew he had a chin. Justin Wren is tenacious and had won his last AOW match so I figured they would be evenly matched. Matt came out and proved me wrong. Justin opened up with a vengeance and took Matt to the ground like his game plan dictated but Matt’s ground-game is undervalued and his face was utterly calm while Justin expended all his energy futilely while trying to break Matt’s guard. After Justin had spent himself, they stood back up and Matt went to town grabbing Justin’s head and delivering repeated uppercuts and knees forcing Justin to turn away and cover his face against the fence.

Again the referee would not stop the bout even though the only thing holding up Justin was the cage. Matt was forced to continue to rain down blow after blow until the bell rang. Justin barely wobbled back to his corner and collapsed in his stool. They then forced him to come back out for a second round and he could barely hold himself upright. Matt literally walked out and pushed him over and Justin couldn’t get up. The referee reluctantly walked over and waved his hand to finish the match.

The next bout was almost Comedic. Chris Bowles came to bang and Randy Hauer came to taunt. The thing about taunting is that you have to be willing to back up the show and Randy wasn’t. Randy would give Chris an evil eye and Chris would put his fist in it. Randy even hurt his knee on a slip while he was fooling around. Chris eventually sealed the deal with the submission “du jour”, RNC in the second round.

The next match was another one earmarked for “Fight of the Night”. Klas Akennson had a long hard fought match against Justin Wren in the first AOW and Damien Stelly won his last bout on AOW1. The two didn’t disappoint and put on quite an entertaining standing and submission clinic. Klas finally overextended on a Kimura try and lost to the submission “du jour”, you guessed it, a RNC. Klas was utterly disappointed and could be seen backstage pacing and condemning himself.

Brandon McDowell vs. Alex “El Toro” Andrade, from the Lion’s Den, looked good on paper but was a total mismatch in the ring. Alex is rounding into top form and from the opening bell he had his way with Brandon. Brandon tried to rush Alex and “El Toro” made him pay with a stiff right and then applied a Guillotine. Both expended energy on the futile hold but Alex eventually got top position and started the GNP in earnest after stuffing his adversary in a corner. He then smoothly transitioned to a heel hook that had Brandon tapping immediately in fear of his knee.

The two main bouts were mismatches on paper but turned out very surprising.

David “The Crow” Loiseau vs. Freddie Espiricueta was definitely set up as a tune-up match for “The Crow”. However, Freddie had something to say about it and gave him all he could handle in the first round. There was something missing in David’s face and nobody on media row could place it. The fire just wasn’t there. Eventually, in the second round, “The Crow” came out of his shell and showed his true colors and put Freddie away for good with a beautiful side mount to an arm triangle.

The next fight was the biggest mismatch of the night with Wes Simms against Chris Guillen. The fight started with Wes taunting Chris because of his size. This pissed off Chris to no end and he immediately rushed in giving Wes a mouth full of leather. Wes never recovered the momentum and tired over the three rounds that Chris took him. The first round was competitive with both working well. The second round was a little slower, and the third round had both combatants totally spent. By the end of the third round, everybody was booing because these two heavyweights were just standing in the middle of the ring, throwing lazy shots that never landed, and leaning against each other. Wes almost fell over trying to prop himself up on his knees a couple of times.

The production qualities of the bouts were impeccable and you can’t blame the promoters for horrible officiating. The TSAC really needs to send their boxing ref’s to MMA school if they are going to continue to have MMA matches here in Texas.