Fight Club

Photo by John Porter.
Phil Davis defeated Terry Cohens by T.K.O.

By Broadside Correspondent John Porter

S. Marcello Foran, the Ultimate Warrior Challenge CEO, held another successful mixed martial arts event at the Patriot Center with over 4,000 fans in attendance and the rest watching a live stream on sherdog.com.

Saturday, April 25, was the sixth event held by the mixed martial arts organization, UWC. Some major sources have labeled the UWC as the East Coast’s Strikeforce.

Strikeforce, which caters to MMA fans in San Jose, Calif. and features great fighters as Frank Shamrock, started small like the UWC and now has television deals with CBS and Showtime.

Although the show was a success, many fans left disappointed as the majority of the hometown favorites suffered disappointing losses in the cage. The show featured talented fighters hailing from Los Angeles, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, as well as the hometown favorites.

The current UWC bantamweight champion Mike “The Hulk” Easton, who has been labeled as “The Pride of D.C.,” retained his title in a short fight against Josh “Taz” Ferguson.

Easton, who hails from Temple Hills, Md., is associated with Lloyd Irvin Martial Arts along with four other fighters from Saturday’s event.

Ferguson, who fights out of Louisville, Ky., started out strong, but ended up in a guillotine choke that forced him to tap out at 4:06 of the first round. Easton improved to 8-1 while Ferguson fell to 6-2.

In the co-main event, Reshad Woods faced the controversial fighter War Machine. Woods came out and delivered a knee that wobbled War Machine, but War Machine was able to recover and achieve a second round victory. The 5-foot-11-inch War Machine forced the 6-foot-2-inch Woods to tap out by sinking a deep guillotine choke around his neck.

“Well obviously it did [hurt], because I don’t remember taking a knee to the head,” said War Machine.

War Machine, whose name was Jon Koppenhaver until he legally changed it to War Machine, is a former UFC fighter fighting out of Las Vegas, Nev.

War Machine made headlines when he made a disturbing comment about President Barack Obama, stating “Someone needs to smoke him.”

War Machine has since publicly apologized for his statement and has taken action to improve his public image.

Since leaving the Ultimate Fighting Championship, War Machine has won three consecutive fights.

Photo by John Porter.
Kris McCray achieves his third consecutive victory.

Kris “Savage” McCray, another local standout who trains with Gold Medal Grappling in Woodbridge, Va., added another win to his record. McCray went 9-0 as an amateur fighter in amateur promotions in Virginia and improved his record to 3-0 with his third straight first round victory by forcing his opponent, Ronnie Wuest of Baltimore, Md., to tap out.

In the second fight of the evening, Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis defeated Terry “T-Rex” Cohens with a barrage of unanswered punches. Davis was a standout wrestler at Penn State University, the 2007 NCAA 197-pound wrestling champion, and a four-time NCAA All-American wrestler. He entered the evening event with a 2-0 MMA record while the opposition had a 5-2 record.

In the third fight, Frank “The Crank” Camacho defeated Binky “Baltimore Submission Machine” Jones with a second-round knockout punch. Mikey “The Burque Bulldog” Lovato came up on top over Jose “The Pistol” Villarisco. Joey Kirwan defeated Marcus Foran with the guillotine choke, forcing Foran to tap out.
The knockout of the night award is a tossup between Camacho’s powerful right hook that knocked the mouthpiece out of the opponent’s mouth, or Damian “The Reach” Dantibo’s vicious kick to the head of opponent Ron “The Choir Boy” Stallings.