Fight Night

About 600 fans gathered in Bloomington’s AmVets Post 2000 on Saturday night to watch 30 fighters compete in the Elite Cage Fighting 15 competition. Friends, parents, siblings and wives as well as training partners and coaches were treated to 15 mixed martial arts-style cage matches, including three title defenses.\n“I’d give tonight a nine, on a scale of one to 10,” said Phil Walsh, co-owner of Elite Cage Fighting, which hosted the event. “It ran very smoothly, and we had a whopping six tickets unsold.”\nBrendan Broadstreet opened the night with a technical knockout 23 seconds into the first round after he took Dean Burley to the ground and began to unload punches onto his face.\nThe second fight was a rematch of an April 17 fight between Chris Terrell and Michael Cross that ended with a tap out one minute and 16 seconds into the first round after Cross secured a triangle leg lock around Terrell’s neck to win using the same method he did to beat Terrell in the April fight.\nThe scariest moment of the night happened when Jeremy Butler slammed Mike Ingle into the mat and elbowed him across the face, knocking out Ingle only 16 seconds into the fight. Ingle was taken out on a stretcher by doctors and EMTs as a precautionary measure.\n“He was breathing fine when he left. If it was a real serious situation, they would have gotten him out of there a lot faster than that,” said Walsh. “He probably suffered a concussion.”\nIn one of two fights that ended in a decision, Tony Davis won unanimously over Scott Blanton. Blanton fought through a cut sustained beneath his eye in the first round to come back and pound Davis after escaping an early second-round triangle attempt. The next fight was the welterweight title fight between Lance Greenberg and Beau Ridings. The fighters quickly locked up and went to the ground with Greenberg on top of Ridings. Ridings caught an accidental throat shot about a minute into the first round. The fight was stood up and Ridings was given a few minutes to recover. Shortly after the fighters reconvened, Greenberg delivered a devastating knee to Ridings’ body, winning by knockout at 2:05 in the first round.\nAfter a short intermission, Bobby Chadwell was knocked out in the first round by Steve Thompson’s flurry of hooks and knees.\n“It felt really good to be back in the cage,” said Thompson, a Marine reservist and Iraq veteran. “Bloomington is a great venue, especially for me to be fighting in the AmVets Post.”\nThe 11th fight of the evening was the light-middle-weight championship match between IU senior Luke Taylor and Justin Curtis. Both Brazilian Jiu Jitsu experts, Curtis came out in the traditional blue gi sported by Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competitors, which he had to strip off before he entered the cage.\nTaylor connected with some early punches, but the fight quickly went to the ground, with Taylor able to stay on top and deliver short elbows to Curtis’ face for most of the evenly matched first round. \nIn the second round, Curtis opened up with some strong low kicks, but the round again quickly went to the ground, where Taylor was able to stay on top again. Despite taking some kicks to the face, Taylor was able to keep Curtis on his back. Midway through the second round, Taylor and Curtis exchanged ankle locks, although neither was able to get a tap out. With a minute left in the second round, the referee stood the fighters up to reset the fighting, but Curtis was unable to put any weight on his knee. The referee stopped the fight, and Taylor retained his belt by technical knockout at the 4:08 mark in the second round.\n“I was working on his legs and ankles most of the fight. I was surprised that I didn’t break his ankle,” Taylor said. “He’s a tough dude; I have a lot of respect for him. This has been a long time coming. I lost our last fight, so I wanted this one bad.”\nIn the third title fight and last contest of the evening, super-heavy-weight champion Steve Banks successfully defended his belt against Rob Arnett with a controversial referee stoppage early in the first round. The 319-pound Banks was on top of the 262-pound Arnett against the cage working some punches on Arnett when the referee signaled a tap out. Although Banks seemed to be in control for the most of the fight, Arnett indicated that he was trying to punch Banks’ body, not tap out.