A Hellrazor of a Night (Main Event)
Some promotions are spectacle, some keep a lid on the emotions of fighters, and some are pretty cut and dry. Then you have Rocky Mountain Bad Boyz and Premier Championship Fighting: they kick the lid off, shove the can over, and run like hell down the street screaming. No one is mixed up or confused about why they bought a ticket. They came to see some damn fighting and fighting they saw. The last show Bad Boyz had in Denver was held at Red and Jerry’s and to describe how the night unfolded would be like describing the legendary Lawrence Taylor, the original LT.
In the main event, John Cronk vs. Gustavo Machado, both fighters wanted to circle each other and probe each others defenses yet neither landed the big bombs and this was spent mostly on the ground.
Cronk, who looks like his nickname, “the hated one” is actually a pretty nice guy who just walks around looking like he is angry. With 80 MMA fights, and another 70 kickboxing bouts, he might be the most experienced fighter in Colorado. Along the way he has fought Matt Hughes (“total ass, complete dick, control freak, hardest hitter”), Shonny Carter (“very cool”) and Diego Sanchez (\’Jekyl and Hyde personality”). An admitted bad boy that liked to street fight, John was a late bloomer before he stopped fighting outside and put his skills into the cage. Along that stint, he served two years in the army, and began his professional career as a fighter.
Machado, who is training with Renato “Babalu” Sobral, recently turned pro after a 14-5-1 amateur record and now has a 1-0 professional record. Using Babalu as interpreter, he said of Cronk, “I want to wear him down and make him suffer and I want to finish the fight.” When asked if he had ever participated in Vale Tudo and he replied “Yes but I don’t like it, too hard on my hands and not safe.” When asked his opinion of the “anything goes” form of fighting that is being podcast on the Rio Heroes web site, he said, “this is no good for MMA or the fighters.”
When the main event finally started, Machado delivered a good number of leg kicks that eventually slowed Cronk down. After a protracted clinch, Machado eventually took Cronk down to mount position. John had him in what looked like a fight ending guillotine choke until Machado’s head popped out. Even though Machado had Cronk in mount, he could never capitalize on it due to a strong ground defense.
In the second round, we saw much of the same with Gustavo taking John down again and other than John attempting a heel hook, this round had little action in it with John parrying or dodging every strike attempted.
In the third round, Machado’s leg kicks began to slow down Cronk. John was circling the ring slowly with large welts on his legs from the kicks. Eventually, Machado got Cronk down into mount position again but nothing ever materialized. Gustavo won on points and improved his record to 2-0.
written Mickey and Mallory
www.themmatimes.com
mickey@themmatimes.com
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Posted October 30th, 2007 l 135 views
