Honour Combat hosted one of the first MMA event in Vancouver with the fight night at Edgewater Casino in November of 2009 and returned on Friday May 21st with the second instalment in their fight series, Circus Maximus outdoors at the Plaza of Nations, a big fight night to kick off the long weekend in May. Circus Maximus promised and delivered ‘…16 of the most explosive and exciting fighters that the lower mainland has to offer…’, plus ex Big Wrecker and Juno nominee Thornely to keep everyone entertained. Awesome locals Southern Death Threat kicked off the fight night.
Southern Death Threat in MMA Cage
Thornley in MMA Cage
The amateur fights were sanctioned under MMABC, the association in place to group together the best judges, referees, and regulators as MMA emerges as a truly sanctioned support in BC. Fight rules are defined by the association as ‘A’ class rules, with bouts scheduled for 3 rounds of 3 minutes. Being an amateur MMA fight night, it’s an MMA fight, excepting elbow strikes, knees to the head, suplexing and of course groin shots.
The event would be graced with the special appearance by Bibiano Fabricio Fernandes, BJJ Champion 5 time winner of Japans Dream Fight series in the featherweight division. Bibiano now calls the Vancouver area his home and trains with Revolution Martial Arts in Langley.
Bibiano "The Flash" Fernandes
The Fight CardThe first fight was for 185 lbs between Brendon Leong and Colton Miller. Leong looked like a tough and stacked fighter in the ring but they were well matched after the first round. There was a lot of trading in the second round, ground, knee strikes, good boxing, and ground battles did not last. Leong dominated on the ground at the end and won by judges unanimous, but it was clear also that Miller fought a good fight nonetheless.
Brendon Leong vs Colton Miller
Ryan Ince battled James Pratt in a 150 catchweight fight. Both demonstrated they were explosive, light fighters in the standup and at one point, Ince crawled Pratt across the mat in guard but they were back to the feet by the time they got close to the cage, no giving up and both were good strikers. Ince dominated by end of the match and won by unanimous judges decision.
James Pratt vs Ryan Ince
James Pratt vs Ryan Ince
Jeremy Fitzkennedy won by a quick TKO against Kurtis Waterstone in the first round of at 1:20, by mounting and passing the guard and then pounding until the referee intervened.
Jeremy Fitzkennedy vs Kurtis Waterstone
Jeremy Fitzkennedy vs Kurtis Waterstone
Roman Wheeler went up against Timothy Parker for a 150 lbs catchweight fight where they would trade knees, body shots, and neither fighter wanted to stay on the ground. Wheeler almost had Parker in an armbar at the end of the first round, and potential setups for submissions were seen at least a couple of times. Parker also laid in some punishment on Wheeler as seen by a cut to Wheeler’s head, body slams, and pressure against the cage. The judges however would award the fight to Roman Wheeler by a split decision, who did not give into any tactics and fought back well throughout.
Roman Wheeler vs Timothy Parker
Roman Wheeler vs Timothy Parker
Andrew Small of Revolution went against Andrew Chevrie from Franco’s for a 160 lb bout. Small sensed a vulnerability in his opponent and chased him down across the cage and got him down with a head shot. The fight was over with a knockout in about 40 seconds of the first.
Andrew Small vs Andrew Chevrie
Andrew Small vs Andrew Chevrie
Two big guys were in fight number 6 of the night, at 190 lbs, Nathan Swayze and Jer Kornelson, both from clubs on Vancouver Island. Kornelson defended well against Swayze, who was strong, throughout. Swayze however was strong enough to pull through the fight with a unanimous win from the judges at the end.
Nathan Swayze vs Jer Kornelson
Nathan Swayze vs Jer Kornelson
The next fight was at 155 lbs between AJ Foulds from Sniper, and Abe Monte de Ramos from Franco. The fight was slow on ground after the first. Foulds had a chance at a rear naked victory in the first but it did not happen so easily. Foulds would dominate and pound and win by TKO in the second round when the referee stopped the fight.
Aj Foulds vs Abe Monte de Ramos
Aj Foulds vs Abe Monte de Ramos
The main event of the evening was a 185 lb matchup between Rysom McIvor and Eric Ramsey. McIvor proved he was a hard striker, and both fighters exchanged strikes kicks, and control. The tapout came during the second round as a result of ground pressure against the cage. A rear naked choke was what was announced as how McIvor won the fight but it was hard to see with the fighters up against the fence.
Rysom McIvor vs Eric Ramsey
Rysom McIvor vs Eric Ramsey
There are 288 photos I snapped for my fight blog around the cage at Honour Combat Circus Maximus. If you got this far, you should go hit my flickr.com photo pool for this event: http://www.flickr.com/photos/superwebdeveloper/sets/72157624111575058/
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All the movie reviews. The best films
A Fistful of Dynamite (1971) **1/2Directed by Sergio LeoneMy tweet:A Fistful of Dynamite (1971)- Kaboom!!! Then some crap about a revolution. Then more Kaboom!!! **1/2 out of 5Other thoughts:After watching A Fistful of Dollars; For a Few Dollars More; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Once Upon a Time in the West; and now A Fistful of Dynamite, I can almost see the inflation of Leone's ego over the span of a decade. The thing about confident people is that they usually have a reason to be so confident, and Leone's certainly an amazing director, which was evident in all four of his "Man with No Name" films. With A Fistful of Dynamite, also called Duck You! Sucker, Leone takes everything too far in trying to one-up himself. The result is a loud, explosive train wreck of a film.There are many problems with Fistful of Dynamite, but none more than the fact that Leone offers absolutely nothing new, but instead retreads the same heavy-on-style, short-on-story gimmicks that made The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in particular a success. John, who's pretty much the "Man with No Name with a Name," played by a terribly dull James Coburn, partners with a Mexican renegade named Juan, played by Rod Steiger. The two hate each other at first, but eventually they come together for lofty purposes. Sounds a bit like Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, huh? Pretty much, the only differences between that film and this one are the fact that both become part of a revolution against the government, and there's lots and lots of huge, ginormous explosions. The testosterone is sure to flow, but it does so in the service of ! a completely familiar movie.At a God-awfully long running time! of over two and a half hours, A Fistful of Dynamite forces us to coexist with two main characters that have no chemistry and no gravitas at all. Rod Steiger, presumably trying to one up Eli Wallach from GBU, gives one of the most miscalculated performances that I've seen. First of all, his portrayal of a Mexican is beyond racist, employing an accent that would offend Speedy Gonzales. Second, he's simply trying way too hard, and not one bit of his character development comes off genuine. Eli Wallach acts Steiger under the ground here, which is really a shame considering that Steiger's performance in In the Heat of the Night is perhaps one of the five best screen performances I've seen.There's a handful of slow motion, strangely homoerotic flashback scenes involving Coburn and his wife/girlfriend(?) and his friend/boyfriend(?) which are stolen from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in both style and musical accompaniment. This further adds to the argument that Leone had nothing nove! l to show, and what's left is a slick but embarrassingly empty epic. Maybe he'll temper his ambitions with Once Upon a Time in America... or maybe he'll make a film that's almost four hours long!
Blue Velvet (1986) *****Directed by David LynchMy tweet:Blue Velvet (1986)-It's important every once in a while to pull back the perfect facade of this world to find a rotting severed ear. *****/5Other thoughts:Back in 1986, David Lynch received both critical praise and scorn for his unapologetic, disturbing look at unspeakably evil people doing twisted, demented things to other people in a now notorious modern day classic called Blue Velvet. Roger Ebert, who's far from a puritanical prude when it comes to sex and nud! ity in film, wrote in his one star review about how he was off! ended th at Lynch took advantage of Isabella Rossellini. He argued that Rossellini, whose scenes are admittedly alarming, did not realize that the rest of the film is meant as a tongue-in-cheek comedy with Leave it to Beaver dialogue along with constant winks at the camera regarding such depravity within a facade of fantastical innocence. Ebert states that a film must be substantial if it puts an actress through such an ordeal on screen.I find it hard to believe that Rossellini didn't know what she was getting herself into, and considering that Blue Velvet is almost universally hailed as one of the great films of the 1980s, it's virtually impossible to feel sorry for Rossellini and angry at Lynch. Both were responsible for a singularly fascinating look at human vulgarity. The drastic tonal interchanges between gritty realism and innocent fantasy pulls the viewer aggressively in two different directions with the goal, I believe, to show the falsity of such a ludicrous conservative hop! e for a world based on unrealistic family values and apple pie morality. Does Lynch take us too far into a type of sinfulness which goes beyond the dark side of the human condition into clear psychosis? Is he perhaps weakening his own intentions? Maybe so, though personally, I was never pushed beyond my own limits witnessing the film's sexual violence and perverse manipulations.Kyle MacLachlan, giving one of the most bland leading performances in recent memory, though I wonder whether this was intentional considering the eccentricities of those surrounding him, plays college student Jeffrey Beaumont who delves headfirst into a mystery after he discovers a severed human ear in a field. He uses the help of young Sandy Williams (Laura Dern) whose father is a detective working on a case involving a lounge singer named Dorothy Vallens, played by Rossellini. Jeffrey sneaks into Dorothy's apartment in order to find out more information, but after getting caught, he is forced to wi! tness a sadistic sociopath named Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) u! se the s afety of Dorothy's kidnapped husband and son in order to force Dorothy to do unspeakably degrading things for Frank's own sick satisfaction. From these encounters, Dorothy learns of her own dark sexual demons, which in turn awakens Jeffrey to the devilish fire that burns within.Ultimately, there's a mystery to be solved and people to save, but the film concludes in a very interesting way. We assume that there's no chance this town and its inhabitants could go back to a kind of 1950s innocence after these vulgarities are brought to light. Lynch makes the argument that the more the underbelly of society is exposed, the more people cling to a self-deluding cosmetic hope for a perfect world.There is some sick stuff in Blue Velvet, and it's elevated to another level of viciousness due to the powerhouse performance by recently deceased Dennis Hopper. Here's a middle-aged Republican willing to pull from the blackest part of his own soul to make Frank Booth a monster unlike many in ! film history. Frank is a man of fetishism and deep-rooted psycho-sexual abnormalities, which is terrifying precisely because his existence is not outside of the realm of possibility. Lynch finds the fact that we all want to close our eyes to the antisocial realities of the world to be quite comical. Hopper's performance shoves our freshly-washed, blemish-free faces into piles of our own societal excrement.Blue Velvet challenges us to take a few moments out of our lives and simply open our eyes wide enough to see everything we need to see in order to understand who we truly are as a species. Information breeds confidence. Ignorance breeds susceptibility to being ravaged by a demagogue who huffs paint.
