Quijano: An ugly, unwatchable fight

AS IT turned out, Tyson Cave fought a fiercer fight with his mouth than his fists.

Unorthodox would be a kind term to describe Tyson Cave’s style. Disdainful is more like it. Not only did he not fail to back up the smack he had been spewing all week long, he fought dirty too.

He pushed AJ Banal down to the canvas three times and in the seventh round, unscrupulously sneaked in a shot to the family jewels. For good measure, he was also unopposed to rubbing his head on Banal’s cut just to rasp it some more every chance he got.

When the fight was stopped, he had worked up the crowd so much, the guys seated behind me were begging for his ass so they could finish the job.

CLOWN. Cave was fast and crafty, I’ll give him that, and he made AJ Banal misfire a lot. But it’s hard to hit a moving target, especially one like the “Clown Prince of Hali” who seemed constitutionally predisposed for flight than fight.

While he complained a lot about getting hit on the butt, he only has himself to blame for turning his body away to avoid the blows and exposing his jutting ass.

He invoked Muhammad Ali and Naseem Hamed as inspirations, but he fought more like a Pernell Whitaker copy-cat, clowning around throwing powder puff punches.

But unlike “Sweet Pea”, there was no finesse in his movements, as he constantly flailed and flapped around the ring and seemed content in making Banal look bad rather than mounting some effective offense on his own.

THE CUT. The clash of heads in the fifth round was another bummer for AJ who was now saddled with the additional burden of having his vision blocked while trying to zone in on a fleeing, unwilling opponent.

But I figured it would somehow work to his advantage as Cave might finally decide to stand and fight in the hopes of capitalizing on Banal’s infirmity.

For a while there it did, and Banal managed to land some effective leather, but Cave was clearly bent on making sure that no actual fighting transpired.

Watch a replay of it? No thanks, I would much rather do naked jumping jacks while watching an infomercial.

FEDOR STOPPAGE. Speaking of replays, it all happened so fast, the reruns proved to be invaluable.

Generally acclaimed as the greatest mixed martial artist of all time, Fedor Emelianenko lost for the third straight time, this time courtesy of Dan Henderson in the very first round.

Both men started out fast, throwing bombs. But around the two- minute mark, Henderson opted to keep Fedor at bay by pinning him against the cage.

With about one minute left to go, Fedor brought down Henderson with a series of powerful right hands. He immediately pounced on the American, but Henderson somehow managed to slip out and come up from behind and land what seemed to be a short, quick uppercut.

Fedor fell face down and looked quite vulnerable and helpless in his position with Henderson raining blows on him from behind and so the ref stopped the fight.

I thought it might have been a tad too premature especially since Fedor had already turned to face Henderson by the time the ref stepped in, but the Russian did appear to go limp for an instant and you can’t fault the referee for erring on the side of caution.

LOCAL MMA/KICKBOXING. Spea­king of MMA, it’s time to check out our local fighters this Saturday at the Cebu Coliseum at YFC 5: “Recompense”.

MMA Main event features Kyle “Hurricane” Co vs. Mark “Terminator” Araneta while the kickboxing main event showcases Renan Noblefranca and Steve Sevilleno.

There are 14 local fight clubs participating in this mixed martial arts/kickboxing spectacle organized by Yawyan Ardigma.

See you there, fight people.

LAST ROUND. It’s on Sister Mary Lucy Ann Piel of the Schoenstatt Sisters Of Mary. Bon Voyage and Godspeed!

(jingo_quijano@yahoo.com)