One of the running themes among MMA journalists in recent months is to claim that MMA’s boom is merely a boom for the UFC. Its an interesting thought, and there’s some basis to that fact given the financial woes of organizations such as EliteXC and Affliction, along with the lingering death of others such as the IFL. The argument, as it is best said, is that their failings (along with similar failings on the parts of YAMMA, the WFA, etc) establish that MMA success can thus only be posited to the folks making the biggest sums of money: Zuffa.

While such postulation is cute, this viewpoint shows an awfully small worldview for the sport. Gary Shaw himself admitted that he entered the sport because he saw that it was becoming incredibly successful on the lower and mid levels. The explosion of the UFC demands that far expanded numbers of new talent be developed, and that realistically can only be done long before they reach the “Super Bowl of Mixed Martial Arts”. To that end, we arrive to discuss that very sort of thing.

Ron DeLeon Promotions began running cage shows in the Lansing, MI area in the early part of 2008 after some previous experience with pro-am boxing. These are not grand arena spectacles, but base level bouts held in a high school gymnasium (Lansing’s Henry Hill Center). The advertising is a combination of the old and new schools: there’s Myspace pages as well as the old fashioned flyers and posters around town. The method works, though: The venue was pretty well packed with folks, with the side of bleachers that had been opened effectively full and few open seats on the floor in either the VIP or general admission sections. Pricing was effective for the area as well: $20 got you in the door, and that could get you as close as 4 rows from the ring. The crowd itself was a culturally diverse group of folks, but unmistakable were the almost limitless array of Affliction and Tapout garb seated in the venue. The fans here were educated and knew the ground game very well, and yet they were by no means the hardcore, tape trading sort. These were average folk out for the night with their girlfriends or their boys who were likely converts as many have been in the last 3 years.

The generally omnipresent downside to MMA at this level, however, is that fighters are generally minimally talented and that mismatches are frequent. My expectations for both were generally low. Much to my surprise, the 11 bout card, which originally 12 until one was axed at the last minute, featured no mismatches of any kind. Additionally, the bouts were not only just competitive, but entertaining. Given the present rules for MMA outside of Michigan’s Indian Casinos, elbows to the head appeared to be illegal and fights consisted of three 3 minute rounds. The fighters were generally all from local camps, and while Michigan as a whole has provided the world with an awfully small number of competitive fighters (start naming some MMA fighters from Michigan not named Rashad Evans or James Lee) and few name camps, I was quite surprised.

The highlight of the night was undoubtedly the 4 man, single elimination tournament for the Capital City Lightweight title. The fighters featured not only locals from St. John’s and Lansing, but also fighters from the Detroit area. Among them was Allen Grays, who appeared to be the brother of local boxing trial horse Chris Greys, and who’s 3-4 record was oddly similar as far as W/L percentages go. He got a near walkthrough in the first round when his opponent Brian Burgen (also from Detroit) was unable to continue due to knee injury following the first round. Jared Freeman and Matt Swanson fought in the opening bout of the show, with Swanson winning by arm triangle from the bottom after an entertaining first round in which he went after numerous armbars and omaplata attempts from the bottom.

The finals of the tournament turned out to be the night’s best fight. Greys was able to take down Swanson numerous times, but Swanson continuously fought back with a variety of submission attempts during the first round. The second round was an entirely different story, with Greys able to stun and then drop Swanson standing. Swanson fell to the mat in a fashion that drew the crowd to its feet, but Greys refusal to go down to the mat with him and his apparent willingness to continue lead to a restart on the feet. Swanson was very hurt and Greys feinted with a right hand and instead landed a left hook that Swanson simply never saw. Swanson was down and out and Greys’ one punch KO went down as perhaps the defining moment of the card.

The headliner of the night was a middleweight bout contested between a partner of DeLeon’s martial arts and boxing school (Matt Torres) and a complete unknown (Jason Holmes). Torres was the only fighter on the card with more than ten announced bouts, and logic ascertained that this would be a cream puff he was pitted against in order to better promote the school and his Muay Thai services. Holmes had an entirely different idea of what the result should be, and proceeded to force the fight to the mat repeatedly. Once there, Torres was well out of his element, and while Holmes never had Torres in significant danger of being stopped or submitted, he exterted more than enough effort to establish control of the fight and win a unanimous decision from the judges.

Other bouts on the card featured a wide assortment of action. Brothers Richard and Jared Marr of St. John’s, MI won their respective bouts on the card. Jared, competing as a lightweight, won a surprising split decision against overmatched boxer Jaime Castellano. Castellano frankly deserved none of the rounds, as even though he was able to take down Marr, he was constantly in danger of submissions on the bottom. Jared displayed virtually every submission that you’d see at a BJ Penn seminar, but was unable to finish any of them, perhaps leading one judge to give Castellano the bout due to his ability to defend and be on top. Heavyweight Richard Marr needed no support from the judges with a strong KO win against Logan Ward. Ward was a wrestler and like his brother, Richard Marr displayed decent acumen on his back and in fact was able to negate Ward’s strengths in the second round. Once able to do so, he began to land right hands that put his opponent out. However, while Jared Ward looked amazingly fit and built well for the lightweight division, Richard’s somewhat flabby appearance was more par for course in what is seen in today’s semi-unlimited class.

An interesting aspect of fights at the lower tiers of the sport is the “locals factor”. Many of the men on the card were undoubtedly given the task of selling tickets to friends and loved ones, and by the end of the night, there were a great number of empty seats as fighter’s entourages left with their family member, drinking buddy, or boyfriend. This is a complete 360 as to what you would see at the upper states of the sport, but is nothing less than fully expected here when there are no “headline draws”. Seated next to me for much of the night was the mother and supporting family of lightweight Kasey Crusen. Crusen was making his MMA debut, and while he never looked completely out of place (particularly with his decent wrestling), his striking was far too elemental to bring him a victory. After nearly being KOed in the first round with a head kick, he never fully recovered and lost a closer-than-it-should-have-been split decison. His mother did her best job at consoling her son in the aftermath of his defeat, but neither stuck around particularly long afterwards. This is the sort of thing that brings an almost unwelcome human level into such a brutal sport: To watch this on TV allows for a great separation between the wins and work well done to the losses and the dreams destroyed. For entry level MMA, its just another day of high drama at the gymnasium.

RESULTS:

-Jason Holmes defeats Matt Torres by Unanimous Decision

CC Lightweight Championship Tournament:

-Allen Grays defeats Brian Burgen (TKO Rnd 2, fighter unable to continue)

-Matt Swanson defeats Jared Freeman (Ref Stoppage/Submission by guillotine, Rnd 2)

-Allen Grays defeats Matt Swanson (KO, Rnd 2)

CC Welterweight Championship:

-Sammy Watchmaker defeats Dante Favot (TKO, ref stoppage, Rnd 2)

- (170) Brandon Johnson defeats Zach Hogan (TKO, ref stoppage, Rnd 3). Johnson is the “mandatory challenger” for Watchmaker.

-(155) Ryan Jefferson defeats Kasey Crusen (split decision)

-(Heavy) Corey Bedes defeats Morgan Avila (majority decision)

-(Heavy) Richard Marr defeats Logan Ward (TKO, Rnd 2)

-(135) Kemp Griffin defeats Tim Houser (Tapout from guillotine, Rnd 1)

-(155) Jared Marr defeats Jaime Castellano (split decision)