This past weekend Ivey League MMA jumped into it’s first smoker fights. For those of you that don’t know what a “smoker” fight is, it’s fights that take place at another teams gym, it doesn’t count for win/loss, so many teams will take guys and put them into fights with fighters from other teams to see how their guys do.
So here is the rundown…
Matt Brannon was first up, Matt fought another wrestler, and a very good wrestler at that. The fight started with some good stand up fighting than hit the ground when Matt got taken Down, Matt reversed with a cement mixer than it was back to the feet, Matt hit a takedown of his own, they fought for a few seconds on the Mat before it went right back to the feet again, Matt dropped his opponent with a hook and than the bell rang for the end of round one. Round two was just about the same, Matt was landing a lot of hooks and crosses, his opponent took him down and Matt locked on a kumura and finished the fight at one minute of the second round.
“Surfer” Dan Mahoney was up next, Surfer Dan fights out of Lloyd Irvin’s main gym in Camp Springs but decided to tag along and ended up taking a fight. The fight started with some good combos, Dan dropped him with a cross and they gave the guy a 8 count. The fight resumed and it was more of Dan throwing punches and some kicks, at one point the guy took Dan down and almost had the back but Dan listened to Coach Danny and Coach Jason well and was able to reverse the situation, the round ended with Dan on top. Second round Dan got the takedown, hooked up an armbar from the mount and made his opponent tapout a minute into the second round.
Up next was Kevin Morrissey, Kevin had originally planned to fight in Muay Thai and had been training only Thai Boxing but they couldn’t find an opponent for him in Thai so Kevin, showing a lot of guts jumped into a mma fight even though he hasn’t been training any Jiu-Jitsu for the last few weeks. The Fight started and his opponent put him against the fence and took Kevin down, Kevin fought hard but had to tap out from a choke. Kevin took the loss like a man and shook his opponents hand and his trainers hand and that was it. We are very proud of Kevin for getting in there and giving it a shot, he showed what Ivey League MMA is all about, stepping up and trying your best.
The Last fighter of the day was Danny Heath. Danny fought a Thai boxing match, for those of you that don’t know Danny, he’s a very calm, laid back guy, always happy and smiling, well let us tell you, when that bell sounded for the start of the first round, we saw the Happy go lucky Danny turn into the seek and destroy Danny! He was beating his opponent up all over the ring, he scored two knock downs, one of which sent the guy through the ropes! Danny ended up winning by TKO when the guy couldn’t answer the bell for the second round.
Congrats to all the guys that fought and to everyone that made the drive all the way up to New Jersey and Thanks for showing everyone that there is a growing team of great fighters in Annapolis!
