Cage Rage

#8: Neil Grove vs. James Thompson @ Cage Rage 22 (7/14/07), 10 seconds

Three years after his embarrassing 11-second destruction at the hands of Fedor’s younger brother, James Thompson managed to shave one second off of his personal getting-knocked-out record during this Cage Rage match against 2-0 rookie Neil Grove. Following a very brief feeling-out process, Grove starts swinging his big meathooks around until one of them connects squarely on Thompson’s glass chin, sending the Colossus facedown onto the mat for a lil’ nap. The announcer immediately calls the stoppage “UN-BA-LAY-VA-BOWL,” but honestly, what did you expect to see in a fight between two British heavyweights — a flying gogoplata?

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(ShoXC weigh-ins become an impromptu beach party. Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle.)

Last night's ShoXC card from Fresno, Calif. had its share of interesting bouts, but the big news coming out of the Pro Elite camp is that the company has canceled another show, this time in the form of one its smaller confederates across the pond. Contenders 11, scheduled to take place in the UK today, has been called off. Five Ounces of Pain also reports that Cage Rage -- another Pro Elite organization -- has suffered a rash of layoffs and is down to only three employees. Somehow during all of this, the Pro Elite stock price jumped from $2.50 to $8.00 a share on Friday, even amid reports that they were canceling their September 20 event. As they say on the internet, WTF!?!

Something is going on with Pro Elite, no doubt, but what? Could it be that Pro Elite executives have discovered oil underneath the grounds where their offices lie, and now they're going to quit putting on MMA shows altogether and move their families to big mansions in Beverly Hills, complete with indoor plumbing and cement ponds? There is very little evidence for this hypothesis at the moment, but we're going to go ahead and say yes, this is precisely what is happening. You heard it here first.

As for last night's show, yeah, well, here you go:

Jared Hamman def. Po’ai Suganuma via TKO (strikes) at 2:34 of round 1
Fabricio Camoes def. Sammy Morgan via submission (rear naked choke) at 0:47 of round 1
Cyrille Dibate def. Jaime Fletcher via unanimous decision
Rosi Sexton def. Debi Purcell via split decision
Ray Lizama def. Keith Berry via TKO (strikes) at 2:15 of round 2
Katrina Alendale def. Melanie La’Croix via unanimous decision
Roberto Vargas def. Ralph Lopez via split decision
Jesse Brock def. Josh Rave via unanimous decision
Lucas Gumaza def. Kenny Johnson via split decision
David “Tarzan” Douglas def. William Jacobson via TKO (corner stoppage) at 1:12 of round 1

(Props: MMATKO. Fight starts at the 5:34 mark.)

It looks like Robert "Buzz" Berry's beating last Saturday at the hands of Neil Grove could be his last. Berry (13-8), who suffered a second-round TKO loss at Cage Rage 27 and who has dropped three of his last four fights, announced his retirement last night via the Cage Warriors forums, writing the following:

Just to let you all know I have had to retire. After my fight with Neil Grove I was taken to the hospital and had to have surgery on my face. They have had to put two plates in, one in my cheek bone and one on my eye socket. So that is it, over for me.

Can I take this opportunity in congratulating Neil Grove on the fight and good luck in the future. Thank you to all my camp and other camps for their help over the years in getting me ready for fights. Thanks to all my fans in their support for me, it has always meant a lot. A real big thanks to John Close, he has been a diamond — we have been joined at the hip for a few years. Neil Wain has been a star for me and wish him all the best in his fight in the UFC. Thanks to the guys at Cage Rage for their part in my fighting and to anyone I have missed out: Thank you.

As you can see in the video from the Berry/Grove fight (above), Buzz was on the mat for about three minutes after the loss, in visible pain. Grove's leg kicks were responsible for breaking Berry down during the fight, but his final flurry of punches turned out to be a career ender for the man who'd previously knocked out Ken Shamrock at Cage Rage 25 in March. With the win, Grove increased his record to 6-1; in the post-fight interview he called out Cage Rage British heavyweight champion Mustapha Al Turk, as well as (who else) Kimbo Slice.

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

From CageRage.tv:

I want to put on record my sincere apologies to Phil Baroni, the fans and Cage Rage for the incident that took place following my fight on Saturday. It should not have happened and the person responsible is very shamed faced.

At the time — thanks to his incredible right hook — I was unaware that Phil had been assaulted. In fact I was totally unaware of anything and everything. Baroni has my utmost respect for his prowess in the Cage — and particularly the way he handled the assault following the fight.

He could have escalated the situation but instead chose to act like a true and mature ambassador for the sport.

I apologised in person to Phil on the night, he duly accepted my gesture — shook hands — and bought him a drink. There is no ill feeling from Phil or his Team and I now wish to continue to strive to improve myself as a fighter and concentrate on my career. I wanted to make that apology public.

Scott Jansen.

Poor guy. I have a feeling this isn't the first time he's had to apologize for his knucklehead brother. But a mention of his wife's rude bird-flipping behavior would have been nice. A word of advice, Scott: Stop bringing your family to your fights. You're 3-3 now; getting some peace away from that chaotic group might help your career more than you know.

Speaking of bad behavior: TMZ has now obtained video of Rampage's arrest, soundtracked by the mellow sounds of Canned Heat. And while we're on the topic, InsideFighting says that Jackson’s hit-and-run charge is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in county jail, a $1,000 fine, or both. No word yet on any disciplinary action the UFC might be taking.

Paul "Semtex" Daley is as talented a fighter as he is mercurial a personality, so it should be no surprise that he manages to court some controversy even while he can't decide whether he wants to retire or fight. The British welterweight has oscillated between the two in recent months, but came back to easily dispatch Bojan Kosednar in Cage Warriors this weekend.

Apparently, Pro Elite (which has a contract with Daley) was unhappy about the situation and tried to get Daley to agree to a fight on Elite XC's July 26 show in Stockton, Ca. The problem is that Daley says they offered him a fight with Rory Markham, the ex-IFL slugger who is fighting on the UFC's July 19 show. Confused yet? Good. Let's see if Daley can sort it out for us:

"They [Pro Elite] did offer me a fight on the July 26th card against Rory Markham, who we all know has signed with the UFC, so I thought it was a ploy to stop me fighting on Cage Warriors. I felt that if I had accepted the fight, they would have just cancelled on me."

"A lot of other guys had fought twice in the same month for two different promotions, a non-Pro Elite and then a Pro Elite event – I said look, I'll fight July 12th and I'll fight July 26th, not a problem. I feel confident in this fight and all being well I would get out uninjured and with a victory and I'd fly straight to America. They didn't want to hear any of that."

"If I had been Nick Diaz, it wouldn't have been a problem. The guy smokes weed, starts riots on TV, doesn't make weight, fights whoever the fuck he wants, and there's no problem there. It's a bit of a piss-take really."

Oh man, he just said something about Nick Diaz that could accurately be described as negative. That's the MMA equivalent of saying "Beetlejuice" three times. You just know Diaz is going to pop up out of nowhere with a semi-intelligible response any minute now.