Correira Loses, Vitale Wins in Front of Hawaiian Crowd
James Meinhardt Mar 18, 2007
HONOLULU, March 17 — Hawaiian brawler Wesley "Cabbage" Correira
tasted defeat this St. Patrick 's Day at the hands of Chris Marez. The two heavyweights
slugged it out for a full 15 minutes as part of a double feature
main event at X1 World Events' Xtreme Fighting 2, held at the Neal
S. Blaisdell Arena.
Marez landed cleaner and more frequent punches and showed the judges enough to earn a unanimous decision victory.
Falaniko Vitale
(Pictures) did not disappoint the
hometown crowd as he quickly disposed of Mavrick Harvey (Pictures) in the co-main event. "Niko"
scored first with a huge slam and was working on an arm-triangle
choke when the fight was restarted in the middle of the ring.
The fighters worked their way back to their feet and exchanged leg kicks, one of which was caught by Vitale and turned into another big takedown that slammed Harvey onto the mat. The Hawaiian dominated the ground game, working from side control and eventually taking his opponent's back.
When the fight was eventually stopped at 2:19 of the first round, Harvey was unconscious. He was turned over and attended to by doctors at ringside, and was able to walk out of the ring under his own power.
Mark Moreno (Pictures) held on to his X1 welterweight belt, defeating Nik Lentz when the fight was stopped on the advice of the doctor at the conclusion of the first round.
Lentz was unable to secure the takedown he was looking for all night and was punished with each failed attempt. After shooting for a double-leg and missing wildly, Lentz sat on the canvas looking bloody and disoriented. Moreno was relentless in his attack, pouncing at every opportunity.
Kolo Koka (Pictures) fell short in defending his lightweight title, dropping a unanimous three-round decision to "Sugar" Shane Nelson. Nelson controlled the pace of the fight, scoring on the feet and attacking Koka from the guard.
In women's action, Tonya Evinger (Pictures) defeated late replacement Shonie Plagman, scoring a beautiful knockout just 10 seconds into the second frame.
A close fight with saw some questionable stand-ups had the Blaisdell crowd booing when Fernando Gonzales defeated Jay Carter (Pictures) via split decision.
Harris Sarmiento (Pictures) and Henry Martinez earned "Fight of the Night" honors, putting on a competitive match which saw Sarmiento almost getting put away with a guillotine and then coming back to knock down Martinez with a big right hand in the second round. Sarmiento got the nod from the judges, winning 30-27 on all scorecards.
"Dirty" Dave Moreno looked impressive, bloodying up David Padilla (Pictures) with some ground-and-pound before sinking in the rear-naked choke with 66 seconds left on the clock in the first.
In the opening bout of the night, Paco Woods outscored Kaipo Gonzales, winning a unanimous decision.
Kickboxing and Special-Rules Fights
In a K-1 rules match, Kaleo Kwan defeated Hawaiian kickboxing legend Danny Steele. Kwan continually beat the out-of-shape looking Steele to the punch, connecting with combinations and kicks throughout the three three-minute round bout. Judges at ringside scored it 30-27 for Kwan.
Heavyweights Deutsch Puu and Brett Rogers slugged it out in a special XMA "stand and bang" rules match. Rogers got the best of Puu, knocking the Hawaiian heavyweight out at the 37-second mark of the second round.
Marez landed cleaner and more frequent punches and showed the judges enough to earn a unanimous decision victory.
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The fighters worked their way back to their feet and exchanged leg kicks, one of which was caught by Vitale and turned into another big takedown that slammed Harvey onto the mat. The Hawaiian dominated the ground game, working from side control and eventually taking his opponent's back.
With both hooks in and Harvey flattened out on the mat, Vitale let
loose with a flurry of vicious punches to the head, forcing a
series of taps from Harvey that went almost completely unnoticed by
the referee.
When the fight was eventually stopped at 2:19 of the first round, Harvey was unconscious. He was turned over and attended to by doctors at ringside, and was able to walk out of the ring under his own power.
Mark Moreno (Pictures) held on to his X1 welterweight belt, defeating Nik Lentz when the fight was stopped on the advice of the doctor at the conclusion of the first round.
Lentz was unable to secure the takedown he was looking for all night and was punished with each failed attempt. After shooting for a double-leg and missing wildly, Lentz sat on the canvas looking bloody and disoriented. Moreno was relentless in his attack, pouncing at every opportunity.
Kolo Koka (Pictures) fell short in defending his lightweight title, dropping a unanimous three-round decision to "Sugar" Shane Nelson. Nelson controlled the pace of the fight, scoring on the feet and attacking Koka from the guard.
In women's action, Tonya Evinger (Pictures) defeated late replacement Shonie Plagman, scoring a beautiful knockout just 10 seconds into the second frame.
A close fight with saw some questionable stand-ups had the Blaisdell crowd booing when Fernando Gonzales defeated Jay Carter (Pictures) via split decision.
Harris Sarmiento (Pictures) and Henry Martinez earned "Fight of the Night" honors, putting on a competitive match which saw Sarmiento almost getting put away with a guillotine and then coming back to knock down Martinez with a big right hand in the second round. Sarmiento got the nod from the judges, winning 30-27 on all scorecards.
"Dirty" Dave Moreno looked impressive, bloodying up David Padilla (Pictures) with some ground-and-pound before sinking in the rear-naked choke with 66 seconds left on the clock in the first.
In the opening bout of the night, Paco Woods outscored Kaipo Gonzales, winning a unanimous decision.
Kickboxing and Special-Rules Fights
In a K-1 rules match, Kaleo Kwan defeated Hawaiian kickboxing legend Danny Steele. Kwan continually beat the out-of-shape looking Steele to the punch, connecting with combinations and kicks throughout the three three-minute round bout. Judges at ringside scored it 30-27 for Kwan.
Heavyweights Deutsch Puu and Brett Rogers slugged it out in a special XMA "stand and bang" rules match. Rogers got the best of Puu, knocking the Hawaiian heavyweight out at the 37-second mark of the second round.
