John Demmel was the star of an explosive evening, as Youcef Dahmani reports.
It was a night to savour at a lively Troxy in east London, as mixed martial arts fans witnessed the crowning of four new title holders. The main event lived up to its billing as thrilled fans witnessed John Demmel dethrone Catalin Zmarandescu for the UCMMA45 heavyweight title.
Fuelled by a vocal Romanian support, Zmarandescu opened the fight positively, even slamming Demmel hard onto the canvas after being repeatedly pummelled by the challenger during a blistering opening 90 seconds. The referee was forced to stop the fight midway through the opening round after the Romanian failed to mount an effective defence towards Demmel’s ground and pound [clarify].
Another England vs Romania clash was between Andrew Cunningham and Marian Rusu for the K1 Intercontinental heavyweight title. Both fighters went in hard at the beginning as they exchanged heavy punches.
Rusu ended up getting a hit under the belt, but was quick to recover as the crowd cheered ‘Romania’. It looked as if Rusu got the final hit as a powerful uppercut knocked Cunningham back, as well as taking out a tooth, but the Englishman was able to hit back with a powerful right hook knocking out Rusu. Cunningham’s response immediately after the fight was “never, never, never hit me like that, because I will come back and destroy.”
The K1 middleweight title fight was between Jimmy Miller and Michael Shipman. ‘Ship’ came into this fight as favourite and extended his run of wins to seven as he won by guillotine choke. Shipman punished Miller throughout with successful high kicks, following that with a powerful knee-strike while in the muay-thai clinch, before ending a dominant performance by taking Miller down and forcing him to submit.
Though the middleweight equivalent offered an all-action ending, the K1 bantamweight fight felt lacklustre in comparison as Chris Garnett and Gio Marchese fought for the full three rounds. Though the momentum alternated between both fighters as the bout went on, Marchese was awarded the unanimous decision win. Garnett was visibly shocked as his premature celebrations conveyed unfounded confidence, ahead of a decision that ultimately didn’t go his way.