It’s time to step into the world of British mixed martial arts once again as we take a look at the latest televised offering from BAMMA, with Jimi Manuwa making his promotional debut live on SyFy here in Britain this past Saturday night.
The broadcast began with action from the welterweight division as Joey Villasenor went up against Jimmy Wallhead.
This one lasted less than a minute. Villasenor began with a couple of kicks, but when Wallhead connected with a big left hook the American went down. Wallhead followed him down for some ground and pound before the referee stepped in to give Wallhead the impressive knockout win.
The main event saw light heavyweight action as Jimi Manuwa faced Anthony Rea.
As was expected this mainly a striking battle. Both men tested the waters early on before engaging in a clinch against the cage. When Manuwa finally managed to break clear Rea staggered him slightly.
A second clinch led to another stand off, but moments later Manuwa connected with a spinning back fist that spelt the beginning of the end for the Frenchman. A high left kick sent Rea crashing down, with Manuwa following up for the ground and pound. However, when the referee stepped in to stop the action the Poster Boy thought he’d won when he was in fact signalling the end of the first round.
That action actually didn’t matter that much. With Rea failing to come out for the second round the referee ended the contest, giving Manuwa the TKO win.
The show rounded out with filler material in the form of the lightweight encounter between Colin Fletcher and David Round.
Fast paced action was the order of the day in this one. Both men began by swinging for the proverbial fences until Round scored with a massive slam.
Round went on to dominate on the ground, able to transition at will and go for some quick submission attempts. Fletcher managed to survive though, and after Round slammed him down for a third time Fletcher locked in a guillotine choke for the submission win.
In conclusion - BAMMA 8 had it’s good and bad points.
The good points were the fights can’t be faulted, they really can’t. The three shown were full of top notch action, with the Wallhead/Villasenor encounter the fight of the night for me.
The bad point was the fact that this show only lasted an hour. Yep, while the likes of Ultimate Challenge and Cage Warriors give their television fans shows ranging from 90 minutes to three hours in length, BAMMA and SyFy only gave us 60 minutes, and with no further highlights packages scheduled it feels like a massive letdown.
So in all BAMMA 8 gets the thumbs up for it’s fights, but the thumbs down for it’s television treatment.
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