Locked In The Cage 2- Local MMA torch is handed off to North East Philly

Photo courtesy of Pinball

Locked in the Cage 2 went down last night at the John Perzel Community Center in Mayfair, North east Philadelphia and, to everyones' pleasant surprise, it ran smooth and featured quality matchups. (If you don’t know why that is plesent and/or surprising, check here.)

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100 percenter Eddie Alvarez- born and raised in Kensington, trains and coaches out of Fishtown's Philadelphia Fight Facotry- sums up the event.

 Alvarez:

I've been to other amateur events, in other states-all over the place- and, I have to say, this is one of the better events. The way it was run, the structure, the music, everything, everything was good. They evan had fruit for the fighters in the back; attention to detail, that's what makes these things a little more pleasurable for the fighters. 

And, how much fresh fruit would it take to get Eddie to throw hands at a local event?

I'll be here sooner or latter.

 We'll back up the fruit truck. In the meantime, Alvarez is locked for another season of Bellator- starting back up this April.

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 Amateur

Duncan, a good amateur, leaves it all on the mat

Jack Duncan, a teacher/counselor at Glenn Mills School for Court Adjudicated Youth, (he debuted at LC1- take a look back to see what amateur fights bring to the table) took a loss but didn't seem beaten. Monday morning, the damage to Duncan's face isn't evidence of a loss, rather it demonstrates to his students the willingness to step up and compete.

The amateurs showed out. Of the six amateur fights, action was consistent the whole way through, peaking with the title fight in which BJJUnited's Matt Nice took the 155 pound title over Carmine Zocchi's product Jason Lee. Here's the video:

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Pro

The six pro fights were up and down in terms of the skill level but, all in all, filled out a good show. In this still incubating local scene, we saw some fighters starting to separate themselves from the pack.

Daddis fight camp's Jeff Cressman had the fight of the night against a super game Joe Finneran hailing from Arizona Combat Sports- a standout program in their own right.

Check back for video link on that one.

Team Balance fighter, Tim Williams, took out Ariel Sepulveda (a Carmine Zocchi product) with a triangle choke for his second win. Williams looked a little undisciplined at times, swinging wildly on the feet. However, he showed great poise in finishing the fight. Sepulveda was cautious on the ground and refused William's repeated coaxing into the guard. Sepulveda, however couldn't help himself when Williams- seated on the mat- leaned his chin forward to a standing Sepulveda who lunged for it. Williams cooly rolled back accepting him into the triangle before cinching it up for the tap.

In the final two fights, Philadelphia Fight Factory broke even. Their fighter Mike Johnson looked a little timid when John Doyle (LVRI MMA) dropped his hands, ala Anderson Silva, and offered his chin in the opening seconds of round one, Johnson never seemed to get his confidence back in the standup and while he didn't look bad on the ground Doyle was able to wear him down and finish him off with strikes.

Fight Factory took the next fight when Aaron Meisner dispatched Marcus Ajian (Team Beatdown) who showed some sloppy basics by allowing Meisner to finish the rear naked choke without even getting his hooks in. Mamma-online reports that Meisner has also been supplementing his ground work at Balance Studios with the Migliarese Brothers.

Mamma-online also has a full result rundown.

Heads up:

This juggernaut- Azunna Anyanwu, 6', 265 pounds- coming out of BJJUnited was sceduled to make his debut tonight but his opponent came to his senses- look for this guy to make an impact once they find someone big enough for him to fight. (pictured with Wilson Reis to his left)

Lastly, Smut

Comments

[Matthew]

Thanks for the review. I feel like I was there.