Digby & McSwain move on at Rize 2

by Chris Postupalski

Rize MMA 2 was held at the Mansfield Tavern on the 26th of September, and it featured the semi-finals of the 4-man under 77kgs tournament featuring Daniel Digby, Rod McSwain, Jon Leven and Cyrus Washington.

In the main event, it would be Daniel Digby from the TCMA gym in Napier, New Zealand taking on Jon Leven from Team CFS in Sydney. Digby looked very calm to start off the fight but despite his massive height advantage, decided to close the distance. After a brief struggle, Digby tripped Leven to the canvas and ended up in the full-mount position. Leven immediately gave up his back, and after opening him up with a few strikes, Digby was able to flatten his opponent and get the choke for the win at 1:15 into round one.

In the other tournament semi-final match-up, Rod McSwain from the Strikeforce Gym in Auckland took on Cyrus Washington from Tiger Gym in Phuket. Washington, started the fight strong, landing vicious leg kicks. Unfortunately he followed it up with a left high kick which swept his feet from under him. Washington bounced back to his feet, however McSwain had already run in for the takedown.

On the ground, Washington was clearly out-matched, as McSwain quickly passed from half-guard to mount. Washington attempted to hold on, and even strike from the bottom but the strikes were too much and Washington scrambled and ended up in the guard. McSwain locked up an arm-triangle choke from the bottom, to get the tap at 1:31.

Asked about a potential match up against his fellow countrymen Digby next year for the title, McSwain laughed it off saying “I don’t know, he finished the fight quicker than I did”.

Japanese ZST and Deep veteran Masaya Doi from the Shinwa Total Combat gym, took on Sydney based Brazilin, Adriano Magnani from Team CFS in an under 70kgs fight.  It was Magnani on the front foot, with Doi choosing to pepper his opponent’s lead leg with hard leg kicks. Doi was taken down early, after throwing a high left head kick. Magnani landed in half-mount but from there was not able to do much damage as Doi scrambled back to his feet. Both fighters raised the tempo slightly in the second round, with continuing where he left off in the first, with solid leg kicks. Both fighters did hit the ground again but no substantial damage occurred. Both fighters left everything in the ring in the final round as they swung for the fences late in the round. Magnani did manage to get into side control midway through the round; however Doi regained guard, which forced the referee to stand them up. In the end the judges unanimously decided to award the win to Japanese fighter, Doi.

In a fight that could have easily been taken home ‘Fight of the Night’ honours, Gareth Ealey from Strikeforce, Christchurch took on Ross Dallow from the Extreme Gym in Melbourne in an under 86kgs bout. Dallow slammed his opponent to the ground and showed great ground-and-pound to control the majority of the first round. Just as it looked like Dallow had the first round in the bag, Ealey connected with a nicely timed superman punch that dropped Dallow to all fours. Dallow was able to hold on to hear out the buzzer. Ealey had major swelling under his right eye and started the second round on the back foot, however landing the more noticeable strikes. The tough as nails Dallow kept on coming forward and landed a strike or two of his own. Ealey got trapped in a corner and were he conceded a takedown. The first contact of round three was a high left kick from Dallow that knocked out his opponent cold for the victory, 0:20 into round three.

On the under-card, Ryan Dunstan from Advanced MMA showed great transitional skills on the ground to defeat Marc Safaniev from Team CFS. Pat Crawley from Strikeforce, Auckland left it until twenty seconds to go to force a referee stoppage from ground-and-pound over Fred Chahrouha from the Sinosic-Perosh gym.

Juarne Dowling made his MMA debut, taking on Brendan O’Reilly from the Advance MMA Gym. Dowling is a former boxer, who has taken on the best including fights against Anthony Mundine & Sakio Bika. Unfortunately for Dowling he lost a unanimous points decision to O’Reilly who showed superior ground skills to get the victory.

Also on the card Joakim Wisting defeated Josh Chamberlain via a first round armbar, and in the first fight of the night Josh Russell defeated Tyson Kroehn with a rear naked choke in round one.