Wandering around Evansville, Ind. during Thanksgiving weekend felt like being in a scene from 28 Days Later. Everywhere you went, the streets were empty, restaurants were closed and stores were shut down for the holiday. There wasn't a living person in sight, as everyone stayed holed up at home, washing down huge amounts of turkey, stuffing and pie with countless mugs of warm gravy.
But on Saturday, Nov. 24, a huge crowd made their way to the Evansville Coliseum for Hook n Shoot: Bodog Fight, Indiana's top mixed martial arts event. With 14 fights on the card, not even the cold wind whipping the roads could keep fans away, as Dan Hornbuckle defended his belt, Tara La Rosa returned to action, and eight women stepped into the ring to compete for a tournament title and a Bodog Fight contract.
Before her fight with Minnesota's Cody Welchlin, Bodog Fight 135-pound women's champion Tara La Rosa was feeling nervous. Dropping 10 pounds to a lighter weight class had proven fatal for her once before and had resulted in the one blemish in her career. This time, she was determined to redeem herself.
A former fire-eater in a traveling circus, Welchlin came to the fight with a 2-1 record, her sole loss coming from Japanese wonderwoman Megumi Fujii. Fighting out of the Minnesota Martial Arts Academy, news traveled fast about her dangerous kickboxing skills, and when it came time to fight, she did not disappoint.
Taking the center of the ring at the opening bell, Welchlin cracked La Rosa twice in the face and landed a hard head kick before being driven into the ropes. Tackling her opponent to the ground, La Rosa quickly took control of the fight from the mount position but could not finish her opponent off before the round ended. Back on the ground in the second round, La Rosa switched from one submission to another until, caught in a bent armlock, Welchlin was forced to tap out.
"She hit me a couple of times, and she got an awesome high kick, which I was really excited about," La Rosa said afterwards. "We went to the ground, and she had really good ground defense. As soon as I got any kind of positioning, like a side-mount or a mount, she got out of the position or she held onto me, which is the right thing to do."
"In the second round, we went to the ground, and I went for an armbar," she explained. "But she got her elbow to the ground, and I knew I wasn't going to get it. So I transitioned into what I thought was going to end up as a triangle, but it didn’t quite work out that way, since she had both her arms in. So I saw the bent armbar from the triangle, and I just jumped on it. And it popped her elbow out a bit."
With about two-thirds of the people in the crowd proudly wearing his T-shirts, it was obvious that Dan Hornbuckle was a fan-favorite. Facing Courtney Ray for a second time, Hornbuckle had grim intentions going into his title-defense fight for the main event of the evening.
An explosive athlete, Ray had lost to Hornbuckle in less than three minutes in their first encounter in March 2007, but he fought his way back into title contention with a series of punishing wins.
Wasting no time, both fighters got their rematch off to a quick start by launching themselves across the ring at one another. Quickly, they ended up tied up in the ropes, with Ray inside the closed guard of "The Handler." As the action continued, Hornbuckle switched to a triangle choke and then to a deep armbar that forced "The Chocolate Nightmare" to tap out. The crowd went berserk with glee, and Hornbuckle leapt into their arms, crowd-surfing around the ring before climbing back between the ropes to reclaim his championship belt.
"The fight was intense," Hornbuckle explained afterwards in the locker room. "It went exactly the way I planned it. I didn't get the takedown exactly the way I wanted, but I still maintained it. I saw a couple of holes in his game. He's an exploding brawler. That's what Courtney does. He's a true athlete, and I had to contain it. If I couldn't contain it, I was going to end up on the receiving end of some of his bombs. I mean, he's a very dangerous opponent."
As impressive as Hornbuckle and LaRosa were in winning their fights, no other fighter shocked the crowd more than Caitlin Young. A teammate of Cody Welchlin and Kelly Kobald at the Minnesota Martial Arts Academy, Young looked incredibly fit and strong, with six-pack abs and rippling muscles, for a 135-pound fighter.
In her first fight of the night, Young needed only 22 seconds to dispose of Suzi Smith, breaking her nose with a hard knee. A powerhouse wrestler, Meisha Tate had squeezed a win out of her fight with Jan Finney, slamming her way to a referee's decision in overtime.
Young was too much for her, though, and landed a massive head kick just 30 seconds into the fight for her second knockout in a row.
In the finals, Young faced Patti Lee, a jiu-jitsu and kickboxing fighter who had worked her way through impressive newcomer Jordan Sprague and mini-powerhouse Nicdali Calanoc to earn a shot for the belt. Although Lee lasted longer than either Smith or Tate, her fate was the same, as Young dropped her to the mat at just 53 seconds into the first round with a crushing knee to the ribs. Knocking out the competition, Young earned the coveted Hook N Shoot tournament belt and a lucrative contract with Bodog Fight.
"It was a good night for me," she said later. "I did a lot of clinch work. Fast and heavy hands, that was the idea, sprawl and brawl."
Presented with the Hook N Shoot tournament belt, Young said that she'll put the hardware up at her club. "I'd like to put it up at the gym, because everyone there was instrumental in helping me. They're awesome."
Still, despite her performance, Young said that she's a long way from being ready to face the likes of La Rosa. "Someday," she said. "I have a lot of work to do. I don't have any illusions. I'm not going to give away my secrets, but I do have things to work on."
American Top Team fighter Mike Brown wanted to show more of his stand-up skills in his fight against Jeet Kune Do fighter Eben Oroz, but he could not resist the voice of the wrestler inside of him. Scoring an early takedown, Brown worked his way to Oroz's back and then to the mount, where he finished the fight with strikes.
"It was an all right fight," he said. "It went as I planned. I was hoping for a little more stand-up action, but instinct took over. I took a takedown, and it was kind of like my typical fight. I was hoping to show something new, but sometimes you have to take the win how it comes."
Oroz was less thrilled with his showing. "It was the most extreme worst-case scenario," he explained. "But I'm glad I lost to someone like Mike Brown. He's good. It's the first time I've really been beaten, so I'm just going to go back to the drawing board and move on."
