World Extreme Cagefighting once again returned to the Palace Indian Gaming Center in Lemoore, California for a night of action packed fights in "Clash of the Titans II". Six of the night’s eleven fights were finished by submission, but there was a considerable amount of stand up action as well.
The stellar card’s main event featured Ricco Rodriguez as a late replacement against Ron "H2O" Waterman, a back and forth affair that gave the fans action on the feet as well as on the mat. Ron Waterman retained his Super Heavyweight belt, receiving the nod with a unanimous decision, as his take downs and excellent ground control gave him the edge in a close bout. Ricco was able to land some devastating shots on the feet, including several kicks to the H2O man’s face, but was unable to land the knockout shot. Ricco did suffer an injury to his right leg early on in the bout, and this may have hampered his ability to finish the fight. Waterman was able to nullify Rodriguez’s superb jiujitsu with some slick wrestling and positioning, and Ricco only came close to getting a single arm bar throughout the entire fight.
One of the fights of the night saw Alex Serdyukov achieve a TKO victory over fellow countryman Victor Parfenov at 2:20 of the first round. By defeating Parfenov, Serdyokov retained his North American Middleweight championship. This fight was the penultimate slugfest, never hitting the ground. Both fighters came out swinging, with the Russian Nightmare demonstrating excellent straight punches and some devastating knees. Parfenov looked to be rocked early on, but managed to fire back and score with some extremely hard body punches. It was after one of these body shots that Alex shot into the air with a flying knee to the face, grazing Victor and scoring style points with the judges. Shortly after that Alex landed a fully loaded left knee to the liver, dropping Parfenov, who was peppered with more strikes until the referee halted the contest.
Tosh Cook proved the superiority of jiujitsu over Troy Miller's Tae Kwon Do with a rear naked choke submission victory just 1:45 into the first round. Troy looked to be in much better shape than his last outing, but unfortunately the fans did not get to see if his conditioning had improved. The fight almost immediately hit the ground, and from there Cook gave Miller a lesson in jiujitsu 101, raining strikes from the mount until Miller rolled to his stomach, exposing his neck for the choke.
Chris Sanford and Josh Green had a fast paced back and forth battle, that isuntil Sanford locked in a text-book guillotine to force the tap out at 2:30 of round 1. Some highlights included a couple big knees from Green, followed by a left high kick on the chin from Sanford. After a short stint on the ground, the fighters ended up clinched on the side of the cage. Green went for a takedown and Sanford managed to catch his neck, resulting in the fight ending choke.
The night’s most disappointing fight came when Jody Poff was set to face Rafael del Real. After a few strikes, the fighters clinched against the side of the cage, where Del Real landed a right knee straight to the cup. Poff slumped to the floor, where he remained for several minutes. The referee waved off the fight, and Poff was helped to his feet. The fighters unanimously agreed to a rematch after the fight, showing superb sportsmanship and no bad blood.
Steve Ramirez avoided some trouble early on to TKO Jason Biswell with some vicious ground and pound at 2:01 of round 1. Biswell showed good groundwork, nearly finishing Ramirez with a nasty heel hook. Ramirez was able to work through the visible pain and land some heavy punches from the top position, one of which opened up a large cut under Biswell’s right eye.
The fight of the night was a slugfest between Casey Olsen and Rolland Parli. These two 155lbers put on quite a show, trading heavy punches and showing excellent wrestling skills. Parli was rocked a minute into the first round, but came back swinging, forcing Olsen to back off momentarily. Parli was then knocked down during a big exchange when a huge right uppercut slammed into his jaw.
Olsen followed him down to finish the job, but was stifled when Parli showed excellent recovery skills, hanging on tight. The two clinched for the next minute, until another big exchange saw Parli knocked out from a crushing left hook. Casey Olsen wins his second fight by KO at 4:58 of round 1, and Parli looked very good for his first mixed martial arts fight.
