The mixed martial arts match between Albert Tapia of Huntington Beach and Fullerton’s Mike Hansen at Fight Club OC Thursday in the Hangar was a classic battle pitting the striker, Tapia, against the grappler, Hansen.
This one went to the striker.
In a flyweight match that went the distance – three five-minute rounds – Hansen came away with the victory by a unanimous decision at the OC Fair & Events Center.
Hansen (3-1) landed plenty of kicks and punches, while successfully fending off most of Tapia’s takedown shots.
Even when Tapia (5-6) did manage to take the fight to the mat, he wasn’t able to get control of an arm or leg or land a clean blow.
Tapia also intentionally let Hansen get up at least twice.
“I think maybe he could have taken advantage of certain things better, like not letting him up after getting him on the ground,” said Tapia’s trainer, Colon Oyama, of Team Oyama in Irvine. “He’s a good athlete. He is a tough kid. Maybe it was a good experience for him to get his butt kicked because then you realize that you don’t want to go out like that.”
Within the first 90 seconds of the first round, Tapia sustained cuts over his right eye and the right side of his head.
Tapia did manage to keep Hansen on his back for much of the second round and land some light body shots.
But he couldn’t work himself into a position where he could throw blows with any force.
In the third round, the fighters stayed mostly on their feet until the final minute when Tapia finally put Hansen on his back again.
But once again, Tapia couldn’t inflict any damage.
Oyama, who was training Tapia for the second consecutive match, said his fighter will need to unlearn some bad habits that he’d been able to get away with in previous bouts.
“We hope it will motivate him,” Oyama said.
The seven-fight card featured four boxing and three MMA fights and drew a sellout crowd of 1,412 to the Hangar for the eighth consecutive time, said Roy Englebrecht, Fight Club OC promoter.
The most competitive and fiercest fight of the card was the featherweight MMA battle between Tommy Aaron of Los Angeles and Alex Arrendondo of San Diego.
The fighters stayed on their feet for most of the three five-minute rounds and weren’t afraid to throw punches.
Arrendondo fared just slightly better, coming away with a split decision.
In a lightweight boxing match featuring a pair of fighters making their pro debuts, George Acosta of Whittier won by unanimous decision over Santa Ana’s Gabriel Serrano.
In a welterweight boxing match, Serhii Bohachuk from the Ukraine improved to 3-0 when his bout against Jonathan Aceves of Sinaloa, Mexico was stopped by Aceves’ corner 50 seconds into the second round.
Ruslan Madiyev of Kazakhstan was dominating his lightweight boxing match against Evincil Dixon of Philadelphia, Pa. when Evincil’s corner had the fight stopped at 2:38 of round-two.
