Costa Mesa, CA: The heavyweights are always a draw and they didn’t disappoint a sold out Fight Club OC crowd of 1,342 fans last night in Costa Mesa, as all three undefeated prospects stayed perfect. The only disappointed fighter in The Hangar was 3-0 Ricardo Abreu who was to meet Nick Piecuch in the featured MMA bout of the night, but Piecuch called on Wednesday to inform promoter Roy Englebrecht that he has severe personal problems and could not fight. Abreu, who had nearly 40 fans from Brazil ready to cheer him on, and who had trained hard for the fight did weigh in hoping that Piecuch would show at the last minute, but it was not to be.
While the real fireworks were provided by the smaller weights in the seven bout show in The Hangar, a win is a win, and Joe Hanks, Alexander Flores, and Vince Thompson will take the W’s.
Hanks moved to 21-0 with a six round unanimous decision over a very game Maurenzo Smith who pressed Hanks early until Hanks picked up the pace in the final two rounds and did some damage at the end. Smith falls to 11-4.
Local favorite Alexander Flores was having his way with 16-4 Matt Hicks until Hicks threw a big round house left hand midway thru the first round, but the force of his swing caused him to lose his balance and he fell to the canvas spraining his left knee. Hicks chose to continue, but was in severe pain and finally called it quits in his corner, so Flores goes to 11-0 with the technical knockout.
Seattle’s 11-0 Vince Thompson, in his Southern California debut, make it a successful one, winning every round on all three judge’s cards to dominant Yohan Banks who drops to 6-9.
But the fans really liked two four round wars, and throw nearly $200 in cash into the ring to show their appreciation. Two fighters with the same names fought a war with Azusa’s Danny Martinez finally stopping Moreno Valley’s Daniel Martinez with a flurry of punches at 1:39 of the second round. Both fighters gave and took punches big time, and both have agreed to a rematch. In the opening bout of the night, Javier Albonica improved to 7-1 with a UD win over Ontario’s John Worthy who drops to 3-5. Worthy had Albonica hurt in the first round, but could not put it away and the fighters traded punches for the rest of the fight.
In the MMA Battle for Huntington Beach it was Ozzie Alvarez who took the big KO win against Patrick Fitzgerald . Ozzie now moves to 3-1.
Local fighter out of Costa Mesa Steffan Lugo just couldn’t get his jab working which allowed Carlsbad’s Lawrence Letuli to notch his first pro win when he stopped Lugo at 1:38 of the second round. Letuli is now 1-2 and Lugo evens his record at 2-2.
This was the final Fight Club OC show of 2012, with year three set to kick off on Thursday, February 14, 2013.
