Hey, no need to thank me. In my humble opinion he was the best first round fighter EVER. I was also going to mention a guy named Brandon Thatch. Every single one of his wins occurred in the 1st round. 6 under a minute. I don't know what happened to him but went on a 4 loss streak and hasn't fought since 2016.
I made a thread about this kid before he made it to the UFC. We lived in Denver for quite a while and there was a promotion called ROF (Ring of Fire) which isn't around anymore. We watched him as an amateur work his way up and every once in a while you say to yourself "this guy is legit and should be in the UFC and can be a champ". I said in my thread, and I failed. Well, I didn't fail, he did.
Ring of Fire had some awesome up and coming talent that ended up fighting in the UFC...Carwin, Thatch, Cerrone, Gaethje, Cat Zingano, Brendan Schaub, Douglas Lima, Cody Donovan, Eliot Marshall, Rob MacDonald, Michelle Waterson, quite a few folks fought in the local org and made it to the big dance.
I guess I was fortunate enough to attend numerous events the ROF put on and spend $45 a ticket sitting 20 feet from the cage.
That's awesome. It is great being able to go to regional shows, especially when prospects are developing mostly within a single organization. That's some great talent that you got to watch come up.
Hey, no need to thank me. In my humble opinion he was the best first round fighter EVER. I was also going to mention a guy named Brandon Thatch. Every single one of his wins occurred in the 1st round. 6 under a minute. I don't know what happened to him but went on a 4 loss streak and hasn't fought since 2016.
I made a thread about this kid before he made it to the UFC. We lived in Denver for quite a while and there was a promotion called ROF (Ring of Fire) which isn't around anymore. We watched him as an amateur work his way up and every once in a while you say to yourself "this guy is legit and should be in the UFC and can be a champ". I said in my thread, and I failed. Well, I didn't fail, he did.
Ring of Fire had some awesome up and coming talent that ended up fighting in the UFC...Carwin, Thatch, Cerrone, Gaethje, Cat Zingano, Brendan Schaub, Douglas Lima, Cody Donovan, Eliot Marshall, Rob MacDonald, Michelle Waterson, quite a few folks fought in the local org and made it to the big dance.
I guess I was fortunate enough to attend numerous events the ROF put on and spend $45 a ticket sitting 20 feet from the cage.
That's awesome. It's awesome to be able to see prospects develop in the small shows. Especially when a lot of their development happens in a single organization. That's a great group of talent you got to see come up in ROF.
I'm familiar with ROF and Thatch. I think what happened to him is that he lost his confidence and his UFC contract and called it a day.
I was lucky enough to have a similar experience with a local show called HOOKnSHOOT. It was based inhe city I grew up in and 99% of their shows took place there, in only one venue.
It was also the organization that put WMMA on the map. They consistently featured female fights on almost every, even having many as headliners, as well all female cards. WMMA pioneers like Julie Kedzie, Meisha Tate, Tara LaRosa, Kaitlin Young, and Jan Finney came up in the org. A few of them are now executives at Invicta.
There are also a ton of names that fought in HOOKnSHOOT at one time or another; Yves Edwards, Frank Mir, Aaron Riley, Jeremy Horn, to name a few. The org ran frequent shows from 1996 to 2011, staging a farewell show in 2017. It was very common to see fighters there, then the UFC shortly after.
Their shows were done in a very unique venue, sort of like a performance theater, but not really. It's a very small place, in size and crowd. Maybe 500 people. The event, combined with the venue, had almost a fight club feel to it, a very "underground" atmosphere. And for the fighters, signing on even for a single fight, was a big fucking deal. I've been to a ton of regional shows all over the US and a handful of UFC's, but I've never experienced anything like a HOOKnSHOOT event, in any way.
After the final event, UFC bought HOOKnSHOOT's entire video library to add it to Fight Pass. If you ever get a chance, I highly recommend watching some of their shows.
