Explosive fights rock Trench Warz 19

Rota’s Juan Lizama of GroundFu Guam, back, slowly sneaks in a rear-naked chokehold against Team Sonic’s T.J. “Knuckles” Tudela in one of the nine undercard bouts of last Friday night’s Trench Warz 19: No Turning Back at the Saipan World Resort’s Royal Taga Hall. (Jon Perez)

Trench Tech fight promoter Cuki Alvarez really knows how to throw a party for local mixed martial arts fight fans, as he treated them to an explosive night of non-stop action in last Friday’s Trench Warz 19: No Turning Back.

But before the action started, a moment of silence was observed for the victims of last month’s terrorist attack in Paris and to all of those affected by the onslaught of Typhoon Soudelor.

Alvarez, celebrating his birthday on the same day, cooked up a lineup composed of four K1 bouts and nine undercard fights that served as an appetizer for the Andrew “Top Gun” Sablan-Mark “The Dark” Nuique headliner, with the former beating the latter by rear-naked choke in a non-title bout.

Jayvin “The Prodigy” Santos, one of two Ultimate Martial Arts Guam bets who saw action, opened up the night’s 14-bout roster with a victory over Team Zalaka’s Denny Jepen via doctor stoppage in a K1 event.

Santos was the more aggressive fighter as he kept on attacking Jepen’s defense that somewhat threw his opponent out of his game plan as he failed to utilize his height and reach advantage against the Guam bet. Jepen stands 5’8” against the 5’4” Santos and has a 68-inch reach compared to the latter’s 64.

Santos pounded Jepen with a number of combinations with of his punches managing to open a cut on his foe’s right eyebrow.

Jepen managed to survive the barrage after one round, but the doctor— in the 2:39 mark of the second—advised referee Shane “Sonic Boom” Alvarez to discontinue the fight so Jepen can avoid serious injury since they could not stop the bleeding from a gash on his eyebrow anymore.

Three more K1 fights followed with the heavyweight bout between the debuting C.J. “The Beast” Noket of UMA Guam and Ken Santos of StrikeForce MMA going to the scorecards.

The Barrigada-born Noket completed a unanimous decision win over Santos after all three judges saw the fight in his favor. Two of the judges scored the fight at 30-27, while the other one saw it 29-28.

Albert “Baby Sanchai” Andrea made it three straight for the visiting Guam fighters as the Guam Muay Thai bet showed he has the better stamina after he beat a visibly tired Derick “Hotshot” Naog of Team Zalaka.

Referee Alvarez stopped the fight with still 1:19 left in the third round after Naog was no longer retaliating against Andrea’s attacks.

The final K1 bout was a grudge match between Phil David of Shockbox and TrenchTech/StrikeForce’s Kier “The Radical Kid” Agda. Before the start of the fight, promoter Alvarez reminded both warriors to leave whatever their grudge inside the eight-sides.

David and Agda did not disappoint the fans as both of them came out swinging and throwing everything in their respective arsenals in the hopes of getting a quick win.

The match also went to the scorecards with Agda securing a split decision victory. Two of the judges gave the fight to Agda, 29-28 and 30-27, while the other saw it at 29-28 in favor of David.

It was the flyweight’s turn after that with Trench Tech’s A.J. “Smalls” Aldan kicking off the nine undercard mixed martial arts bouts with a victory over Zalaka’s Timothy Salas.

Aldan earned the win via verbal submission after Salas could no longer continue before the start of the third round.

Rota bet Juan Lizama of GroundFu Guam earned a victory over T.J. “Knuckles” Tudela in the 1:01 mark of the second round by rear-naked choke.

Giovanni Taitingfong of Vida Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu defeated Down2Scrap’s Jadrien Camacho by tap out after the former used a triangle to force his opponent to submission with 2:14 left in the first round.

Other results of Trench Warz 19: No Turning Back will be published on tomorrow’s issue of the Saipan Tribune.