Six of the 10 undercard mixed martial arts bouts in last Friday\u2019s Rites of Passage 23: Beatdown ended quickly in the first round, while the other four needed two to determine the winners.<\/p>\n
Jessme Jones earned a quick 33-second technical knockout win over Maegan Smith, while Red Ants Academy\u2019s Sichiru Langu was forced to tap out on Ken Evans\u2019 rear-naked-choke just 2:20 into the match. High Blood Pressure Guam\u2019s Junar Jesus defeated Team Tinian\u2019s Corey San Nicolas by RNC, 1:15 into the match, while Steel Athletics\u2019 Angel Oliveras needed only 2:58 in completing a TKO victory over Luta Top Team\u2019s John Mendiola.<\/p>\n
LTT\u2019s L.D. Ogo earned his first MMA win when he forced Team Tinian\u2019s Napu \u201cFong Fung\u201d Reyes to tap out via RNC with 1:47 gone bye in the first round, while visiting South Korean Seung Jun Lee of Korean Top Team defeated Zalaka\u2019s Fradley Jepen via TKO at the 4:36 mark of the first round in their 215-lb bout.<\/p>\n
Though several fights ended early, the 23rd installment of the amateur showdown at the Marianas Business Plaza was still action-packed and so intense that commotion erupted after a duel between a Tinian fighter and Saipan bet.<\/p>\n
It happened after referee Mike Ulloa chose to stop the fight between Saipan\u2019s Andres \u201cThe Tanapag Beach Bad Boy\u201d Camacho and Team Tinian\u2019s Austin John King with the former earning the win at the 2:54 mark of the second round.<\/p>\n
The decision did not sit well with Team Tinian\u2019s corner, while some of their supporters even charged to their side, in clear protest against Ulloa\u2019s somewhat controversial call. Event bouncers were called in to pacify some members of the Tinian crowd.<\/p>\n
Before that incident, King was down and trying to cover his face against the barrage of punches from Camacho. Some spectators also said that Camacho allegedly kicked King, while the latter was down. Ulloa could have seen that King was no longer engaging and for the fighter\u2019s safety, the official chose to jump in and stop the fight.<\/p>\n
Fight promoter Cuki Alvarez addressed the crowd a few minutes later, apologizing for what happened and reiterated the importance of each fighter\u2019s safety in friendly, but competitive mixed martial arts matches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Six of the 10 undercard mixed martial arts bouts in last Friday\u2019s Rites of Passage…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[21067,7619,12769,8285],"class_list":["post-275303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-jessme-jones","tag-rnc","tag-team-tinian","tag-tko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}