{"id":32776,"date":"2014-04-18T14:54:23","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T06:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tribune.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=32776"},"modified":"2014-04-18T14:54:23","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T06:54:23","slug":"cepeda-wins-comeback-fight-rop-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/cepeda-wins-comeback-fight-rop-16\/","title":{"rendered":"Cepeda wins comeback fight in ROP 16"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Trench<\/a>
Trench Tech\u2019s Ning \u201cThe Slicer\u201d Cepeda holds on to the neck of Gracie Barra\u2019s Jose \u201cYoung Blood\u201d Ramirez during the first round of their 155-lb bout in the Rites of Passage 16: Unleashed last Friday at the Royal Taga Hall of the Saipan World Resort. (ROSELYN B. MONROYO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Trench Tech\u2019s Vince Ning \u201cThe Slicer\u201d Cepeda returned to the octagon cage after a year-long absence and won over GMT\/Gracie Barra Jose \u201cYoung Blood\u201d Ramirez of Guam in their 155-lb bout in Rites of Passage 16: Unleashed last Friday at the Royal Taga Hall of the Saipan World Resort.<\/p>\n

Cepeda used his grappling and wrestling skills to earn a victory via unanimous decision against Ramirez. Two judges scored the three-round tiff at 30-27, while the third judge gave Cepeda a 30-26 edge. Ramirez absorbed his first loss in three appearances in Rites of Passage and second in his MMA career after, as he tried to go for a stand-up fight and threw punches to the body of Cepeda, but could not get his momentum going with the Trench Tech bet either holding him down the canvas or tying him up at the cage\u2019s side. Ramirez won his first two fights on Saipan via TKOs, as he pounded Travis Eubanks in ROP 13: Destiny in 2012 and Vince \u201cSanity\u201d Pua in Trench Warz 17: Night of the Champions last year.<\/p>\n

The Ramirez-Cepeda collision was a semi-main event bout and came after nine other MMA bouts.<\/p>\n

In the first MMA match, Guam\u2019s Ernie Santos handed Zalaka\u2019s Allan \u201cThe Silver Bullet\u201d Aguon his first loss. The two fighters consistently exchanged blows in the first two rounds and the stand-up fight was pretty even heading into the opening minute of Round 3 before Santos caught Aguon\u2019s neck and went for a rear-naked choke. Aguon could not get out of trouble and submitted to his foe at the 1:58 mark of the last round.<\/p>\n

Santos\u2019 triumph over Aguon started Guam bets\u2019 string of victories, as six other visiting fighters from Saipan\u2019s neighboring island also recorded wins in their respective bouts.<\/p>\n

In the semi heavyweight bout between Guam\u2019s Rocky \u201cRockstar\u201d Quichocho and Trench Tech\u2019s Slade \u201cThe Rage\u201d Adelbai, the former threw deadly combinations into the bloody face of the latter in the third round for a TKO win at the 4:38 mark of that period.<\/p>\n

Before getting punished by Quichocho\u2019s punches, Adelbai held his own against his much younger foe, unloading some strikes during a stand-up fight in the first two rounds.<\/p>\n

Quichocho\u2019s fellow Guamanian fighter\u2014Ryan \u201cThe Predator\u201d Toves\u2014also bagged a TKO win. Toves surprised Saipan\u2019s Jun Taitingfong with a jumping kick that brought the latter down the canvas and before the former went for the killer blows, referee Keith Nabors stopped the bout at the 2:41 mark of Round 1.<\/p>\n

In another Guam versus Saipan duel, Scotty \u201cDa Slaya\u201d Eclavea used an arm bar to beat Josh \u201cOh My Gosh\u201d just over a minute (1:26) into the first round. Purebred Guam\u2019s Mikey Sanchez worked out an arm bar, too against Saipan\u2019s K.J. \u201cMan Down\u201d Villagomez to finish the fight at the 2:08 mark of the opening round.<\/p>\n

In the Guam versus Guam encounter, Purebred Guam\u2019s Eric Siam won his debut fight on Saipan after stopping HBP\u2019s Mitchel Torre via Guillotine choke at 2:23 of the first round.<\/p>\n

Completing the list of Guam bets who returned home victorious were Rob Eclavea and Jerome Cruz. Eclavea won via default after a no-show from Tinian\u2019s Haini \u201cThe Prodigy\u201d Hofschneider, while Cruz nailed a unanimous decision win over Trench Tech\u2019s Walt \u201cThe Silent Assault\u201d Florencio.<\/p>\n

In other results, Trench Tech standouts Lenny \u201cThe Machine Gun\u201d Sablan and Seongho Chung got TKO wins over separate foes. Chung was paired against D2S\u2019 Jay \u201cBonbon\u201d Camacho and unleashed a string of punches as he gained top position for the TKO win at the 1:58 mark of the first round. Sablan posted the TKI triumph in the second round (1:30), as he got out of Jones Langu\u2019s grip down the canvas and threw a flurry of punches to the latter\u2019s head, prompting referee Frank \u201cThe Crank\u201d Camacho to stop the fight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trench Tech\u2019s Vince Ning \u201cThe Slicer\u201d Cepeda returned to the octagon cage after a year-long…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":32787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[51,349,595],"class_list":["post-32776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-guam","tag-saipan-world-resort","tag-trench-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32776","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\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}