EFC Africa 09: Review and Talking Points Fight 1 - 7

So before we all forget about the last event let us discuss all the talking points. I would like to start off by saying this was by far the most impressive showing of mixed martial arts I have seen in South Africa, I was thoroughly impressed. Lets get started

Fight 1: Rightfod v Makuebo

This was a fairly even match in my opinion, the fact that Rightford received a majority decision victory surprised me. He had some good striking but Makuebo also got a couple in and he had more take downs to take control of the action so I say Makuebo should have won that fight at least by a split decision. But hey it was the judges call and the consensus is to never leave it to them, and with good reason.

Fight 2 Calvert v Groth

After a lot of pre-fight chatter, this fight was set up to be a war. It started off a good exchange where Groth was the aggressor but Calvert did land a few counter punches. Calvert managed to win the round in my opinion due to his superior take down and complete domination in the ground game. So a betting man would have said Calvert would have just taken the fight to the ground and smothered Groth for a victory in the second round.

But in the second round Groth managed to keep the fight standing by avoiding a take down. He dominated the round with some crisp striking even though he got carried away at times, it seemed as if Calvert began to give up in his head though and the fight was ended with a beautiful combination by Groth that was climaxed with a left hook to the body.

You can't help but feel sorry for one of the hardest working men in MMA, Calvert, but I guess it happens sometimes, there was some trouble for him making the cut to lightweight because he was already a very lean welterweight and there was also some chatter about him having a flu.

Great debut for Groth though some impressive striking ground game needs a little work, would love to see him back in the cage ASAP.
This was also the KO of the night and much deserved too.

Fight 3: Scheepers v Ahana

Scheepers  started this fight well with some quality and measured striking but he quickly abandoned the idea of the low kick after he hurt is his right foot. Scheepers started the fight well with some calculated strikes but Ahana kept it close as well until later in the second round and Scheepers "the brawler" came out to play. Later in the fight Scheepers seemed to be throwing all he had to Ahana but just could not finish, he landed flush with a couple of shots that rang Ahana's bell but to the surprise of everyone the lanky Nigerian would not quit.

Scheepers adds some much needed depth to the light heavyweight division, with the striking he showed it gonna be interesting to see how his next opponent will deal with him.

Fight 4: Henderson v Vapi

Hendereson entered this fight on a losing streak against the big striking of  Vapi so no prizes for guessing Henderson's game plan for this one. It ended fairly quickly with Henderson getting the take down and ending the fight with a rear naked choke in the 1st.

The talking point of this fight was that this was Henderson's 1st win in a while and he decided to call out The Jedi Josh Muller suggesting that Henderson will going down and trying his luck at welterweight.

Fight 5: Nel v Da Silva

Nel coming off losing his title came back with avengence, he started with a nice take down he kept top position for a while but Da Silva, after making the cut from welterweight, managed to power out and reverse the position. Nel showed some quality wrestling as he managed to regain top position and control Da Silva from powering out. 

Nel ended up on Da Silva's back and managed to ground and pound his way to victory, there was some suspicion of strikes to the back of the head but the referee didn't call it, good victory for Nel, knowing that he would rather not exchange strikes with 'Loco' himself.

Nel is also flirting with the idea of going down to the featherweight division, with wrestling that he portrayed at this past event you can't help but already put him in the mix at the lighter division.

Fight 6: Nzirawa v Griessel

Griessel managed to keep the distance between him and 'Superman' as short as possible even taking him down. Griessel maintained top position even though it was in  Nzirawa's guard he kept pounding away and managed to avoid a couple of kimura attempts. The thing thing that impressed me was that Griessel kept Nzirawa against the cage making it tough for the Kimura favouring fighter to put on a submission or to take the fight back to his feet. All in all a well deserved unanimous decision victory win for Griesssel.

Fight 7: Momah v Van Staden

This fight was kind of mind boggling for me because Momah was light enough to be a lightweight and is fighting a rather big welterweight. As expected Van Staden dominated the noticeably smaller by over powering him in the stand up exchange and eventually winning by ground and pound.

Amusing entrance with him coming out tweeting, it will be interesting to see whether he will be coming out with such confidence against Bagattin at EFC

This is the first of 2 installments of  a planned write up on EFC09, the second shall follow soon.