Friday Night Fights, NYC
New York, NY
In 1997, Justin Blair began the longest running Muay Thai fight show in New York, designed to keep the old-style fight feel while adding in modern elements to keep fans interested. Blair’s fight shows feature a mixture of amateur and professional Muay Thai as well as amateur boxing, often featured on the undercard. This well established show utilizes multiple sized venues to accommodate and vary the size and feel of the show.
This Friday Night Fights, NYC, was held on September 25 at the historic Lexington Street Armory. The event featured four top-level amateur boxing matches along with seven amateur Muay Thai matches. Among them were two titles, one a WKA North American Bantamweight title match between Andrew Moy and Andy Singh, the other a WKA World title defense by Brandon Mickens against Timothy Amorim. As if these fights weren’t enough to keep the crowd on the edge of its collective seat, the card finished with a bang in three professional Muay Thai matches.
The first title match featured Andrew Moy traveling from California (Club 445) and local favorite Andy Singh (New York’s Extreme Muay Thai), vying for the WKA North American amateur Bantamweight Muay Thai title. Both fighters came in three pounds under the allotted weight of 118 pounds, but this didn’t seem to weaken either’s ability to land hard, clean shots. The first round’s action saw Moy using effective techniques and seeming to control the local favorite, Singh. However, in the second round and building up throughout the rest of the fight, Singh displayed his experience and conditioning by getting stronger and stronger throughout the bout, going on to win by unanimous decision.
The second title match was a title defense with Tim Amorim (Sitan, Philly) challenging the defending World Champion Brandon Mickens (Team Combat, Richmond, VA). These two fighters had met earlier in Amorim’s fight career when Mickens dominated the less experienced fighter. However, since then, Amorim has been on a winning streak capped off by his taking the WKA North American Combat Sports tournament title in June. Earlier that month, Mickens had won the World Title by knocking off the number one ranked amateur Omar Ahmed from Sitan gym’s main location in New York City. That bout was a highly contested fight, held in the famous BB King’s Club off 42nd Street, ending in a decision for Mickens. Mickens was scheduled for a title unification with ISKA World Champion Gabriel Daugherty in British Columbia, Canada, for October 3rd, but the match was postponed. Thus, the match with Amorim was agreed to in the interim. Both fighters entered the ring with confidence, looking like they had already fought round 1 and were ready for more. Round 1 looked like textbook Mickens—controlling the action, picking his shots, and working on Amorim’s head, body, and legs, and he seemed to have Amorim right where he wanted him. In round 2, Amorim came out with renewed confidence and tagged Mickens with several leg kicks, which seemed to affect the champion. Playing off of that, Amorim seemed to gain even more confidence and controlled the rest of the round. In round 3, both fighters seemed to be on a mission with Amorim continuing to attack the legs and Mickens trying to land punches to the head. Amorim’s kicks seemed to shake up Mickens repeatedly while Mickens was only successful in stunning Amorim on two occasions with heavy hands to the head. Rounds 4 and 5 saw Mickens’ activity decrease from combinations to single shots and Amorim continue with good combinations, even attempting several flying knees. The unanimous decision went to Amorim, who became the new WKA Amateur World Light Welterweight Champion.
Pro matches featured the controversial win by local favorite Eric “The Hooligan” Utsch (Fairtex), who received a standing 8-count in the first round but came back to win narrowly in the second and third rounds over Sascha Hijazi (Carver’s Muay Thai). The second pro bout featured longtime New York fighter Sean Hinds of The Wat vs. Doug Edwards out of Fairtex, California. This was a great fight, with Hinds utilizing his signature hands to low kick combination and with Edwards counterstriking after the low kick. This fight continued back and forth with Hinds gaining momentum as the bout continued. Edwards got a large mouse, which affected his vision and complained to the doctor of having his vision impaired; this caused the fight to be stopped via TKO in the third round. The last fight of the night featured Marc DeLuca (Khaay Muay Sit-Kangmonkorn) versus Cool Hearts/Daddis MMA, Philly’s Justin Greskiewicz. Both fighters started out poised, testing the waters as if in a traditional Muay Thai fight in Thailand. However, Greskiewicz seemed to quickly change pace and let his opponent know that he was there to break tradition and get the fight started, as well as to finish it. With multiple knockdowns in the first and second round, Greskiewicz finished with a devastating knockout 32 seconds into the third round.
Full results
Event
|
Match
|
Winner
|
Won By
|
| Muay Thai
|
Andy Hillstad vs. Jeff Ciervo
|
Jeff Ciervo
|
Unanimous Decision
|
| Muay Thai
|
James Mahoney vs. Luis Gonzalez
|
James Mahoney
|
Unanimous Decision
|
| Muay Thai
|
Joshua Kasubaski vs. Dwight Grant
|
Dwight Grant
|
TKO 1:17 2nd rd.
|
| WKA North American Amateur Muay Thai Bantamweight (-54 kg) Title
|
| Muay Thai
|
Andrew Moy vs. Andy Singh
|
Andy Singh
|
Unanimous Decision
|
| Muay Thai
|
Dan Corchado vs. Etienne Stadwick
|
Dan Corchado
|
KO 0:45 3rd rd.
|
| MWKA World Amateur Muay Thai Light Welterweight (-64 kg) Title
|
| Muay Thai
|
Brandon Mickens vs. Tim Amorim
|
Tim Amorim
|
Unanimous Decision
|
| Muay Thai
|
Sascha Hijazi vs. Eric Utsch
|
Eric Utsch
|
Majority Decision
|
| Muay Thai
|
Doug Edwards vs. Sean Hinds
|
Sean Hinds
|
TKO 3rd rd.
|
| Muay Thai
|
Marc DeLuca vs. Justin Greskiewicz
|
Justin Greskiewicz
|
KO 0:32 3rd rd.
|
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