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Rich Austin
Pro Kumite Fight Night22 Sep 2009 2:13PMHi all,
Well the weekend was a very busy one, and the lead up to the show as hectic as ever what with all the last minute organising, and a suspected fighter drop out the day before, which actually was a false alarm but not before I ran around like a headless chicken replacing him. In the end though it worked out and the fighter was cleared to fight, but its nice to know that I can cover such a situation with a few hours notice.
Lorry was collected the Friday afternoon, and was then loaded with the Full Cage System, Flooring, Matting, Pads, Barriers, Banners, Tools, all weigh in bits 'n' bobs, and all safety cleaning equipment. It works out about 4 ton of equipment that is needed to set the show up.
We left for the venue at 7am, and once arrived the first job was to unload the lorry and transport all the gear to the main auditorium. Once Mick and the lads were unloaded the Cage area was set out and the build was started. Whilst this was going on, I was setting up the corner rooms, tables, chairs, laying down the mats for warm ups pre fight etc. I also set up the banner for the official photographs that followed the weigh ins that were taken by our resident photographer Robert Swann.
Weigh ins were started at 12pm and went through till 2pm 2 guys out of the 24 came in slightly over weight, they went away and both put on black bags and did 15minutes shadow boxing, they came back towel dried and both came in .2kg under the limit so all in all a very good weigh in session and at no time was I concerned that a fighter wouldn’t make weight. A while later it was time for the rules meeting which was taken by Myself and referee David Swann with Rocci Williams in attendance also as he was reffing a couple of fights tonight. Rules meeting went smooth as usual, and that was followed by the medicals, a couple of guys had the normal high blood pressure due to nerves etc but they were asked to go away for 20 minutes lay down, relax and would be done again, they were, and all was well within the safe limits.
Fighters were off to relax for a while and I grabbed the obligatory 10 minute break! 6pm soon came around and doors were open for the general public. I went off to get changed into some smarter clothes and it was soon time to Rock 'n' Roll. First fight was introduced and it 'WAS ON' as the evening proceeded I was in constant radio contact with my runner so I could speed them up or slow them down just so I could get timing schedules as close to planned as possible. At the end of the evening after 12 Full Pro Bouts and 2 Pro Kumite Bronze Belts awarded the evening was a great success with some fantastic fights and some serious talent on show.
Dragons Lair fighter Brad Scott received the fighter of the night award and £300 in clothing and £200 in cash from show sponsors Frontline Fighter.
Hayden Critchfield received a Pro Kumite Bronze Belt in his fight against Anthony Phillips in their 70kg encounter.
Shah 'No Pain' Hussain also won a Pro Kumite Bronze Belt against opponent Will Jackson at 84kg. Both Hayden and Shah represent Dave Lee and Team Crossface, and Dave Lee and Denniston Sutherland were there in the corners and went away very proud of their protege's.
After the show had finished it was get changed and start the de-rig, eventually we all got home about 3am very tired, very drained but buzzing off of the show and feedback that we started to get immediately after.
We would like to thank all the fighters and their teams, without you, there would be no fight card. All the staff involved did a stella job as usual and we all had fun.
Roll on the next one...................................
Stay Safe
Rich
Introduction13 Aug 2009 1:26PMHi Folks........
Most of you will already know me within the UK MMA Fraternity in one capacity or another, but if you don't please let me introduce myself......
My Name is Rich Austin and I am part of the ever increasingly growing Pro Kumite Team. I am one of the Directors here and also the Tournament Coordinator, I put the Fight Cards together, liase with all the fighters, and ensure that side of things runs as smoothly as possible. I also Match make for other Promotions and also Judge on various shows. There are obviously many other aspects of my job but I will go in to those on another blog.
In only One Year Pro Kumite have put on 3 successful shows with another to come at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon on September 19th 2009. We have pioneered Fighter and Officials Insurances for Full Contact MMA participants whether they are a combatant or an in or out of Cage Official. They are all covered.
We are not just like other Fight Shows and Events, in that we have other MMA interests, for instance we run a successful Gym Affiliate Program where we now have over 70 Gyms and Teams Worldwide working with us in helping to promote Pro Kumite and MMA in general. We build here at Pro Kumite HQ our own Training Cages which range from 15ft up to custom build sizes, and have supplied many well respected gyms in the UK and France, and have another off to Italy in a couple of weeks. We also Manufacture Cage Walls to your spec. One of the most successful branches of Pro Kumite is the Jigsaw Mats that we sell, we have sold over 2000 already in just one year as we are extremely buyer friendly and have a hands on approach.
We are very different to any other Promotion in that we have a registered fighter database and we now have over 200 signed on fighters from all over the globe. Whether we use those fighters on a Pro Kumite show or help those fighters get bouts on other shows, we always have them in our pool to call on and offer match ups to.
When we first started Pro Kumite we were met with a lot of criticism for our approach and what we wanted to achieve, but with a bit of tweaking here and there, I think we now have a complete well rounded set up and have nothing left to prove. We have shown we can put a good card together, look after the fighters and their camps, proving that you do not have to go to the bank breaking lengths of Hotels, Flights etc to run a good domestic Fight Card. We look forward to putting more events on in 2010 and look out for the 'Kumite'......................................I wonder if Mick will do a blog..............
See you next time
Rich
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