Classy Buys makes short work of Rouch

New division, same outcome.

The Extreme Fighting Championship (EFC) has a new bantamweight champion after former interim flyweight champion JP Buys (right) showed his class by beating France’s Philippe Rouch at Carnival City on Saturday night.

The encounter was mesmerising from the moment the fighters entered the Big Top Arena up until Buys submitted Rouch with a clinical guillotine choke halfway into the first round.

Buys entered with the confidence of a champion already crowned, stepping into the Hexagon on a wave of local support, almost oblivious of his rival.

Their fight began cautiously, each feeling the other out, but once they engaged it was Buys who quickly found full mount position in a tactical slip that Rouch will regret for a long time to come.

The night’s co-main event was fire and fury, a classic wrestler up against a submission artist as South African wrestling champion Pierre Botha took on Scotland’s BJJ brown belt Calum Murrie.

Botha stunned the Scotsman with an early punch knockdown and intense wrestling based takedown and top control onslaught. But his technique was lacking and the jiu-jitsu practitioner leapt at any limb left loose, threatening with two deep heel hook attempts, switching smoothly to an omaplata, then a triangle, and finishing with an added armbar.

In the end, Botha had no chance against the guile of the Scotsman.

France’s Ibrahima Mané returned to the Hexagon and had just too much firepower for newcomer Quaid Openshaw as he took the fight to the canvas, pounding Openshaw out in a savage display.

Heavyweights Kevin Koekemoer and Nico Yamdjie presented a classic big man smash-up but it was Koekemoer who claimed a unanimous decision win after three rounds.