Title joy
Fight night glory for MMA team
JUDO Jimmy Wallhead’s foray into fight management got off to an impressive start with victories for 10 of his 12 – strong stable at Fight UK MMA’s Rise of the Gladiator show on Saturday.
The tally included four new champion belts for ‘Team Wallhead’ in a bill bursting with talent from around Britain at the Hermitage Leisure Centre in Whitwick.
More than 800 fight fans were there to see Loughborough’s Dan Hepworth win the Fight UK MMA welterweight belt, knocking out Welshman Tyler Thomas.
And Shelthorpe-based Michael Hughes scored a technical knockout to dispose of a very tough contender in Nottingham MMA veteran Munesh Modhvadia to lift the bantamweight belt.
Flyweight Chace Griffin from Netherhall, Leicester and Coventry-based heavyweight Kristoff Wisiniewski were the other two Wallhead fighters to win belts – Chace delighting the crowd with a victory back flip off the top of the cage.
Elsewhere on the bill, Loughborough’s emerging bantamweight Jamie Murray demolished Skegness’s Kyle Holland in an explosive display and Leicester middleweight Marcus Mee took less than a minute to KO Coventry’s Berti Baker in the first round.
Making his MMA debut at bantamweight was Loughborough teenager Theo ‘Baby Face’ Chapel. The Peter Skillen-trained youngster put on a plucky display, scoring with some good shots, but lost on points to Long Eaton’s more experienced Brad Scriven.
UFC fighter Wallhead, who is eligible to compete again this summer, set up WAR (Wallhead and Ridgway) Fight Management with Gray Ridgway last year to nurture talent and take mixed martial arts into the mainstream.
He said: “Saturday was out of the water - the standard of the fights was immense, the crowd phenomenal and the MC and DJ on point. Everybody enjoyed themselves. What a great night.”