BAMMA 34 ‘Lohore vs. Brazier’ event results

Last night saw BAMMA put on its first card of 2018 at The SSE Wembley Arena, with three world title fights headlining the event.

In the main event of the evening, Alex Lohore defended his BAMMA World Welterweight title against former friend and training partner, Terry Brazier, the RDX Welterweight champion, in a grudge match. Brazier came in to the cage with an 8-1 record with seven victories in a row, whilst Lohore came in with an impressive 14-1 record and nine first round finishes.

The fight was evenly contested throughout, with Lohore landing some heavy strikes to Brazier, before the RDX champ slammed him to the mat in the first round. The second round saw much of the same, with both men landing big shots, Brazier even dropped his former training partner before getting a deep cut on his eyebrow. The third round saw both men trying to secure the victory, with Lohore controlling the ground game, taking the back of Brazier, before trying to choke him out with a leg triangle in towards the end, but it wasn’t enough.

Brazier was declared the winner and new BAMMA World Welterweight champion via split decision. Brazier dedicated the win to his mother, who had sadly died four days before hand.

In the evenings first title bout, Rhys McKee wanted to avenge his only professional loss against Tim Barnett, who had stopped the Northern Irishman in the first round when they first faced off to win the BAMMA World Lightweight title.

McKee came into the cage with a 6-1-1 record, with a 100% finishing rate, meanwhile, Barnett came in as the RDX lightweight champion and was 5-0. The fight started with the pair both throwing leg kicks and exchanging strikes, with Barnett getting a welt under the eye. McKee jumped on this opportunity, and continued to land heavy strikes, dropping Barnett, before the fight was stopped by the referee, as Barnett was unable to defend himself, this looked a lot like how the first fight had finished between the two, with the fighters just switching positions. McKee was crowned BAMMA World Lightweight Champion via first round TKO and looks like an exciting prospect for the future.

The second fight of the evening left BAMMA fans with a bitter taste in their mouth after it was declared a no contest. “Chopper” Chi Lewis Parry faced off against Stav “Crazy Bear” Economou in a kickboxer versus ground specialist showdown for the BAMMA Interim World Heavyweight Title. “Chopper” managed to stop Economou from getting a takedown in the first round, before the “Crazy Bear” manged to push the Englishman back up to the cage. “Chopper” tried to defend this by landing elbows, but two unintentional 12 to 6 elbows landed on the back of the grapplers head, leaving him unable to continue, and causing the referee to declare the bout a no contest.

Hopefully we will see these two men back in action in a rematch for the title as soon as Economou is cleared to fight again.

Ultimate Fighter alum Colin Fletcher got back to winning ways after securing a submission victory against Walter Gahazda. Gahazda was in control of the fight on the feet, landing heavy strikes, including some nasty right hand uppercuts.

In the second round, Fletcher responded to this, by throwing strikes of his own, before Gahazda made the error of taking “Freakshow”, a BJJ specialist down and getting caught in Fletcher’s armbar submission. Fletcher was declared the winner via second round submission by armbar.

Also on the card, Kent Kauppinen’s BAMMA debut was unsuccessful, as he was defeated by a 3-0 Kent Edwards. Kauppinen looked to be on top after dropping Edwards, but got caught in an armbar, and was forced to tap out. Edwards was declared the winner by submission.

BAMMA returns in May as the promotion goes across the Irish Sea for an event inside Dublin’s 3 Arena.

Got any comments on BAMMA 34, let me know on Twitter @Cobleyreporting.