It's been a long time!

Legacy's new outside ring getting ready for action.

Hello back! Apologies for the lack of posts in the last couple of months, as I was away on holidays. The guys at the gym kept busy though, training and fighting both nationally and internationally. Here is the latest fights update:

Adam from Sweden and Kenny from Denmark fought last month at a local show near Ubon. Adam put on a fantastic fight, coming back from being knocked down three times to eventually KO his opponent in the first round. Kenny's fight was unfortunately a mismatch as he ended up facing off against a much more experienced opponent. The referee intervened and stopped it in the first round.

Matthew and Nick, both from America, also fought a couple of weeks later at another village show. Nick won his bout by what he called an "Anderson Silva elbow knockout" in the third round. As for Matthew, he faced off against a taller and heavier opponent with many fights under his belt. Matthew lost by KO due to a head kick early in the first round.

Legacy's muay thai trainers Ajarn Kong and Ajarn Nuay fought last month too. It was Ajarn Nuay's last muay thai fight, as he now retires (again!) in order to pursue his fledgling mma career . He won on points, as did Ajarn Kong.

On the mma side, Vaughn "Blud" Anderson has returned to Legacy to once again head the mma training programme. After just over a year here at legacy, Marcus Waters has made his way back to Dallas, his hometown. Thank you Marcus for all your hard work here at Legacy.

Ole has just come back from China, where he accompanied three of our mma boys who fought at the World Martial Arts Champions event. It was Ajarn Nuay's mma debut, and he used his muay thai expertise to land some damaging elbows on his opponent, but his lack of experience on the ground led allowed his opponent to gain the upper hand and submit him by armbar in the first round. Chris also lost his fight by submission, due to a rear naked choke. Vaughn on the other hand, had a fine performance which added to his ever growing winning streak.

I will try to post photos and videos of the fights soon.

Legacy Gym off to a great start in 2011

Hello and Happy New Year! Although I wasn't here to witness it, Legacy Gym got 2011 off to a great start on 1 January. At a local fight event in Det Udom, Marcus Waters, our BJJ coach, made his muay thai début. He won by 4th round TKO, forcing the referee to stop the fight with a barrage of unanswered punches. Unfortunately, there is no video footage, as the rest of the gym was recovering from New Year's eve celebrations.

Ajarn Nuay, aka Mongkol Kao, continued fighting through his retirement with another impressive knockout victory on the same day. He stopped his opponent in the second round.

Nut rounded off a great start for Legacy with a 4th round stoppage, which was made more impressive by the fact that he had just fought two nights before and lost a hard 5 round decision.

Congratulations to all three fighters and, once again, Happy New Year to everyone from all of Legacy Gym!

Hampus and Marcus are back from China

Hampus and Marcus are now back from Yulin, China, near the border with Inner Mongolia, where they had a couple of tough MMA fights last week. They were accompanied by Ole Laursen, who flew from Singapore to be in their corner straight after being cornerman for Malik and Isa at Martial Combat 9 and 10.

Marcus fought well and lost a controversial decision on points. The referee's interventions, breaking the action and re-starting the fighters in the middle of  the ring was, at times, hard to justify. Especially since the fighters were re-started in the stand-up position, not the same position they were in when the referee intervened. Marcus had his opponent in a tight armbar at one point (as you can see in the picture above), but was made to let go by the referee, who re-started the fighters in the stand-up position.

Hampus's fight was declared a no-contest. He got repeatedly stomped on the face 20 seconds into round one. The referee stopped the fight and seemed to hesitate a while, before raising the Chinese fighter's arm in victory. After much controversy, the decision was ruled out and changed to a no-contest. Such severe infringement of the rules would, in any other place, mean a sure win for Hampus by disqualification.

Hampus is disappointed that his first MMA fight had to be stopped so early, but he has a muay thai fight scheduled for this weekend, and says he can't wait for another chance to kick some arse again!

Click here to watch a video of Hampus's fight.

Controversial refereeing in China and upcoming fights

Zebaztian and Marcus are back from China after having lost their mma fights due to controversial referee stoppages.

Zebaztian was doing well in the second round of his fight, having obtained a dominant ground position. He was clearly controlling his opponent from the top, when the referee unexpectedly stopped the contest on the alleged grounds of Zebaztian being "too tired to continue".

Marcus didn't have much better luck. He got knocked down by one of his opponent's punches, got up straight away, and was ready to continue fighting, but the referee also decided to stop his fight prematurely.

Both fighters are back at the gym and, although a little disappointed by the bad refereeing in China, they are now focused on training for their next challenges. Marcus is scheduled to fight on the 1st of August, in Taiwan, and Zebaztian is hoping to get a muay thai fight locally before heading back to Sweden in 3 weeks.

Hampus from Sweden is also fighting again this weekend. He faces off against Thai fighter Suan Phet from Phibun Mangsahan, who has had 22 professional fights and usually fights at 67kg. Hampus's fight will take place on Sunday evening, and we wish him the best of luck. I will update the blog with results as soon as I can.

Zebaztian and Marcus to fight in China

There is no stopping him! One week after his first muay thai fight, Zebaztian will now make his international mma debut in China. Both he and Marcus, from America, are in Bangkok at the moment, making their way to Shanghai. They are fighting at the Fighters Unite event on Saturday the 17th of July.

Both fighters were offered their fights only yesterday, and had no hesitation in stepping up to represent Legacy at the event. Results, photos and news will be forthcoming as soon as they become available.

Good luck, guys!

In other mma news, Ole Laursen is currently ringside at the latest Martial Combat event in Singapore, where Ray Elbe from Tiger Muay Thai is headlining the event.