UGB MMA/ WSOF: Foreign Invasion 1
As the title stated, it was indeed foreign invasion as fighters from US and Pakistan defeated their Filipino opponents in emphatic fashion to win the inaugural UGB Championship belts in their respective weight classes. It was a night of exhilarating action as fighters demonstrated their wares in front of WSOF VP for Operations Jason Lilly and UGB Founder Ferdie Munsayac with hope to get noticed, improve their rating as MMA fighters and get a chance to fight for the belt.
The first of the foreign combatants who fought for the belt was Uloomi Karim from Pakistan. He outclassed Michael Mondragon of Catalan Fighting System Philippines and won the Bantamweight title.
Another Pakistani fighter who broke Filipino hearts by easily putting Rodian Menchavez to sleep with a rear naked choke is Amhed Mujtaba. From the get go Amhed was aggressive and attacked Menchavez, Mujtaba quickly turned the fight to a grappling match.
Ahmed together with his compatriot walked out of the cage as the inaugural champ.
The last hope of Pinoys to defend the motherland was on the shoulder of Mark Palomar of Hyper MMA. At first, the fight was back and forth. Brad Robinson was very tactical while Palomar tried many times to impose his power. We thought that Mark Palomar had multiple opportunities to finish the fight but he had failed to follow up after hitting Robinson with a solid punch. The right hand was all Palomar had going last night while Robinson had the perfect plan by not engaging with Palomar and eventually take him to the ground. Robinson ended the fight by submitting the evidently exhausted Palomar winning the inaugural Middleweight championship.
Overall the event was a rousing success even after some hurdles and last minute changes.
Founder of UGB Ferdie Munsayac was visible and was very hands on during the event as he personally ensured that all went well. Munsayac on his 13th UGB event: “This is probably the best event so far and we promise to do better and give the fans the excitement as well as something new in the local MMA industry. Our partnership with WSOF will not only help us achieve our goals but ensure that we do it consistently. This year, we plan to help more fighters and to do more events.”
Photos by: Emil Rebano, JC Del Mundo, Aironn Quevada
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