The World Combat Sports Challenge (WCSC) held it's 2nd event this past Saturday night, April 26th 2008 in San Francisco, CA at the Kezar Pavilion. There were almost 30 fights, with 60 fighters from around the state hungry for the 1st Amateur Muay Thai show in Northern California this year. The Art of War Fight Team had 3 fighters on the card ready to put on a show.The 1st fight of the night, turned out to be the "Fight of the Night" in most peoples eyes, with our own Eric Faria taking on seasoned Caley Scott from Combat Fitness. Eric took this fight on short notice, as 2 prospective opponents for Caley back out as the fight came closer. Caley is a VERY talented fighter from a great camp so the fact that nobody wanted to fight him made Eric want the fight that much more.
These two warriors fought a fantastic fight and offered an excellent showing of their respective Muay Thai skills landing blow after blow and they kept coming for more.
Eric lands a BIG left hand
The best review of the fight can be found on the WCSC web site, here:
Coaches Kirian, Jivoni and Eric in between rounds
As we have posted many times, Eric always has exciting fights and this was no exception. Round after round he pushed the pace and stalked Caley down, but to Caley's credit even though Eric pushed the pace, Caley did not crack, his technique was crisp and his timing was better that night. As a result, Caley won a close, but well deserved decision. Great job Eric we know your itching for a re-match :).
Eric and Caley exchange punches
The next AOW fighter up was Mat King. This was Mat's amateur debut and he was fighting a tough opponent out of Nor-Cal Fighting Alliance who outweighed him by about 30 pounds.
Mat lands a vicious kick to the body
Mat's opponent came out hard in the 1st round, but did not have alot in the gas tank. Mat was able to take advantage of his superior conditioning and turn it in to superior technique. Mat completely dominated his opponent in the 2nd round resulting in a TKO victory for Mat and the team. Excellent work Mat!
The final Art of War Fight team member fighting on the card was fan favorite Brandon Carey who stepped up on short notice to fill in for an injured fighter. Brandon is game fighter and even though he wasn't able to put in any where near full training camp, Brandon took the fight as it was for the CA State WCSC Cruiserweight Title.
Brandon's opponent Aaron Smith fights out of Nor-Cal Fighting Alliance and he proved himself to be a very tough fight for Brandon. Brandon was clearly ahead on the score cards going into the 4th and final round, but his lack of proper training time and the resulting fatigue caught up to him in the last round. After it was all said and done, while many in attendance thought that Brandon had done enough to win the fight, the judges awarded a "Split Decision" victory to Brandon's opponent. The fight was very exciting and could have gone either way, unfortunately it just didn't go Brandon's way this time :(.
The Fight Team is extremely proud of Brandon for stepping up and taking the fight on short notice and even though he was exhausted, he never quit and showed true warrior spirit. Brandon is the complete package.... look for big things from him when he fight agin later this year.
As always, thanks to the team Coaches Jivoni Jordan, Eric Kolesar, Herb Cody and Kirian Fitzgibbons for getting the fighters ready, thanks to all the fans that came out to support the team and of course the WCSC promoters for putting on the card and inviting us to fight. We look forward to the next event in August!
