Legend 7 City of Dreams Feb 11th – The Undercard – My Preview

Legend 7 City of Dreams Feb 11th – The Undercard – My Preview

Published on February 8, 2012 by The Editor in Legend

This Saturday ONE FC will be having their second event in Jakarta in a cage. Elsewhere in Asia, Legend will be holding their seventh event in a ring. Let’s Look at LEGEND 7′s Undercard.

Here are the details from The Undercard

These fights can be seen on live at http://www.youtube.com/LegendFCMMA for FREE! starting at 4:30pm Macau Time.

The Undercard

Ming Yen ‘Sam’ Sung (2-0-0)  Vs Agustin ‘Demolisher’ Delarmino (4-1-0)

This is an exciting prospect Sung has fought and won at both Martial Combat and Legend while Delarmino has been exclusively fighting in the URCC, so both these guys are not been messing around in smaller regional events. Delarmino is the younger man, yet has fought more. I feel his aggressive stand-up style is going to push Sung all the way and Sung really will need to get it on the ground for his own health! One thing is for sure this fight is NO filler, all thriller!

Mark ‘Mugen’ Striegl (6-0-0) Vs Ev Ting (3-0-0)

A late change of opponent due to an injury to Choi Yeong Gwang means that late replacement Ting has an almost instant opportunity to inflict a defeat on two team mates in a few short weeks, having already beaten Will ‘The Kill’ Chope at Merciless in New Zealand (28/01/12). He has stepped in very late for this fight against Striegl and must be respected for that.

However, Striegl is 6-0 and has fought in good quality events including Legend 5, URCC, PRO and Trench Warz. He has a great ground game and is a tough durable and definitely upwardly mobile fighter. This must be seen as Tings biggest fight to date, the win against Chope was his first stoppage. I believe. Striegl will avenge his friends defeat.

Koji Ando (5-3-2) Vs Damien Brown (5-2-0)

Similar in age , size and record this is an interesting fight. Ando lost his last fight at Legend 6 by a split decision and will be looking to get back on track. He has been the distance in a lot of his fights, so his cardio should not be in question. Brown is coming off of a couple of losses including a vicious 7 second, first round stoppage. So, he will also be looking to get his career pointing in the right direction again. Before that he was 5-0 fighting in the tough Australian organisations including AFC, Brace for War and Nitro.

So there you have it a couple of evenly matched fighters both desperate to post a win, expect an interesting scrap.

Taiyo Nakahara (12-6-0) Vs Michael ‘Mick’ Mortimer (15-4-0)

OK this is going to be a cracker, two very experienced fighters with strong records.

Nakahara is on a four fight win streak and must be exploding with confidence, while Mortimer himself is coming off of a three fight streak following a Decision loss at Legend 4.

Both fighters have a good range of skills and will be able to show lots of scope in the fight, stand-up or ground these guys will bring it, both aiming for a shot at a title run.

Ji Xian (3-0-0) Vs Leonard ‘The One’ Delarmino (3-1-0)

There is a cup at stake for this one, a local sponsor has provided the Century Cup.

If you were to compare directly the fighters stats, they are very even, however, we have another tough Philippine fighter coming in from URCC. I expect fireworks. Delarmino will want this fight to be a stand-up battle but I expect Xian to be desperate to show of his ground skills. I think this is a fairly easy fight to call. If it’s stand-up Delarmino should win, on the ground well Xian should be in the driving seat. Now bearing in mind this event takes place in the gambling capital of the world Macau, If it was my money who would I bet on? Honestly, I have no idea that’s what makes this fight so interesting.

And that’s the Legend 7 Undercard, Tomorrow I will review the Main card.

So, I thought it would be interesting to see how the Legend Undercard compares with the other big Asian event this weekend ONE FC’s Battle of Heroes in Jakarta.

For entertainment purposes these cards should both get the crowd moving but if we start to delve deeper, I would have trouble making a case for ONE FC’s card against Legends based on fighter quality.

ONE FC have four Indonesian fighters none of whom have any current MMA experience of any level, a couple of Malaysian’s who have in one case only fought in local events and the other who has just had his first fight in six years. And a URCC champion who will tackle  a much lower level fighter and will walk to victory.

The stand out fight is Alex Silva against Geje Eustaquio, which is a good enough match up to make a main card at either event.

Legends card as we have just seen, features many fighters who have fought at high level events in the Philippines, Australia and elsewhere, including a few ex Martial Combat fighters (the precursor to ONE FC which boasted ‘Asia’s Ultimate Mixed Martial Arts Fighting Championship’). Outside of three fighters Silva, Eustaquio and Rafols, I can see nobody on the ONE FC undercard who could fight at Legend and have a realistic chance of winning.

This may be the weakness in the early days of ONE FC as they try to spread their events around the region and seem to feel they have to please a local crowd by picking local fighters. Fighters who under any other circumstances do not really belong on the fight card of an event of an organisation that claims it’s ‘Asia’s Most Prestigious Mixed Martial Arts Event’.

Legend of course does not have to please any local crowd beyond providing exciting fights and they seem to be able to access good quality fighters including champions from other Austral-Asian organisations just as ONE FC are able to do.

If ONE FC do get to Manila this year, to Macau (Legends home turf) and to Bangkok as they have been talking of, well…… then shit could get serious!

For now on this undercard at least it’s the longer established organisation that has the quality and the braggart new boy who has got his ass spanked.