By: Shelley Williams

Art Pelullo of Banner Promotions threw a “Free for All” featuring both Boxing and Mixed Martial Arts at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas presumably in an attempt to fuse the rabid fans of both mano-a-mano sports.

The main event which was televised by ESPN “Friday Night Fights” featured Las Vegan Friday “The 13th” Ahunanya (24-5-3, KO13) who was the victor by way of a 10-round unanimous decision over formerly undefeated Alonzo “Big Zo” Butler who fell to 26-1-1 (KO19). Judges Richard Houck and Jerry Roth had it 95-94, while Dave Moretti scored the bout 96-93. Rust took its toll on Butler after 13 months of inactivity due to a detached retina. The bout only had one knockdown courtesy of Friday in round four.

The most exciting bout of the night featured Kevin Burnett (13-1-1 KO8) and Horace Grant (12-2-0 KO7). Burnett was cruising to a sweet victory which was almost thwarted when Grant floored him with a rancorous right in the eighth and final round. He sucked it up and struggled to his feet at referee Joe Cortez’ count of nine. The Judges awarded Burnett the victory by scores of 78-73, 79-72 and 79-72 educing vehement boos from the crowd.

Fast forward to the second half of the night when the mixed martial artists took center stage. In the main event of the evening, John “The Natural” Alessio submitted to Pete “Secret Weapon” Spratt by rear naked choke two minutes into round two. Both fighters had experience with UFC. Alessio suffered a broken right forearm early in the bout. Brice Ritani-Coe and Patrick Gonsalves both scored victories in their debuts in the ranks of the Mixed Martial Arts. The sweetheart of the night was a unanimous decision victory by Kim Rose over Las Vegan Kim Couture who is the wife of deposed UFC champ Randy Couture. Couture survived three rounds and was later taken to the hospital with an injury to her jaw.

The testosterone-driven crowd was in heaven, and the Boxing and Mixed Martial Arts fans seemed to play well together. Good idea Artie!

Tags: mma, ring sports

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 12:05 pm and is filed under mma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.