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Record Crowd Flocks To MMA Event At Forum

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By EDDIE DANIELS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 12, 2007

TAMPA - Beneath the punches and kicks unleashed with bad intentions and hopes of drawing blood Sunday evening, fighters competing in the "Salute to Our Armed Forces" MMA event inside the St. Pete Times Forum had one goal: honoring America's troops on Veterans Day.

"I'd rather do this than anything," said former Army Ranger Damian Stelly, who is a combative (hand-to-hand) instructor for the Army at Fort Benning, Ga. "I've been deployed to Afghanistan three times and as much as I enjoy the deployments, this is what I love to do."

The crowd, tallied in excess of 11,000, broke the Florida attendance record for an MMA event. The former record, according to event officials, was estimated at 4,000.

The main event, which was to pit retired Marine Will Thiery, a veteran of the first Gulf War, against Clearwater's Anthony Sabia, did not take place after Thiery broke three bones in his hand during a training session.

Because of the schedule change, the final bout featured Stelly against Enrique Watson of Seminole.

Moments after the opening bell, Watson launched an immediate assault with a high, sweeping kick, missing his target. On the miss, Stelly rushed in, delivering two knees to Watson's face, followed by several punches.

Watson went down to the canvas in a defensive posture and got back to his feet, but Stelly put Watson down again and began to pound on his opponent with a flurry of left and right hands.

As Watson lay on the canvas taking blows, unable to defend himself, the referee stepped in, stopping the bout 46 seconds into the first round.

"It was kind of crazy," Stelly said. "I was going to go in and use my jab and my reach because he's a little bit shorter then me, but he came out kicking and I saw it from a mile away, so it kind of threw me off.

"I think I did fairly well. I stuck to the game plan for the most part."

In the night's opening bout, Ocala's Justin Goodall collected a unanimous decision victory against Dustin Heard. Tampa's Johnathan Fernandez scored a technical knockout of Robert Frye in the first round of bout 2.

In the third bout, Eddie Hernandez of Brandon won his debut with a TKO 27 seconds into the second round of his match against Tom Boccia. Spring Hill's Reggie Pena won a majority decision against Jeff Davis. Frank Santorre of Orlando took 30 seconds to win his professional debut with a tap out of Cody Hodges.

Orlando's Eddie Bremer tapped out Andy White 3:16 into the first round of the bout No. 6, while Dave Linder of Spartanburg, S.C., collected a victory in similar fashion, 3:53 into the first round. Farkhad Shaipov, a former member of the Russian military, scored a second-round TKO of Spring Hill's Rich Silva.

Reporter Eddie Daniels can be reached at (813) 948-4214 or edaniels@tampatrib.com.

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