It is time for my fight blog to reflect back on the year it has been, now as 2010 comes to a close.  This year will be remembered as being the best year to date for the Vancouver fight scene. UFC graced our city and had its fastest event sell out ever. The ongoing local fight promotions matured, and new fight series emerged in and around Vancouver. Top quality amateur MMA fighters stepped up to try their hand in the octagon. There has been an explosion of a veritable local fight scene.  2011 is set to be an even better year with so much more that we know now, about fighters and fans who love MMA. In 2010 my martial arts blog has been to mma fights, martial arts tournaments, dojos, schools and seminars and reported back on the many different facets of a thriving scene. Now at the end of the year, I have culled through my flickr photo pool, now over 10,000 photos, to come up with the best photos when I attended events with a media spot by the cage, ring, or mat.

In sorting through my photos, I did my best to include ones that showed incredible intense moments, in people’s gestures and faces, that were compositionally great, or that were boldly visceral. This year I was fortunate to meet a few famous people in the biz, including George Chiuvalo, Royce Gracie, and others.

Here for my fight blog are the shots of the main event of Rumble At The Rock VII, between Junior Moar and Billy Bailey. The main event fight lasted the full eight rounds and turned out to be a crowd pleaser. Junior Moar entrance was accompanied by an aboriginal drum ceremony in his corner and dancers in native costume paraded around the ring. The fight was well matched between Bailey and Moar, and while there were no knockdowns as as the rounds went on, Bailey turned to a bit of showboating, perhaps to influence the judges. In fact a bit of levity shone through the eyes during moments in the fight, no doubt because they both love to fight. But Bailey was no pushover and Junior Moar had to work to put himself ahead with the judges by the end of the fight.

Here are my select fight photos from the main event.

Final decisions for the Night are as follows:

You can also visit the photo set for Rumble at the Rock VII on Flickr.com to see the 394 uploaded shots.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/superwebdeveloper/sets/72157623757275562/

I took a lot of photos for my fight blog for the Rumble at the Rock VII. Here are some of my faves from the fights before the main event. I will be putting up photos about the Junior Moar and Billy Bailey Main Event in my next blog post. I selected these fight photos for the distinct qualities that can be produced under the pressure of such an event. There is the range of strong emotions, the bright lights, and the visceral, physical side that is also part of it. The images are all linked to the full image page on flickr.

You can also visit the photo set for Rumble at the Rock VII on Flickr.com to see all the shots I have uploaded.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/superwebdeveloper/sets/72157623757275562/

If you have been on my fight blog recently you will know that I was at Rumble At The Rock VII at River Rock Casino on April 3, 2010 for blog news and photos about the sweet science. I have a ton of photos and it will take a little while to upload and edit them. In the mean time, I have quickly grabbed a half dozen pics from the fight night for now and Ill have more to share soon enough.

Rumble At The Rock Marquee

My fight blog brings a preview of the Rumble At The Rock VII. The weigh-in is the traditional time before a fight night when everything is locked into place and the fighters are paraded before press and fans with their final and official weight for the fight.

Junior Moar and Billy Bailey Stare Down

The pre-fight press conference is also an opportunity to recognize the work everybody has put in to organizing the event. Organizer Manny Sobral talked about how much happens between when a fight is announced and fight night, and its the organizers job to get everything working right. Fighters train hard, and some of them get injured and sick along the way. Suitable replacements must be found. Fighters are obligated to undergo medical examinations for things such as HIV, as well as Hepatitis A, B, and C, and the results take time to collect. So there is a bit of uncertainty that the organizers must deal with behind the scenes.

Power Failure only temporary

It was mentioned at the conference that while only a few years ago boxing in Richmond was a controversial subject, now events have become a regular feature at River Rock Casino. But even with everything smoothed out by press conference time, fighter Billy Bailey got stuck in Customs at the airport, and the storm raging outside momentarily cuts the power to the entire River Rock Casino. Such are the kind of things that fight organizers must deal with at the last minute. Just like I was saying in another blog post, organizing events is a black art in itself.

George Chuvalo

Fight fans and media were treated to an introduction to the great boxing legend George Chuvalo, famous for facing off with Muhammad Ali, for never being knocked down in his career, and for winning 64 of his fights by knock out. Undoubtedly one of the toughest guys ever on the planet. Now Chuvalo is an ambassador to the sport of boxing and raises awareness about the problems of drug abuse.

Fighters and Event Organizers

Super Ripped Super Cut Fighter

For more photos of Rumble at the Rock VII visit my photo pool on Flickr.com:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/superwebdeveloper/sets/72157623757275562/

The Martial Arts Nomad is back add this latest announcement to the fight blog: Rumble at the Rock VII. Its boxing night at the River Rock Casino, April 3, 2010, featuring super welterweight class fighters Junior Moar and Billy Bailey. There are 6 more fights on the card, plus a special appearance by Canadian boxing Legend George Chuvalo.

Live Professional Boxing at the River Rock Casino Resort
Special Guest: Canadian Legend George Chuvalo
April 3, 2010

March 15, 2010

Richmond, BC: Rumble at the Rock VII is set to rock the River Rock Casino Resort on Saturday April 3, 2010. Once again, West Coast Promotions has teamed up with the Great Canadian Gaming Corporation to present another amazing boxing event at the four Diamond River Rock Casino and Resort. The event will feature a meet and greet with Canadian legend, World and Canadian Boxing Hall Of Fame Inductee and former Heavyweight fighter George Chuvalo. In 1972, Chuvalo fought against Muhammad Ali in a legendary bout at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

In the ongoing pursuit of showcasing the very best boxers out of Western Canada, Rumble at the Rock VII presents Vancouver’s own Canadian Light Heavyweight champion, Junior Moar. Moar is up against perennial world contender and former WBC USNBC Light Heavyweight Champ, Billy Bailey out of Bakersfield, California.

“This promises to be an evening of exceptional talent and hard-hitting punches” said Howard Blank, Vice President, Media and Entertainment at the Great Canadian Gaming Corporation.

The card will also feature up and coming local stars that will be fighting hard to take wins so that they themselves may contend for Canadian, and International, belts in the future.

Tickets are available through Ticketmaster at www.ticketmaster.ca or at the River Rock Show Theatre Box Office (604) 247-8562.

The action heats up and the intensity will transform you. Rumble at the Rock VII – Be There!

For all media requests please contact:

I managed after all to attend the Open house day at the new location for the North Burnaby Boxing Club. Operating since 2004, they have grown and have now expanded into new digs. The club’s new home is just beside Revs Bowling & Entertainment Center, at 5502 Lougheed Hwy., next to the Holdom Skytrain Station.

The club’s new location is due to its growth and maturation as a club. It was put together over several weeks by club members, who converted two raquetball courts over a period of several weeks, rebuilding the club, installing the heavy wood beam mezzanine by hand, and the club is complete with a large selection of heavy bags, speed bags, ring, spinner bikes, ropes, weight room adjacent, and years of boxing memorabilia transferred to the walls. The title club banner was cut out from the wall of their previous location. The coaching staff of Rob Bortolazzo, Alister Brodie, Rosalia Calla, Bill Kennedy, Andy Mavros, and Manny Sobral bring world class depth and experience in championship level professional and amateur boxing into the club.

The club coaches Manny Sobral and Alister Brodie are also operating West Coast Promotions, for promoting fights like the upcoming MMA fight night at River Rock Casino on January 23, 2010.

I also got to meet Robert Couzens, Canada’s top amateur fighter at 152 lbs and a likely member of Canada’s Olympic team at the Olympics in 2012. As well, Rosalia Calla was there training for an upcoming fight in Montreal. Gym fees are a super affordable 40 bucks a month.  That is a totally affordable price to train somewhere. The club is totally accessible being only a 1 minute walk away from Holdom skytrain station.

Website: http://www.bcboxers.com/

Here are the photos. Link to the whole set in my Flickr.com pool.

North Burnaby Boxing Club

Boxing Coach Rob Bortolazzo

Boxing Coaches Rob Bortolazzo and Manny Sobral

Fighter Robert Couzens and Boxing Coach Manny Sobral

North Burnaby Boxing Club

Fighter Rosalia Calla training with Manny Sobral

Fighter Rosalia Calla training with Manny Sobral

Boxing Coach Bill Kennedy

Website: http://www.bcboxers.com/

Link to the whole set in my Flickr.com pool.

Open House at North Burnaby Boxing Club
Sunday January 3 2010

The ‘NEW’ North Burnaby Boxing Club is open on Sunday, January 3rd from 12-4pm for viewing and recreational/competitive registration. Come check out the new NBBC gym at Revs Bowling & Entertainment Center at 5502 Lougheed Hwy. next to the Holdom Skytrain Station!

See you there…

For more information please contact Rob Bortolazzo, NBBC Coach at 604.790.4154

The North Burnaby Boxing Club is a not-for-profit society offering boxing instructions to the public at an affordable price. Our coaches are NCCP certified and have over a 100 years of combined experience in coaching the “sweet science.”

Chess Boxing is a new sport, literally combining the brawn of boxing and the brain of chess. It is a biathlon sport that tests the mental capacity of fighters by alternating rounds of boxing and speed chess. Think of fighting a boxing round, then switching immediately to a chessboard and clock, with heart pounding, adrenaline rushing, head and body stinging from blows, and then making purely decisions under the pressure of the clock.   The sport has developed a popular following in Europe, evidently, since its main site, http://wcbo.org/ is offered in English, Russian, German, and Spanish. An old German friend of mine always Chess and Boxing had a lot in common – both being games of strategy, where both deal blows to the opposite side. The objectives cannot be achieved simply by acting recklessly, but eventually you can wear down your opponent, take away their weapons, and inflict greater and greater damage. Boxing could be contact Chess. The opposite could also be true, Chess is cerebral boxing.

A quote from the site:

Chessboxing

The basic idea in chessboxing is to combine the #1 thinking sport and the #1 fighting sport into a hybrid that demands the most of its competitors – both mentally and physically.

In a chessboxing fight two opponents play alternating rounds of chess and boxing. The contest starts with a round of chess, followed by a boxing round, followed by another round of chess and so on.
A contest consists of 11 rounds, 6 rounds of chess, 5 rounds of boxing. A round of chess takes 4 minutes. Each competitor has 12 minutes on the chess timer.

A round of boxing takes 3 minutes. Between the rounds there is a 1 minute pause, during which competitors change their gear. The contest is decided by: checkmate (chess round), exceeding the time limit (chess round), retirement of an opponent (chess or boxing round), KO (boxing round), or referee decision (boxing round). If the chess game ends in a stalemate, the opponent with the higher score in boxing wins. If there is an equal score, the opponent with the black pieces wins. (Link to source).

Interestingly, Chess Boxing may have a double benefit, cleaning up both the sport of Boxing, and the sport of Chess, as both of these arts have had their reputations sullied in recent years by scandals.

More videos at the chess boxing website…

The Chess Boxing I am writing about here is certainly not to be confused with the Chinese Chess Boxing, a form of Kung-Fu, and one of the great early classic early Kung-Fu movies, The Mystery Of Chess Boxing:

There could be more hybridisations of physical sports with intellectual pursuits to come. Now we have Chess Boxing. What could be next? MMA and Rubic’s cubes? Or Muay Thai and Jenga? How about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and jigsaw puzzles? Call it, dare I say, Jig-Jitsu?

How about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and jigsaw puzzles? Call it, dare I say, Jig-Jitsu?

Boxing Ring in Puerto Vallarta

I was in Puerto Vallarta in May with a friend. I heard about a boxing match and we went to it. There were 14 fights, culminating with the challenge to the Super Welterweight division for the World Hispanic Title – Villanueva vs Ortega, the challenger. The ring was in a patio setting. Boxing is deep in Mexican culture and the first few fights were between toddlers. Fortunately, the kids wear headgear and know how to box. The night moved on to better and better fights, and eventually to a few pro fights at the end, culminating with the title challenge. But the last fight wasn’t until 1:30 AM! Ortega went down early in the second round  with a combination and right punch on the jaw.

Ortega