Tija Stanley in St. Kitts is a fighter looking for a fight. Having recently tried his hand at MMA, he now holds a 2-0 record and is the holder of the belt title for the CKGSF Amateur MMA Heavyweight Championship. Stanley is looking for more MMA and kickboxing matches to build upon his reputation and says he is willing to work hard and ready to go where the fighting is. Stanley says he will not disappoint while in the pursuit of his dreams. Stanley is 5’11” in height and walks around at about 208lbs.

The fight scene in St. Kitts is still at its fledgling stage. That is why he is looking for fight contacts, sponsors, promoters, and people who can help him get his career in fighting to the next level. With more experience in the cage, he is hoping to start a top-level fight gym for fighters in St. Kitts. He also says that The Caribbean has a whirlpool of good talent and the world just needs a chance to see it.

You can contact Tija Stanley directly through this web form:

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MartialArtsNomad.com recently contacted Mike ‘Knock ‘Em Down’ Downey. We are all interested to see how Mike is going to measure up to Kiarash Moghaddam for the upcoming Canadian Amateur Muay Thai title match for 185 lbs at Summer Slugfest in Victoria, on August 21 2010.

This shot looks like its from some recent training in Thailand, judging by the Thai sign in the background. Mike Downey is definitely a serious fighter to deal with. Downey and Moghaddam got in the ring earlier this year in Vancouver for the Western Canadian Amateur Muay Thai Title for their weight division. These two well matched fighters went the full distance only for the judges to say the result was too close to call. The fighters then had to put the gloves back on and go an extra round for the judges to render a decision.

Now these two fighters are raising the stakes even higher going for the open Canadian title. Downey will also be out to prove in front of his home town crowd that Western Canadian title should have also gone his way.

I asked Mike to let me know what his strategy is going into the ring at slugfest. Mike replied, “You are going to have to ask Kiarash how I beat him after the fight… if he can remember when he awakes! “

We are all looking forward to a great night of fights at Summer Slugfest in Victoria on August 21!

New material for the martial arts nomad fight blog came with the presentation of The Canadian Extreme MMA Championships for 2010, The Red Robinson Theatre in Coquitlam BC on Friday night, April 23. Fighters from BC, Alberta, Yukon, and Ontario were on the card to determine in 19 fights who would be the national champions in Amateur MMA In Canada across six weight divisions. This championship series was presented by the Canadian Amateur Combat Sports Council, that designed the series to provide important experience and recognition for young and upcoming fighters, just as Canadian jurisdictions are beginning to sanction pro mixed martial arts events.

The fight series took the name of ‘Extreme’ for two reasons: first being that a fighter may have to fight up to three times in the same night to claim the division title, and second that the series made use of a ’30 second ground rule’, where fight that has gone to the ground for 30 seconds is stopped by the referee, the fighters are stood up and the fight continues. Use of a 30 second rule has been discussed in other MMA fight series since it has been proposed as a solution to help keep the action alive and fights decisive; MMA fight organizers want rules to make better fighters with better fights. The Extreme series could be called a testing ground for the rule and it was seen to work well in this context. The 30 second rule enabled fighters, many who are from a standup striking background, to have a chance for a better ground game. The fighters would either take the chance more often to shoot in for a takedown, or work hard to defend knowing that they would not get tied up for too long on the mat. What the fight fans got as a result was more variety between stand-up and ground action, and they would cheer in sequence with the changes in action.

Following long-standing fight night traditions, card girls were on hand to keep the event running like clockwork. But someone hired card girls so sexy they needed a military escort. That job was filled by three men who could truly be said to be among the toughest guys in Canada, represented by the honour guard of the Royal Westminster Regiment. The gentlemen soldiers were otherwise in agreement by the end of the night that bearing our national flag and escorting the card girls carefully through the ropes beat overseas deployment.

Some very fast fights happened on the mat and few lasted the duration of 2 minutes for one or two rounds for the later matches. Some of that could be attributed either to good craft of choking the guy out or by getting outclassed, plain and simple. Once that got sorted there were lots more fights lined up for the event.


The largest division for the night was Welterweight, from 156 to 170 lbs. In the first round, the better fighters won by TKOs from rear naked chokes, quick and decisive strikes and ground submissions. The exception of Danny Doing and Rob Woodcock in the first fight of the evening which turned out to be an evenly matched pair of fighters and came to a unanimous decision for Doig. Johnny Kozlowski and Eli Wyse got to the belt round with Doctor’s stoppage and TKO, and Kozlowski took the division with a referee declared TKO at the end of a 30 second ground rule whistle.


The Featherweight category(135-145 lbs) first round would see Oren Hanscomb and Shane Jung advance to face off against each other with 30 second wins by anaconda and guillotine tap-out respectively. Their championship round fight quickly became anti-climactic with 5 minutes of stoppage due a serious groin injury due to an unintentional strike, and Hanscomb walked away with the belt.


The Lightweight division (146-155 lbs) first round featured a well matched battle between Andrew Stainthorpe and Mark Shean, in a fight demonstrating good striking and escape skills from clinches and mounts. There would be some debate between the judges decision after the fight, at first mistakenly given to Shean, and after, properly awarded to Stainthorpe. As a result of neither of the other two fighters in this division being able to come back for the belt round, the division title was awarded to Andrew Stainthorpe.


The Middleweight division (175-185 lbs) advanced Michael Guermoudi by judges decision in a fight with two ground stoppages, who would go against Brian Ernst who won by a rear naked choke tap-out in 42 seconds. While Brian Ernst defended well, restablishing guard several times against Guermoudi while on the ground, Guermoudi’s superior ground fights in the guard, his sweeps, strikes, throwdowns, and slams enabled him to take the fight with a final beatdown.


The Light-heavyweight division, for 186-205 lbs had only three fighters. The division introduced Brad Robinson to the local fight scene in a well matched, hard standup win against Kyle Warman. Robinson would then go to the belt round against Tyler Warman (bro of Kyle?). Robinson would take the fight of the night in an INSANE FIGHT, going through big ordeals as he was almost choked out with a front guillotine, with a beet red face, escaping only to get rocked hard several times by strikes from Tyler Warman, crumpling to the mat only to get right up again, bouncing off the ropes like a drunken sailor, to surprise everyone with getting Warman with a strike and takedown. He then mounted and pounded Warman with massive, vengeful headshots alternated with knees to the torso. The crowd went absolutely nuts, he was almost out of it… for a moment everybody was counting Robinson out, and then he bounded back brilliantly with an righteously inspiring victory after almost losing it. The doctor and paramedic were brought in to the ring for Warman after the referee stopped the fight by knockout. Robinson was on CBC Radio One on Monday April 26 to share his personal story, which is just as inspiring and a little surprising. He is a recent arrival to BC from back east, arriving less than a year ago in Vancouver on a Greyhound with less than 40 bucks in his pocket, sleeping at shelters for the first couple of months, volunteering at The Gathering Place Community Centre, doing what he could until he could get on his feet. Robinson is not attached to any local martial arts gym and used a borrowed heavy bag to supplement his training. He has some experience bouncing at bars, but he has to have some raw talent in there and amazing drive to face challenges outside the ring like he does inside of it. Surely some gyms around town are going to look at this guy as a real prospect.

Craig Garriot would take Herbert Moon in the 3 man Heavyweight division (206-265 lbs) in the battle of the big guys. Reece Doherty from Fort St. John who did not advance in the judges split decision held up the event with a special announcement. He called his girlfriend to the ring, got down on one knee, and proposed to her. She accepted, and there was a general sense of relief in the crowd, as no-one wanted to see a mma battle between couples. The referee pronounced love victorious and they posed for kisses with a rock on his new fiancee’s finger.

Full Photo set on Flickr.com: http://www.flickr.com/photos/superwebdeveloper/sets/72157623940552622/


Link for fans of the lovely card girls: http://www.flickr.com/photos/superwebdeveloper/sets/72157623279493008/