Bash n Mash Results March 6th 2009

Gary Hamilton increased his stock securing his spot as the number one kickboxer at the weekend. The Belfast boy shared the square ring with talented Lincoln kickboxer Shawn ‘Boom Boom’ Burton in a full contact match up which was scheduled for seven rounds.

Hamilton topped the bill in a night filled with a feast of fists and feet which featured a night of celebration at the annual Bash n Mash. The two ring kings put on a great show of full contact style kickboxing with high quality moves, Shawn concentrated on his lead round house kicks and his fast counters and looked dangerous from the offset.

Hamilton showed his experience with patience and precision counters in the first round. Second round both fighters upped the tempo and closed in to work on the inside. Hamilton was swept but quickly bounced back to his feet before the referee had a chance to check all was okay and his fast hand work landed an uppercut followed by a crushing left hook to the body which took the wind out of the Lincoln fighters sails and saw Burton hit the canvas.

There was some controversy from the Englishman’s corner as they stated the referee said ‘Break’ as the winning punch was landed by Hamilton. But after checking video footage of the bout it was deemed the punch was thrown the same time as the referee shouted break. After much deliberation there was no question about the decision. There is talk of a rematch as many would like to see this fight on again as it was heating up to be a cracker and will rule out any doubt from both sides.

Bird shot down - Mark Bird expressed his disappointment of no fight at the Bash N Mash on Friday night.

“I had really been looking forward to this fight and trained very hard and to fight K1 style in front of the main man Ernesto Hoost would have been a dream. But I understand Mikey’s predicament and wish him and his family well.”

The teenagers coach Billy Murray was notified the day of the fight that Bird’s opponent Mikey Shields was withdrawing from the bout. This was to be the young ProKick fighters first K1 style bout against the man he snatched the British kickboxing title from in December.

“I received a call approximately 11am on Friday morning from Mikey himself.” Said Murray “He gave me the bad news that he would not be fighting on the event as his mother was taken into hospital with a continuous battle with cancer.”

Murray understands the position that the young kickboxer was in as his own father passed away with bone cancer last June. However he was annoyed that he wasn’t informed that there may be a possible withdrawal.

This would have given the promoter a chance to replace Mikey with another opponent for young Mark Bird. Having contacted many gyms across UK and Ireland it proved to be an upward struggle with just hours to go before the event.

“If I’d known this previous I would not had Mikey on the card in such an important match and event. And to be notified at the last minute there was nothing that could be done.” Murray went on to say “I’d like to take this opportunity to wish Mikey and his family a speedy recovery.”

Stuart Jess’ bid for world glory was scuppered once again as the Northern Irish kickboxer was on the receiving end of a controversial kick in the world title clash against Portuguese fighter Jose Oliviera.

It was an even match nearing the end of the third round when Stuart was caught with a cracking left hook that spun the Saintfield man full circle, his opponent Jose then followed up with a sweet combination that should have ended when another crushing left hook sent Stuart to the canvas but the Portuguese fighter followed up immediately with a left roundhouse kick whilst Jess was on the ground.

Stuart managed to get to his feet in the hope of returning the onslaught but the bell immediately sounded the end of the third round. A dazed Jess was helped back to his corner and the ringside doctor was called into the ring where he ended the match and deemed jess unfit to continue.

As the kick was an illegal but unintentional blow due to the combination that the Portuguese had unleashed the judges were forced to tat up the score cards and make a decision. Either to disqualify the Portuguese and award Jess the title or give Oliviera the decision by Technical knock out.

Neither was an appropriate decision or end to an amateur world title and the co-ordinator Carl Emery from Switzerland along with other ringside judges made the decision to call it as a no contest and order a rematch. Lets hope it is third time lucky for Stuart Jess on his next outing.

Big guns Pawel Gorka from Poland fighting out of ProKick and Englishman Nigel Pennington met in the ring for a scheduled tough 3 round low kick kickboxing match up.

There was 18kilo between the two fighters with Gorka weighing in at 96kg and Penlington a whopping 114kg. Both men started strong in the hope of dominating the ring, gorka was first to land with some heavy leg kicks that Pennington immediately felt the force and the mighty Pole struck a finishing blow to the Englishman’s hope of walking away the winner.

Nigel Pennington was dropped with a heavy right hand and was slow off the canvas, the referee had no option but to stop the bout. Gorka wins his first fight. Fantastic evening had by all, the event was MC’d by Jumping Joe Lindsay, BBC radio and TV personality.

Special guest for the Bash N Mash saw the return of K1 superstar Mr Perfect Ernesto Hoost.

Enjoy the photographs on the gallery and if anyone is interested in purchasing any photographs just email into info@prokick.com with the weblink of the photograph and they will be emailed to you as a high res file for the knock down price of £4.95 or buy 3 for £9.99 payment details are on ProKickshop.com

A big thanks to all our travelling friends, judges, referee who attended the even, sponsors and of course the supporters.

Results in brief

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