By TXMMA Staff | Photos by Diego Reyes
HUMBLE, TX, October 7, 2013 – Garcia Promotions was back at it again in Northeast Houston this past Friday night with their fifteenth Houston MMA amateur event, aptly named Cage Combat 15. The card featured 13 fights in total and based on the feedback we’ve gotten from our team in attendance, it was yet another great show put on by Eric Garcia and Jace Pitre in preparation for and leading up to their Fury Fighting Championships professional MMA promotional debut this coming November.
As for last Friday, Cage Combat 15 was supposed to featured a title fight in the main event at bantamweight with ammy veteran Manny Lozoya taking on Kingwood MMA’s young gun Garvens Brun. Unfortunately and despite his lean physique, Manny Lozoya failing to make the planned 135 lbs. weight limit by six pounds so the whole championship idea was scrapped. One thing Manny Lozoya didn’t fail to find however was Garvens’ chin early in the second round with the veteran landing a haymaker to end the bout in impressive fashion.
Manny Lozoya now improves his amateur record to an impressive 7-3, which begs the question “how much longer until he goes pro?” No doubt he’ll need to correct the weight cutting issue before taking fights at the pro ranks but he’s certainly got the experience should he decide to take that step sometime soon.
Meanwhile for Bruns (now 2-1), he has nothing to hang his head over considering he performed admirably in the fight up to that point. At only 17 years of age he can afford to hang back and worry about other pressing issues like school then hit the gym hard again in a few months time and resume collecting on his potential, which he has plenty off.
Also highlighting the Cage Combat 15 card was a co-main event features Team Tooke’s Cameron Graves taking on Edward Longoria of Bushi Ban. As you might have seen in some of TXMMA’s Cage Combat 15 pre-fight articles, both these guys were labeled ‘prospects to watch’ with Graves in particular one to take note of. They didn’t disappoint that label in this one as the fight went from bell-to-bell. In the end Longoria gave Graves a tougher fight than most expected and while he didn’t get the finish (and was upset about it post-fight), Cameron did get to see the first extended test of his amateur career so far – always a good thing to experience early on for a prospect like him.
As for the rest of the card there were plenty of other highlight performances to be sure.
Jake Snyder comes to mind with his first round TKO of Yan Digalov but Kyle Villarreal, Calvin Cooper, Cody Owens, Robert Walker and Jonathan Butler come to mind as they all scored finishes in their respective fights.
Our TXMMA readers can see event pictures already starting to come up on our TXMMA Facebook Page (more shots to come later tonight) with a Cage Combat 15 highlight video surely to come also with
Cage Combat 15 Quick Results – October 4, 2013
Manny Lozoya over Garvens Brun by KO, RD2
Cameron Graves over Edward Longoria by unanimous decision
Kyle Villarreal over Jason Harrington by TKO, RD1
Calvin Cooper over Jason Perez by submission (RNC), RD1
Cody Owens over Victor Lomax by submission (triangle choke), RD1
Antonio Townsley over Max Mungai by split decision
Nicholas Gay over Alex Tirado by unanimous decision
George Rojas over Tommy Wood by unanimous decision
Zach Henson over Darius Gray by unanimous decision
Jonathan Butler over EJ Turner by submission (RNC), RD1
Jose Gomez over Lonnie Vickery by unanimous decision
Jake Snyder over Yan Digalov by TKO, RD1
Robert Walker over Sam Martinez by submission (triangle/armbar), RD3