Albany Fight

On Saturday, March 10, 2007, the Albany Civic Center was the site of an exciting night of mixed-martial-arts action which saw three fighters from local mixed-martial-arts school, Tallahassee Fight Club, win in no holds barred fighting competition.

First off was TFC's premiere wrestling specialist Ryan McClellan, who won in a strong performance over Joel Nettles of Lake City, Florida.  As the opening bell sounded both fighters rushed to the center of the ring each looking to establish dominance.  McClellan threw a right round kick to his opponents leg, initiating a flurry of retaliatory punches.  After a short exchange, McClellan was able to duck under and establish a clinch as he rushed his opponent into the cage.  After a few seconds of struggle, McClellan was able to pry his opponent off the cage and take him down.  McClellan quickly established a mounted position and rained down punches to the body and head forcing his opponent to turn over and expose his back.  McClellan maintained his position and sunk in a deep choke which ended the fight at 1:50 of the first round.

Newcomer Cody Reynolds made his debut into competitive fighting that night with an impressive second round submission over John Puerta of Albany, Georgia. This fight was an exciting one with Cody having to show some serious resolve in the first round to score takedowns on his stubborn opponent.  Cody was able to control the pace of both rounds via his aggressive takedowns, and effective striking from both the clinch and top positions.  Come the middle of the second round, Cody had taken his opponent down with an aggressive double leg takedown and established mount.  Similar to the McClellan fight, Reynolds worked on his opponents with punches until his opponent turned and exposed his back.  Reynolds capitalized by wrapping his arms around his opponent's neck, securing the choke, and forcing a tapout at 1:25 of the second round.

The last of TFC’s fighters to compete was currently undefeated featherweight, Dan Funes, who engaged Jacksonville’s Jason Hickey in the evening’s fight of the night.  It was an exciting, frenzied battle of tactician versus brawler.  After a tense stare down, Funes came out looking to kickbox and establish a rhythm with some calm counterstriking.  His opponent had different ideas and immediately unleashed a tornado of punches.  After quickly exposing a few wholes in the wilder Hickey’s game plan, Funes moved in to finish.  However, the staggered opponent seemingly surprised Funes with a great deal of heart and ability to take punishment.  After an exchange of punches, which saw Funes taking a few solid shots of his own, Funes was able to grab his opponent in a clinch and land several brutal knees to the body.  Following the knees that visibly and audibly hurt Hickey, Funes was able to score a bodylock takedown but he became entangled in a tight guillotine choke.  Funes showed great patience as he methodically freed himself and secured a dominant top position, attempting numerous submissions along the way.  Funes acquired the full mount position and mercilessly unleashed punches until the referee intervened at 3:10 of the first round. 

In the preliminary exhibition matches of the evening, two additional Tallahassee Fight Club fighters won submission grappling matches.  First, Shane Weinischke secured numerous submissions over his opponent during the one five-minute round of action.  Weinischke was able to secure two guillotine chokes from the standing position and also controlled the action when the match moved to the ground.  In the other preliminary event, TFC’s Joey Rakowski controlled the match by pulling his opponent down into the guard position, and then attempting several submission moves, most notably coming very close to securing a triangle choke.

For more information on the Tallahassee Fight Club, visit our website site at www.tallahasseefightclub.com, or call 850.556.0941