RingoThis is a fight that happened at The Knights Hall two weeks ago. It’s very short but I’m pressed for time with Poland looming. I apologize for the video quality, it’s a cell phone shot from one of the fans that showed up. Watching it blown up should provide enough detail to show whats going on. So without further ado…
The video opens with myself and Brandon, the two fighters opposite the camera, in a very bad spot. We have bunched in the corner and the much larger team, Cat and Dustin have mostly cut off lanes for us to run. We should never have let them get that close without moving in some way to open up the field giving us room to use our superior speed.
Brandon does a good job sneaking out in the first few seconds, trading a blow with Cat. It’s a tough call whether that worked well or not. On the one hand Cat doesn’t stuff him letting him get free to move. On the other hand Cat can ignore Brandon enough to take a shot on me as I try pry myself loose from Dustin who grabbed me(kept still too long cause I didn’t want to bunch closer with Brandon). In the end it works out as Cat doesn’t get the shot and Brandon turns in and keeps enough of a threat that Cat can’t turn is back to help Dustin end me.
Between :04 and :11 Brandon keeps Cat busy without exposing himself, while it’s all I can do to keep my feet. I’m not sure what I should have done to get away from Dustin. I know I shouldn’t have been caught in the first place but once I’m there I need a plan. Perhaps when he peeled me off the rail at :04 I could have made a sudden push and gotten out. Or between :07 and :15 if I had been putting more effort into fighting the arm holding me instead of trying to pound through his splinted cuisses bent over off balance with a 1 handed weapon I could have put something together. Especially if I worked in concert with Brandon.
Brandon’s charge at :10 is equally ineffective as my attempts to escape. He sneaks by Cat well enough but the shot he puts on Dustin looks like it’s right into spaulder and back plate. If he catches open flesh there it might cause enough damage to free me up but I think the hip or clavicle might be a better target. Hard to do in the moment though. He also could have attempted a body check or a grapple to move the big man. He wouldn’t have to get him far just enough to release pressure on me and hope I do my job getting out. The real problem isn’t the placement or even the decision to strike though. No option he had was high percentage and they are all about as likely to work as each other. It’s he lack of commitment to a path after the strike.
Brandon tries to back away but there’s no way he’s getting out of there like that before Cat can make his move. Perhaps had he hit Dustin while turning to sprint away he could have made it but even then it’s doubtful. If he wants out he needs to stop Cat. Maybe take a step into him, check him, knee him, kick him, and then try and leave as he recovers? Not high percentage but it might work. The other option is try to keep working Dustin or turn and try to take Cat one on one as he comes in, with Brandon’s back to the rail for support. Again, no great options. Maybe a kick to Dustin instead of chop to propel him backwards? It’s a bad position to be in and no decision is really a good one there.
Once Cat grabs him it’s quick work. I can’t really see what causes the fall but it looks like he gets his Falchion behind Brandon’s head, waits for Brandon to squat out and dive backwards before just releasing him and letting Brandon’s own inertia take him out. Good play.
Dustin meanwhile finishes me off. He gives up on softening me up with his strike, good decision as he’s already done the work and I’m not likely to quit from pain soon. He moves to my front keeping me bent. I don’t know what that jump at :14 is or whether it’s effective but right after that he’s able to yank me off the rails and throw me. He makes a great decision here, in not just getting my head moving fast while I’m off balance but also twisting me as he releases. This prevents me from being able to run out of the stumble just be accelerating.
I don’t really have any comments on Cat and Dustin. They did well pinning us in. Dustin made a great explosion just in time to catch me before I could escape. Cat kept Brandon out the picture allowing Dustin to work on me, a match up any coach would want. He was able to pounce quickly when Brandon managed to slip by just for a fraction and used that contact to take him down.
My overall take away is that Brandon and I lost this fight 2 seconds before the video started. We can never allow bigger guys to dictate the speed or location of the fight. We need to force them to either separate and chase us or pick on of us to double team open up their backs to the other one of us. At the beginning if I could have sprinted down the rail I was hugging before Dustin got to it to claim the corner or had Brandon done to same to the opposite corner, we might have been able to pull something out. Instead we let the bigger men simply walk in and crush us.