M.A.K. Night of Champions: A Complete Disaster.
M.A.K. hasn’t been my most favorite event to visit. Hosted in Newburgh, NY at the Newburgh Armory. Immediately after walking in spectators were overwhelmed with the smell of “cat piss” or some other fowl odor in a 50° room.
The event started 30 minutes late due to fighters not showing up on time. After spectators struggled to find their seats, the event finally started. As it turns out, many VIP ticket seats were given away to the promotions sponsors, meaning people were up charged for cage side seats that weren’t actually available. This could have easily been remedied by moving the ring slightly over and pulling out the chairs sitting on the pallets behind me. Instead, spectators had begun pulling the chairs themselves, and seating themselves.
Isles weren’t well established making access for the E.M.T. and stretcher difficult. The whole event area was blocked off by a mesh screen, this caused quite a concern for fire issues as there was only one direction the whole crowd could go. This made even getting food or going to the bathroom a mission during the event, as you had to walk through multiple rows of people each time.
We even heard from someone else in the crowd at one point that men’s room had been blocked off due to illegal gambling going on in them. Not surprisingly at this point, the local union sponsor in front of me had been actively antagonizing the surrounding crowd, and had been taking bets throughout the event and publicly gambling in the crowd.
If you happened to take one of the closer seats to the exit you may have went home with ear damage, as the sound engineer opted for a louder singular speaker for the event rather than multiple speakers spread out. That one speaker had been placed directly behind several seats.
I’ve been to events run by stoners that did a better job than this. I left questioning whether I’d be back for another event. While everyone makes mistakes, it seems areas of this event weren’t thought out, or were outright neglected for profit. It is extremely disappointing that someone would do this to fighters who put their heart into their training. This was their big day, and you had them fight in a poorly planned event that smelled like “piss” and left their friends and family freezing while watching.
Fight Night Results
- Ben Ellougani (pound 4 pound) wins over Delgado Barnes (Train To go) 170lb kickboxing bout
- Jacob Howell (Atlas Jiu Jitsu) decision loss to Isiah Sanchez (underdog mma) 135lb MMA bout
- Mark Jaquish (Garage MMA) decision loss to Ryan Springer (Goku Ryu KI) Super heavy weight Kickboxing bout
- Josh Ibarra (Core BJJ) wins via KO against Sterling Rulison (Goku Ryu KI) 155lb Kickboxing bout
- Steven Rich (Atlas Jiu Jitsu) loses to Paul Cavagnuolo (Ascension MMA) via decision 155lb MMA bout
- Mahayar St Phard (independent) wins via KO over Fabian Cassell (underdog MMA) 195lb MMA bout
- Damian Santana (Bakertown MMA) loses via triangle against Bryan Betts (Goju Ryu Ki) 175lb MMA bout
- Larry sagendorf (Atlas Jiu Jitsu) wins via decision over Moses Oquendo (Independent) at 125lb MMA bout
