EFC 83
Written by Emjay on December 16, 2019
If this is the new and improved Elvis Ngwalangwala, then I like him very much! His dominante performance in the first 2 rounds had Strydom gasping for air throughout the 3rd. His victory snaps his 2-fight skid.
A cool, calm and composed Cameron Saaiman announced his arrival on the professional MMA scene with a performance well beyond his experience giving him a debut victory over Corne Blom who is yet to win at the professional level.
Nerick Simoes snapped his 3-fight skid by showing that time away from the cage can be beneficial with his well implemented fight-plan against Warren Richards. For me Richards is carrying the demons of that gifted victory to Tommy Strydom at EFC 82 and as such chalks up his 4thconsecutive loss.
Stephan De la Rey can count his lucky stars that Amisi Kabeya just does not seem to have any BMT……all Kabeya needed to do was survive for one more round and he would have picked up his second professional victory……alas, giving up sounded like the better option.
The Conrad Seabi versus Robert Swanepoel fight was an absolute mismatch as Seabi picked up an almost sweat-less victory – hats off to Swanepoel for taking the fight on such short notice but thankfully it ended as quickly as most bar fights usually do.
Roedie Roets stepped back into the winners circle with an easy first round submission of Serge Kasanda, showing that his time at Phuket Top Team has been well spent although I doubt is post-fight comments will sit well with his former team-mates at Apex.
On to the Main card and the opening bout between Asiashu Tshitamba and Sylvester Chipfumbu had all the makings of a great stand-up war but in the end, the “grind-out” victory for Chipfumbu was reminiscent of the many wins by current coach and mentor Demarte Pena. The win, surely puts Chipfumbu back into title contention while for Tshitamba, it was the end of a 4-fight win streak.
Marino Cutendana versus Devon Cronje was one of those interesting matchups which could have produced a great fight but it was the superior ground game of Cronje that prevailed to give him his 4thconsecutive victory.
The FOTN must surely be Anicet Kanyeba versus Saxon Delafield! Both came into this bout on 3-fight win streaks and for the first round it was all-out action with Delafield attempting to submit Kanyeba on multiple occasions only for Kanyeba to escape.
That first round seemed to take its toll on Delafield and it was then time for a clinical demonstration of precision striking from Kanyeba that set-up his 4thstraight win. For a fighter that had never been further that the 1stround, Delafield showed heart that the likes of Kanyeba could only dream of!
The co-main event was a tough one to call from the outset with this writer believing that if Lino could get inside the precision kicking game of Fiorot then she would stand a chance. It was not to be, as Fiorot used her kicks to keep Lino at distance until she determined it was time to go to ground and at those times it was very clear that Fiorot had levelled-up in her ground game since that win over Geuges in the TF2 Finale. Lino for me was out of her depth and one gets the sense that she needs to go back to the drawing board if she intends to keep her bantamweight strap because Fiorot would be foolish not to come for that!
The Main event had the current Champ Dricus du Plessis fighting in front of his home crowd for the first time. It was the fight promised after TF1 – some 2 years ago. Lesar, quietly confident coming into this fight following his 1stround KO of the only South African fighter ever to have beaten Du Plessis. Unfortunately for Lesar, the record books will show a first round loss and for the second fight in a row we are yet to see if Lesar has in fact developed as a fighter since his TF1 victory.
For EFC, it was a fitting end to a tough year for the organisation, having put on less events with less international athletes than what we have become accustomed to. With a new headline sponsor in place, one can expect a bumper 2020 for the African promotion.
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Jaryd On April 14, 2020 at 11:24 am
You can’t be lucky 2 fights in row – Dricus showed the difference between someone who lives and breathes the sport and someone who just trains because they would like to be a champ!