World Combat Sports Challenge Results 4/26/2008

It was a fun and exciting night at the fights this past Saturday at San Francisco’s Kezar Pavilion. Every major Bay Area gym showcased their top amateur talent and the Fight and Fitness team represented well. We had two fighters compete – Derek "Mr. Chan" Leung and Malia Spanyol - and both of them won their fights.

Derek Leung was first up for our team. He fought a tough guy out of George Tsutsui’s camp. We’ve seen Derek’s opponent at previous smokers and we knew his style. He’s aggressive, he likes to push the pace, and he seems to have really good cardio. We advised Derek to use his patented left kick whenever his opponent jumped in. The plan worked perfectly. Derek started with the inside left low kick, and he followed it with the left high kick. His opponent was trying to land flurries with his hands with no luck. As the fight progressed Derek found his rhythm. He landed kicks, left and right, high and low, at will. His opponent grew desperate and started to load up and look for the one punch knockout. Our whole corner thought Derek definitely won all three rounds, but the judges saw it a little different. They had Derek winning a close split decision, but a win is a win.

Malia Spanyol fought soon after Derek. We actually had to tape her up and get her ready before we went out to corner for Derek. Malia’s opponent was a girl out of Dan Black’s gym. Her opponent came into the ring smiling and dancing, seemingly spewing with confidence. This may have added a little bit of fuel to Malia’s fire. When the bell rang to start the fight, Malia came forward hard trying to land long knees. She didn’t worry about setting them up much, and she got caught with a lot of counterpunches. Between the first and second rounds Malia’s cornermen advised her to stay long and set up the long knees. She followed her instructions and began to break her opponent down. Going into the third round her opponent wasn’t dancing and smiling anymore. Malia’s instructions for the final round were to try to end the fight. Her corner men instructed her to come forward and punish her opponent. Malia did just that. She landed long right kicks, foot jabs and long knees. Malia won the last two rounds of her fight convincingly. The judges again saw a slightly different version of the truth. They awarded Malia and split decision, but again… a win is a win.

Both of our fighters fought like champions. They both came out to shaky starts, but they stayed aggressive and grinded out well deserved victories. Congratulate Derek and Malia when you see them in the gym.