Arguably the most intriguing event outside the UFC from last weekend was Flawless Fighting Championship 1, the debut show from a promotion that advertises being the US feeder show to Sengoku Global, supposedly the reincarnation of the Japanese-based show that went out of business two years ago. Whatever the actual status or relevance of this promotion the debut show had its ups and downs, not least of which came with the main event. FFC 1 took place August 4th at the UIC Forum in Chicago.
Originally the main event was supposed to be Egidijus Valavicius vs. Will Dicke, a battle of two relative unknowns on a national level but with good reputations locally. Depending on whom one asks Dicke was either a “no show” at the weigh-ins or alerted the promoter he wouldn’t fight when uncertainties grew too great, either way the result was Valavicius instead faced Eric Hammerich, a much less experienced and even less known fighter. Not surprisingly Valavicius quickly took down Hammerich and finished with an armbar with little resistance in just under a minute.
On the bright side the co-main event between Adam Ward and Oliver Petkovich was a back-and-forth war. After two rounds of even scoring Ward landed an elbow in the third that opened up a cut causing Petrovski to verbally submit.
Dicke wasn’t the only fighter to back out as four other fights were also scrapped over cancellations. No official word is available on which fighters backed out but Shamar Bailey vs. Jay Buck and Chase Beebe vs. Charles Diaz were two of the biggest fights from the original card, neither of which materialized.
FFC 1 results:
Kenny Jordan def. Andrew Bowers 1:16 R1 by rear-naked choke
Matt Wilcox def. David Gallegos by unanimous decision
Lisa McCallam def. Maria Messer by unanimous decision
Ryan Dickson def. Jason Graves 1:46 R1 by rear-naked choke
Maurice Greene def. Ed Carpenter by split decision
Jake O’Brien def. Miodrag Petkovich by unanimous decision
Adam Ward def. Oliver Petrovski 2:31 R3 by verbal submission
Egidijus Valavicius def. Eric Hammerich 0:58 R1 by armbar