The place right in front of the surviving remains of the historic battle over 60 years ago, became the faceoff spot yesterday for modern-day world warriors.
Fighters of each bout in Battle Ready had the chance to see face to face when the Gorilla Warfare Inc., introduced them to the public during press conference by the tank memorial along Beach Road.
The weather was considerably windy yesterday but the heat and excitement filled the air when main event fighters, Kelvin “The Big Hit” Fitial and Ed Carpenter of Chicago; super fight contingents, Charleston “The Predator” Aiken and Mike “Ogar” Davis of Guam, semi-event fighters, Eduard “The Landslide” Folayang of the Philippines and Jerome Norita, and female warriors Tara “Tarantula” Naumaueleg and Kristi Halstead showed up during faceoff at the beach at 1:30 p.m.
“This is going to be an exciting event,” says Gorilla Warfare’s Jeff Boyer who organized the second mixed martial arts fight with partners, Mark Sablan and Pete Sablan.
Hundreds of MMA fans are expected to pack the Royal Taga Hall of Saipan World Resort tomorrow. Doors open at 6 p.m., for the eight exciting bouts.
Aside from off-island challengers, some lightweight bouts will also make the event the most exciting fight this year.
Thomas Denny, also an MMA promoter assured that aside from Fitial-Carpenter match, the super fight and the semi-event will also highlight the event.
“May the best man win,” he said.
Philippines’ URCC
A Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, Alvin Aquilar who is now the president of Universal Reality Combat Championship is another figure who will spice up the Battle Ready.
A three-time undefeated fighter of Sari-An annual sparing meet, 2003, Filipino Martial Artist of the Year and Universal Martial Arts hall of famer, Aguilar will be the special guest.
Aguilar is also the 1999 Silver Medalist of the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Tournament in Detroit, Michigan.
He is here to back up the Folayang, the URCC welterweight champion, one of the organization’s first fighters to fight outside the Philippines.
The URCC, Aguilar said is the first and biggest mixed martial arts promotion in the Philippines and the biggest.
“We’ve been around for about six years. In the period, we’ve been holding events in the Philippines and we’re actually expanding internationally,” he said.
.Aguilar said the fighters on Saipan had been fighting in the Philippines and have shown themselves.
“They are very tough and very technical. They are also very good fighters and I’m sure we’re going to get a lot of works with a lot of fighters coming from Saipan and Guam soon,” he said.
Boyer said the idea of inviting Asian fighters is to step up the MMA games on Saipan and be able to allow local fighters to bring out their skills against international fighters and give them some exposure locally.
The Gorilla Warfare also acknowledged the sponsors, Jojo Camacho of Marpac, the distributor of Budweiser and BudLigth, Mr. Norman Del Rosario of IT&E.
