Yamma Pit Fighting was a mixed martial arts promotion that was created by original UFC promoter Bob Meyrowitz. The promotion's first and only event, YAMMA 1, was held on April 11, 2008 in Atlantic City, New Jersey at the Trump Taj Mahal. It featured a unique fighting arena, as well as 2 "masters" fights: Patrick Smith vs. Butterbean and Oleg Taktarov vs. Mark Kerr.
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The YAMMA Pit arena was a large circular cage with a surrounding fence on the edges of a bowl-like floor with slanted edges. The stated purpose of the new structure was to prevent fighters from trapping their opponents into a corner: the rising edge of the YAMMA Pit was to prevent stalling and facilitate more action. This idea failed in practice, as the slanted edges would cause any fighter defending a takedown to lose their footing as soon as they were pushed towards it, which rendered any attempt to escape to their feet pointless as they'd just be taken down again. This led to a great deal of stalling with all but 1 of the tournament fights ending via decision (the other 3 finishes were non-tournament matches). Another factor which led to the slew of decisions was the fact that all of the tournament matches (except for the final) were scheduled for one 5-minute round. This was in order to assure no fighter would fight longer than 25 total minutes, something the New Jersey Athletic Commission stipulates (along with every other state that regulates MMA). YAMMA was largely a failure and was viewed by many in the MMA community as a terrible event that was put on by people who no longer had a grasp of the sport.
Fighters Don Frye, Gary Goodridge and Maurice Smith were forced to withdraw from the event. Goodridge was denied participation in the tournament by the NJSAC due to an unrelated fighting incident that rendered him unconscious in Korea. Smith had to withdraw due to an illness.
During YAMMA's PPV broadcast, they announced plans for a second event in June 2008, featuring an eight-man tournament of middleweights, but nothing came to take place and to date; YAMMA or Meyrowitz have not announced any further plans for a second event.
As per the New Jersey state athletic commission rules:
| Match | Winner | Loser | Method | Round | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lamont Lister | Oleg Savitsky | TKO (Strikes) | 1 | 0:33 |
| 2 | Bryan Vetell | Antwain Britt | Decision (Unanimous) | 1 | 5:00 |
| 3 | Alexey Oleinik | Sherman Pendergarst | Submission (Ezekiel choke) | 1 | 4:18 |
| 4 | Chris Tuchscherer | Tony Sylvester | Decision (Unanimous) | 1 | 5:00 |
| 5 | Travis Wiuff | Marcelo Pereira | Decision (Unanimous) | 1 | 5:00 |
| 6 | Ricco Rodriguez | George Bush | Decision (Unanimous) | 1 | 5:00 |
| 7 | Oleg Taktarov | Mark Kerr | Submission (Kneebar) | 1 | 1:55 |
| 8 | Chris Tuchscherer | Alexey Oleinik | Decision (Unanimous) | 1 | 5:00 |
| 9 | Travis Wiuff | Ricco Rodriguez | Decision (Unanimous) | 1 | 5:00 |
| 10 | Patrick Smith | Eric Esch | Submission (Strikes) | 1 | 3:17 |
| 11 | Travis Wiuff | Chris Tuchscherer | Decision (Unanimous) | 3 | 5:00 |
| First Round | Semifinals | Finals | |||||||||||
| Travis Wiuff | W Dec | ||||||||||||
| Marcelo Pereira | |||||||||||||
| Travis Wiuff | W Dec | ||||||||||||
| Ricco Rodriguez | |||||||||||||
| George Bush | |||||||||||||
| Ricco Rodriguez | W Dec | ||||||||||||
| Travis Wiuff | W Dec | ||||||||||||
| Chris Tuchscherer | |||||||||||||
| Tony Sylvester | |||||||||||||
| Chris Tuchscherer | W Dec | ||||||||||||
| Chris Tuchscherer | W Dec | ||||||||||||
| Alexey Oleinik | |||||||||||||
| Sherman Pendergarst | |||||||||||||
| Alexey Oleinik | W Sub | ||||||||||||
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