YAMMA Pit Fighting

YAMMA Pit Fighting
Defunct
Industry Mixed martial arts promotion
Headquarters United States

Yamma Pit Fighting was a mixed martial arts promotion that was created by original UFC promoter Bob Meyrowitz.[1] The promotion's 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 "super" fights: Patrick Smith vs. Butterbean and Oleg Taktarov vs. Mark Kerr.[2][3]

YAMMA Pit

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.[4]

Change of Card

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

Rules and regulations

As per the New Jersey state athletic commission rules:

Results

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

YAMMA Heavyweight Tournament

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

External links

References

  1. ↑ "MMA Stomping Grounds: Former UFC owner starts new MMA promotion - Mixed martial arts: UFC news, analysis, opinions, Q&As, video - baltimoresun.com". weblogs.baltimoresun.com. Retrieved 2014-07-28.
  2. ↑ "YAMMA Pit Fighting Debuts April 11 with Frye vs. Taktarov, Eight-Man Heavyweight Tourney | MMAjunkie". mmajunkie.com. Retrieved 2014-07-28.
  3. ↑ "Yamma pit fighting 2".
  4. ↑ "Remembering YAMMA Pit Fighting five years later - Bloody Elbow". bloodyelbow.com. Retrieved 2014-07-28.