Give Eric “Butterbean” Esch and Wesley “Cabbage” Correira credit: they fought their hearts out in the night’s main event. Competing under special rules, which only allowed for 15 consecutive seconds on the floor at one time, the brawlers spent nine minutes 45 seconds of their 10-minute contest on the feet, pounding every target available to them.
“Cabbage” told Sherdog.com after the bout that he’d broken his elbow backstage prior to stepping in the cage. One wouldn’t have known it by watching him fight, though on more than one occasion the heavyweight flinched in the cage.
The “King of the Four Rounders” scored in the second period, digging into Correira’s body, especially after he saw it paying dividends. Surprisingly, on a night when only one Hawaiian had won his bout and “Cabbage” appeared on his way to being the second, the Blaisdell crowd loudly chanted “Butterbean! Butterbean! Butterbean!” while he poured his punches.
Between rounds two and three, Landless called a halt to the contest on doctor’s advice — if “Cabbage” really did break his elbow before the bout, shame on the medical personnel that let him get out there and fight.
Under Card Fights
In the only all-Hawaiian battle on the card, Scott Junk (Pictures) (1-1-0) survived early trouble — absorbing a punch to his face and punishment under the mount — to reverse position on Vilatonu Vonokalaifi, pounding out the Honolulu-based fighter 3:32 of round one.
Junk, who trains out of Kailua, showed determination in coming back to win, though he was aided by the fact that Vonokalaifi (0-1-0) showed little skill fighting from his back.
Stepping in on short notice, Arizona’s Josh Donahue (Pictures) faced a tough task tonight. Not only did he have to contend with being an underdog in Ross Ebanez (Pictures)’s home state, Donahue faced a sizeable weight disadvantage. At Thursday’s weigh-in, the undersized welterweight came in at 157.5 pounds to Ebenaz’s 170.5.
The size and strength edge was obvious from the outset, as Ebanez easily sprawled and stopped Donahue short on the first of several takedown attempts.
Putting the fight where he wanted, Ebanez began to pick away at Donahue, who clearly didn’t have the power or skill to stand in front of “The Boss.’
After shutting the door on yet another takedown effort, Ebanez landed a beautiful knee to the top of Donahue’s head as he knelt in the four-point position. The lighter man regained his feet but retreated back to his corner, where he found Ebanez pounding away inside his guard.
A last-gasp effort from Donahue saw him swivel his hips for an armbar, but Ebanez (10-3-0) simply lifted his small challenger and chucked him off. The fight was effectively over at this point, and Ebanez hammered home the point, pounding on Donahue (5-3-0) until referee Larry Landless (Pictures) stopped the contest at the 1:38 mark of the opening round.
Kengo Ura (Pictures) upped his record to 4-3-0 with a dominant performance over Mike Malone (Pictures) (1-5-0). Ura waited for Malone’s first act of aggression before putting the Hawaiian light heavyweight on the canvas.
After passing to side and failing to land an early attempt at Kimura, Ura, fighting out of Los Angeles by way of Japan, responded well inside Malone’s guard. Dropping several punches before falling back for an ankle lock, Ura took the fight by submission 3:24 of the opening round.