Gateway Fighting Sereis 2 - Recap

On Friday, Gateway Fighting Series offered up its second round of fights at the Heart of St. Charles, with a 12-fight all amateur card that featured 11 K1 bouts and one MMA.

The GFS crew cultivated a nice ambiance at the Heart; a wide-range of area gyms represented, an all-ages audience, a buffet line on the far wall, wood oven pizza in the parking lot, and some of the regions top young fighters working the corners of their short-in-the-tooth teammates, pupils, and protegees.

Gateway FS: Absolution was headlined by the one-two of Mimi Kutzin vs. Tiffany Gilbert and Jamese Taylor vs. Brandon Pearson.

Kutzin closed the night with a clean, crisp unanimous decision win. Kutzin started to land her sharp and heavy right hand and kicks to the body late in the first round. Gilbert put together her best offering in the second but Kutzin came back in the third, continued to press and land that right, to seal the victory.

Taylor and Pearson was originally slated to be a MMA bout but Taylor's failure to get his blood work in, under Spire Sanctioning's new rule, meant the bout was bumped to a K1 affair.

A close first round saw Pearson start strong out of the gate and the long-limbed Taylor found his range late in the round. At the conclusion of the first, emergency personnel were called away from the cage causing a stop in the action. The five-minute-plus lull seemed to benefit Taylor the most as he came back in the second round with his punches landing on the button and a heavy knee leading to a knock down. Pearson, once again, had a nice start to the third round, but Taylor eventually started pouring it on en route to a 30-27 unanimous decision victory.

In the only MMA contest of the night, Oscar Ahuatzi came back from a rough first round with Antonio Atkins (whose protective cup defied description) to go to work in the second. Atkins was unable to answer the bell to start the third, giving Ahuatzi the TKO win.

Jared Medley peppered the legs of Daniel Boyer, leading to a first round injury TKO victory.

Winning by decision was Tim Jackson over Jace Burcham and Clayton Whaley over Adrian Ortiz.

Christopher Peterson Jr. won a unanimous decision over Matt Epstein. Epstein certainly made a go of things in the third round, going for the KO, but after a separation there was nothing left in the tank. Peterson was oak-strong for the first two rounds, scoring knock downs in both.

Trevon Crawford was boxing up Johnny Cox, pressing him against the fence with a flurry, when the tables turned in a flash. Cox shook off Crawford's barrage to land a devastating combo that sent Crawford to the canvas for a KO at the 1:10 mark in the first round.

The spangly Da'Rell Fulghum landed a stiff left foot to the head of Nikk Willyard that resulted in a KO just over a minute into the first round.

In a hard-fought contest, Lorrie Thorpe scored a decision victory over Colette Gille. Richard Jones opened the night with a win over Kevin Harvey.

Gateway FS will be back at the Heart of St. Charles on May 13th with their first Pro/Am card.