The final match of the evening pitted Enson Inoue (leader of Team Purebred) against Tom “Trauma” Sauer. The crowd was hyped for this one, and Enson came out swinging with his straight ahead style, the same as ever. Sauer quickly circled, the two clashed, and the fight went to the ground. Enson displayed filthy sick jiu-jitsu ability on the ground, missing submissions by just an inch on several different occasions. One triangle got locked in good, but Sauer powered out by lifting Enson and slamming him to the mat, popping out in the process.
From there, Tom went into a reverse choke that he held on to for dear life while trying to gain position to whack Enson’s head with his knees. Enson delivered multiple knees to Sauer while in the bottom position, and eventually wriggled his way free from the choke. At this point, Sauer stacked Enson, and began to open up a can on the side of his head. Enson kept trying to shift and get out from the stack, but wasn’t quite able to come up with an answer. The fight was called at 4:14 in the first round, which prompted all hell to break loose with the local crowd. Leading the barbarian charge was Enson’s own corner (which included my perennial favorite, Mr. New York Bad Ass, Phil Baroni).
Kid Yamamoto, who heretofore seemed to be respectable in his presentation in Hawaii, stormed into the ring and pushed referee Dane Agbayani of the 808 Fight Factory. This seemed unwarranted, as Dane let the fight go on longer than a lot of refs might have with so many unanswered punches expressly because he knew this kind of thing was likely to happen if Enson lost due to stoppage. Kid was followed closely to the inside of the ring by your friend and mine, Phil Baroni, who also tried to get a piece of the referee (he seems to have a thing for that lately), spilling water on me and my $2000 worth of camera equipment in the process. Thanks Phil! Egan tried to separate the cornermen from the ref, and the police on hand to work security cleared the ring as quickly as they could without further incident. No punches were thrown, but this sort of thing should not be happening in MMA.
If the general public is still going to view us as a bunch of barroom brawlers, then where are we going to get endorsements, big paydays and mainstream acceptance? How we will ever win new fans when the old ones are going to stop coming to the fights out of fear of a riot breaking out? That attitude was exemplified by Enson when he regained his composure and took to the microphone, asking everyone to calm down and stop fighting. He thanked Sauer for the bout, and said that he was disappointed by the outcome, but could not fault anyone but himself for the way things unfolded. He stated his desire for a rematch, which Tom agreed to, and said that next time they would settle things appropriately, without controversy.
All in all, Enson handled himself in an upright and moral fashion, despite his tremendous disappointment at losing in front of the hometown crowd. He showed that his samurai spirit runs deep, despite the loss, and you can guarantee that this exalted member of the MMA community will be back to entertain the fans at some point in the near future. Defeat has never sat well with Enson, and I’m sure that he will train like a madman to make sure that his next time out will be different.
That’s it for this time. Aloha, and if you live on the island of Oahu, I’ll see you at the fights!
