I can’t help it. It’s not UFC, most of the fighters might not be “top contenders” these days, and maybe it’s just a bit cheesy, but I am super excited about tonights YAMMA Pit Fighting debut. They’ve done a super job at making two “superfights” that I am anxious to see. I never thought I’d get to see Pat Smith and Eric “Butterbean” Esch fight. They really are two of my favorite fighters to watch, ever. I remember Pat Smith from the early UFC days when he would start a fight off by running across the cage and front-kicking some dude backwards, and of course I think most people remember his laying some vicious elbows across the face of a ninja by the name of Scott Morris.

Butterbean is just Butterbean. He will knock you the hell out.

The other “Superfight” is a match between Mark Kerr and Oleg Taktarov. I just saw Oleg recently in that movie Rockaway. For some reason, I’m thinking Oleg is going to win this just because I imagine he’s stayed in better shape over the years.

The rest of the event features a Heavyweight tournament. The fight card is as follows:

George Bush vs. Ricco Rodriguez
Marcelo Pereira vs. Travis Wiuff
Tony Sylvester vs. Chris Tuscherer
Alexey Oleinik vs. Sherman Pendergarst

According to FightFinder, he fought as recently as 10/27/07,  and has fought five times since September of 2006, winning 4 out of 5, his only loss being a kneebar submission. I knew he had fought K-1 for a while, even scoring a super fast knockout against the legendary Andy Hug. Patrick Smith was a Taekwondo mad man, an excellent striker.

Personally, I think Patrick Smith was one of the most exciting fighters in the early UFC days, I first remember seeing him smash Scott Morris’ face in with vicious elbows, then I believe it was his fight with Rudyard Moncayo where he opened up the bout with a sweet straight kick to the torso that sent Moncayo flying backwards into the cage.

So anyway, I’m glad to see that he is fighting MMA again. I think it would be great for the UFC to have him back in the octagon, perhaps in some kind of “Legends” event or something.

http://www.rmnmma.com/ 

WAR Pat Smith! This dude was one of my favorites in the early UFC days. It will definitely be interesting to see him back in action, win or lose. I’m kinda hoping he’ll win it, he was one of the most exciting fighters in the bare-knuckle UFC days, and nobody gets knocked out better than Justin Eilers, either.