My wing-girl Ajay and I headed down to the Baltimore Arena to check out John Rallo’s Shogun fight card. John was one of the 1990s platform members of the Baltimore Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Club, which originally included Cliff Perry; Jon ‘Eric the Impaler’ Erwin; Mark LaFond; and Esau, an Olympic wrestler from Iran. John turned out to be the guy with the creative energy. When Renzo Gracie’s man in Baltimore [I think his name was Mark] gave up the lead in the club to go teach law Enforcement combatives, John seized the reigns and worked his ass off [a prodigious feat considering his size] and made Team Ground Control the dominant force in Maryland MMA. He has since taken over a number of schools, even acquiring the services of some good local boxers as hands coaches.

I have worked boxing with three of John’s early teammates and exchanged e-mails in the past with John. He has even offered to open his doors to our Agonistics program. I went to the Shogun fights in hopes of seeing something I could report positively on. I also had my eye on the possibility of talking to John about letting my best fighters do a stick-fight as a demo before the main card some day.

Although I enjoyed my time at the event immensely, and have to give Mister Rallo high marks for putting on a highly professional event, I do not think I will be contacting him about doing us a favor. After reading this review of the event I think he will be inclined to agree with Sifu Breeze of AAMMA fame to see me as a menace to Maryland MMA. My top priority on this site is my integrity as a writer. So, in writing this I have just doomed stick-fighting in Maryland to continued obscurity.

While the event was extremely professional, with none of the delays and confusion of amateur productions, the quality of the fighters, and the match making, was worse than what one typically sees in local amateur boxing. There were a couple of decent fighters out of Virginia and from some of the Maryland-D.C. Corridor BJJ schools. There were no well-rounded fighters, with only one fighter demonstrating even rudimentary boxing skills.

The problem with local promotions is that the promoter usually operates the largest local club, and most of his ticket sales come via the friends and family of the local fighters. Therefore the local fighters must win to keep the event alive. For all of you people who think that fight fixing has ever significantly taken the form of a fighter taking a ‘dive’ then you need to watch one of these local mass executions to understand how records are built.

There were five fights featuring Team Ground Control members, and two other fights featured good fighters from out of town who John is obviously ‘moving’; taking these guys with star potential and feeding them easy meat. So, seven out of the eleven scheduled bouts had to be non-competitive. That only left the possibility of the four fights between out-of-town fighters.

Team Ground Control is aptly named. If it were ‘Team Ground and Pound’ one might be able to lodge a complaint with the Truth in Advertising Commission.

There was only one fight worth recounting, and I will cover that after a brief on the mismatching. I will not be naming these fighters as I do not wish to denigrate their efforts in any way. I was going to cover the fights in a comic way, naming them after audience comments, but that too would have been unfair to the fighters, who would probably fight anyone.

This was a pro event sanctioned by the Maryland State Athletic Commission, so I will not question the weights. Listed weight does not mean a thing at the pro level because they weigh in a day ahead of time. In combat sports you will rarely see more than a 1-inch height advantage among top pros unless one fighter has a uniquely stocky or elongated build. Here are the height differences per fighter. Keep in mind that all of the taller fighters were significantly more muscular, with less body fat than the relatively soft looking shorter men. This was definitely a case where out-of-town guys from two weight classes south of the local fighter’s weight, were recruited, possibly even told to start eating Doritos until fight time. Team Ground Control’s height is listed first, the opponent second:

Bout 2: 145 lbs, 5’ 9” – 5’8”

Bout 3: 140 lbs, 5’ 9” – 5’ 6” [The taller fighter was an out-of-town prospect being treated like a home team guy at the expense of a much smaller and significantly outclassed out-of-town fighter.]

Bout 4: 205 lbs, 6’- 5’9” [The victim was not in shape and seemed to be an indie wrestler.]

Bout 6: 135 lbs, 5’ 10” – 5’ 7” [The victim was a poorly schooled boxer without a jab, not even an MMA fighter.]

Bout 7: 150 lbs, 5’ 10” – 5’ 6” [The victim was a friend of the name fighter; a wrestler from a small PA town, who did not wrestle in the bout, but seems to have agreed to stand with his non-existent boxing skill so that the local guy who has not had a KO in 10 fights, could get a KO. The local favorite essentially admitted this in the post fight interview.]

Bout 8: 145 lbs, 5’ 9” – 5’ 6” [This was not a Team Ground Control fighter with the non-competitive advantage, but another associated prospect.]

Bout 11: 155 lbs, 5’ 9” – 5’ 7” [The main event was one of the worst fights on the card, with the opponent being a Georgian Judo man who attempted not one judo technique against the taller fighter.]

The problem for the fighters in being managed by a local promoter is that they don’t see any real competition until they head out-of-state. Every TGC fighter was bigger, more fit, and more skilled than his opponent, usually by a long shot in every department. The good fight—and even the good slaughters—involved out-of-town fighters matched against each other.

If you go to a pro fight and the records of the fighters are a secret, then look out. Not one record was announced. This moves me to question if the weigh-ins were even legit. That means you have hand-picked opponents [mostly from small Pennsylvania towns in this case] who have winless records. Bringing rural fighters who have only strip-mall karate and scholastic wrestling backgrounds into a large venue is like fishing with dynamite.

Of the 22 fighters I saw not one had any boxing skill, with only three having passable Muay Thai. I am not placing a higher value on boxing than the other MMA skill sets. It is simply the one discipline I am qualified to evaluate, so I tend to stress that aspect when looking at MMA fighters.This was like watching miniature versions of Mark Kerr beat up miniature versions of Kimo Leopaldo. It looks to me that Maryland Pro MMA is ten years behind. That is not the case on the amateur level. In April 2012 I covered the Maryland Cage Brawl, for which I have earned the undying hatred of the AAMMA. That card showcased four fighters with less than 5 amateur fights that were far better than anyone on this card. I am certain that three of Lee Synkowski’s BBJJ amateurs could take most of the pros I saw on this card.

Nate Grebb of Crofton MD and Cody Baker of Frederick, MD put on an excellent show. Grebb was a BJJ guy who had very limited striking and did not want to stand, taking the smaller man directly to the ground. Baker was so tenacious and dangerous on the ground that Grebb resorted to his sloppy standup rather than test his BJJ against this game fighter. Grebb was forced into a standup role by the smaller Baker, who was hunting for submissions and getting reversals. There were many close moments during the course of this bout. Finally, in round 3, Baker began to gas and was not able to build momentum after his hard-won reversals. These men were very active on the ground, with the BJJ man looking to strike and the opponent looking for the submission.

I am not going to give a blow-by-blow or even summary of the mismatches that predominated on this card. If you want to see how I report from ringside check out the Maryland Cage Brawl article I did last year. I actually think if we took the best 22 amateur fighters from that card and pitted them against the fighters from this card, that the amateurs would win, and handily.

The heavy metal and hip hop entrance music was insanely loud. My ears still hurt two days later. The fighters came in with ridiculous entourages. One of the TGC fighters came in with what I called the ‘Green Army’ literally 20 guys in green. The level of professionalism among the winning fighters did not match the production values. Three of them cussed, and the headline fighter whined like a baby for not getting a UFC shot, even though he could not finish his overmatched smaller opponent. The ring card girls were stellar—no complaints there. I would also like to say that the officiating, as with all MMA events that I have seen, was good, far surpassing what I see in boxing.

As much as some of the winning fighters exemplified the worst in boxing and MMA with their histrionics, dramatic affectations [one even having his own rapper], cussing, lack of respect for their opponent, and delusional appreciation of their place in the sport, the unintended spectacle outside the ring was what made for our money’s worth.

As a man of science I made it my duty to count ‘stunningly attractive women’ among the crowd. Each of these picks were checked with Ajay, as she insisted my taste in females is suspect. The count was 16 blondes, 9 brunettes and 1 redhead. The best looking blonde was being led up and down the stairs by her graceless date every 20 minutes for another $9 beer. This was having the desired effect, with her obviously incapable by the last bout of resisting what would surely be his after-fight simian advances. That at least made sense.

There were two other extremely attractive ladies—one which Ajay insisted I count twice—who paraded up and down the stairs every 15 minutes for the entire fight, never returning with a beer. Their dates looked like Italian clothing models and always walked five steps behind them. Neither of the women or their submissive escorts appeared to have ever eaten anything that was served in the concession area. Likewise, the probability of what might have been the two best looking women in Baltimore both arriving at the same event, sitting in the same section, and both suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, is far too unlikely to consider. Were they from some reverse-Muslim female society or what?

There was the older drunk black man who screamed for 20 minutes through two fights, “Work the cross-face, work the cross-face!” until he lost his voice.

There was the crazy big chick in the black shawl screaming at men on the floor, who was ejected by a cop and five security goons.

There was also the female employee who took a seat behind us and became our own color commentator with phrases like:

“I want to see a fight—none of this huggin’ shit. No man luv out dare!”

“I don’t think it’s fair that they can tap.”

[On her cell phone] “What chou doin’ up in ma house boy! Get out ma house and take yo nasty friends with you—goodbye!”

“He betta not tap!”

“Oh hell no!”

“Work dat body yo!”

“Oh ma Gawd dey huggin’ again. I can’t take it. Dey about to hump down in dare—about ta make a baby! Tickle him! Tickle his ass!!”

That lady was at least sober. The five middle-aged white people smoking hash oil and chugging beer down in front of us were ‘off the hook!’ as she might have said, dancing in front of their seats.

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to sit next to a martial artist named Steve and his wife, who has the art of picking mismatches out of the program down to a science after last night. Steve was fairly horrified by the ‘lack of humility’ among the fighters, particularly the ones who benefited from gross mismatches. His wife signaled her dismay at the lack of fighter parity with comments like, “Oh, really!”

Then there was the lady who came in with her five children, and entertained us throughout the fight. She and her brood sat in front of us. She was in her late 40s with a dark tan, bleach blonde hair, extremely muscular build, and D-cup implants, which she slung like guns in an olive drab halter top. Her waist was bare but for a silver chain with heart-shaped links. She pasted a slogan on her bare breasts and slipped on a pair of black panties over her tight jeans on the concrete stairs between the seats. I did not actually notice any of this, as I was diligently counting the links in the ring cage—that seemed to have been heart-shaped…

The woman seated herself in the middle of her kids and therefore had to climb out on top of me, her breasts spilling into my lap, her equally firm butt brushing my thighs. Although I was mightily offended by the breach of courtesy, when she apologized to me, Ajay just waived her off, “Oh he doesn’t mind a bit—you’re good!”

The lady then explained to us that her daughter’s coach was fighting. Then she was off down the stairs, man-hunting; wearing her panties that said, “Tap or sleep.”

Ajay then nudged me as she went below, leaving her children in my dubious care, “Your skank ex-girlfriend got a boob job and is stalking you!”

We saw her below hugging various men, working her way toward the cage-side seats. At last we saw her approach a large bald man, hug him, kiss him, and then dart back up onto the concourse. She came to the kids like Mother Goose bringing good news to her goslings, “I just met someone. We have better seats!”

Off they went, down to the new ‘friend’ who never kept his paws off of her. She had a video recorder, but only used it to record the ring card girls. I postulated that perhaps she was a den mother for a brothel or a talent scout for a strip club. In any case, I must applaud her maternal instincts. How many moms do you know who would prostitute themselves so that their kids could get ringside seats?

If you find yourself headed to a local MMA event that figures to feature a lot of one-sided slaughters and you want to have a good time, buy a ticket for a random middle-aged black ghetto chick and bring her along for color commentary. It’s sure to make for a good time.