Right outside of Las Vegas in Henderson, Nevada at the outdoor arena at the Sunset Station hotel and resort Lion Fight 22 took place. In the Muay Thai co-main event Smokin Jo Nattawut put on a dominant performance over a resilient Salah Khalifa while Tiffany Van Soest once again regains her featherweight title. She did so against Bernise Alldis in a night full of great Muay Thai fights and not so great reffing.
Jo Nattawut is a man with over 55 fights in his career and has taken matches in 24 hours notice. He almost stopped Khalifa in the first round but Salah kept fighting and would not go down easy. While Jo continued to win each round, Khalifa found more and more life. The fourth round was the best for Salah but the damage had already been done. The outstanding technique and power of Jo was just too much to handle as he put on a very dominant performance to capture the title.
Tiffany Van Soest once again captures the featherweight tight in a heated war with Bernise Alldis. The English woman had intentions on clinching with Van Soest but the always impressive footwork of Tiffany didn't allow it to happen. In the first round Tiffany landed an uppercut under the eye of Bernise that she unfortunately would never fully close. Her corner was no help as they could not get the vaseline to stuff the cut. The fight hit another level after both ladies threw late elbows after the second but from round three on you could tell that Tiffany found her groove. Bernise never faltered and push the fight the entire time but the angles and speed that Tiffany used opened up the cut even more and caused the fight to be stopped. Another fun fight with one of the rising stars in combat sports.
The feature bout was a good back and forth between Carlos Castrejon and Andrada. It seemed as if Andrada was the busier fighter following the first round but the precision and power of Carlos must have made the difference. We scored the fight in unanimous favor of Andrada but the judges saw it differently and took the flash over the substance. Still it was a good fight but clearly the rounds weren't being scored in favor of Andrada good counter ability.
Four grueling first rounds and a FOTN type performance is what we got from Damien Earley and Gaston Bolanos. After securing nearly a draw in the first round, Bolanos speed took over and is what allowed him to win each round convincingly. He did suffer two cuts under his eyes from Early who carved him up with a few forward elbows. The spinning back elbow master Gaston out techniques Early and went to work on his lead leg heading into the later rounds. In the fourth ahead, but from Gaston caused the fight to end as Earley’s corner called the fight This was an explosive match that we would watch over and over.
The second fight of the evening was the first ladies fight between Calie Cutler and Christine Fera. Cutler showed a tough and resilient chin but could not outmatch the technical ability of Fera. Christine pulls off her first win by stopping Cutler in the 4th which was all set up by a beautiful back spinning punch. It only took a few more shots to hurt Cutler and finish the fight.
The first fight on the main card for Lion fight 22 was a great and dominate win for Brian Del Rosario. He used his length to carve up Tommy Morales and front kick him on the way to victory. Tommy had a decent 4th round but it was not enough to steal the moment from the gifted Del Rosario.