Brown lands a nice kick to Amir’s body that hurts Amir… Amir lands a nice left kick to Browns leg that almost makes Brown lose balance… Amir gets more aggressive when he sees Brown almost go down… He charges Brown up against the cage and lands bruising knee that hurts Brown… He follows with a forearm and Brown backpedals away from the cage… Brown gets a charging Amir off balance and takes him down… Amir scrambles to his feet… Round ends pressed against cage.

*Brown wins round by a hair for being more aggressive, landing more punches and kicks and controlling the clinches.

Matt Riddle echoes the intensity felt by all at ring-side, “This is insane”, as we go to commercial break.

Round 2

Brown comes out aggressive, landing combos and a strong body kick… Amir counters and throws a flying knee and a right hand… Brown gets in Muay Thai clinch and lands knee to Amir’s head… They dance to the middle of the ring… Brown tries to throw Amir, but Amir’s takedown defense is too strong... Amir gets a good hold of Brown’s head and scores a trip takedown

Amir on top on the ground for the first time initiates a ground and pound attack… Matt’s corner yells, “You’re not tired Matt”, but he certainly looks like he is… Amir throws elbows…Matt scrambles, but he can’t get up… Amir stands to get leverage behind a punch… Matt sees his chance to escape and does… He flips Amir onto his back and jumps into Amir’s guard… Amir sees an opening and gets his legs around Matt’s neck just as Matt is trying to throw a punch… Amir clamps down on his Triangle Choke hold. Brown taps with less than two minutes to go.

**Amir wins by submission in 2nd round.

Once again Coach Forrest is on the winning side cornering both of the winning fighters.

Forrest, “Amir is better in the scrambles and he caught Matt Brown”

Brown, “The loss is disappointing… but Amir is a warrior”

Amir, “I’m happy that I not only won, but that both Matt and I showed well”

Rampage, “Matt was doing well, but he got tired.”

Dana is impressed, especially with Amir. He thinks it was a great battle. Both fighters admit they were hurt by the other. Brown admits that Amir hurt him with a knee to body,

“I didn’t get over that until the second round.”

Amir admits Brown hurt him once with a kick to the body in the first round.

So, now we are down to 6 fighters.

NEXT WEEK

Quarterfinals

Tim Credeur vs Dan Cramer
CB Dollaway vs Cale Yarbrough