Photos: Strong showing for Kombat at Brampton Cup Tourney

Three of our athletes competed in the Brampton Cup Tournament this weekend, Feb. 4-6. Winning six of their collective seven fights, the fighters walked away with two first place finishes and one closely contested second place finish. Full photo album at the bottom. Guest poster Lee Kim describes the action:  Friday: Kareem Hackett (aka Swaggatron aka Baby Spinach) wins the first fight of his bracket with relative ease, picking apart his opponent with far superior footwork and counter punches.  He wins, pitching a near shutout. (Doesn't get touched.) Saturday: All three fighters fight for the semi-final bracket.  First to fight is Ricky Stagg (Pretty Ricky).  He wins using cleaner combinations, controlling the fight for all three rounds, and really pulling away in the third with far superior conditioning. Second fighter up is Darren Gonzales (Diamond).  He fights a tough opponent.  His speed is the deciding factor as he continually beats his opponent to the punch, and counters with nice uppercuts, and comes away with a victory. Third fight of the night is Kareem Hackett (Swaggatron). This fight is arguable the best performance of any single match at the tournament.  He absolutely dominates a very game opponent, controlling the fight with his jab, and landing 4-5 punch combinations repeatedly, mixing it up beautifully to the head and body.  Kareem pitches another shut out victory in only his third ever boxing match. Sunday: The Championship Up first again is Pretty Ricky.  He saves his best performance for his last fight.  Ricky fights the entire match throwing more and cleaner combos than his opponent, and also countering almost every attack with an aggressive combo of his own.  He wins the Brampton cup with flying colors. Next in line for the championship is Darren.  His opponent is tough and fights a good fight. It is back and forth, but again Darren's speed appears to be the deciding factor, as he lands the cleaner shots and scores a standing eight-count.  He wins a unanimous decision. Last is Kareem.  His opponent is very aggressive.  Kareem lands clean shots and counters punches. He bloodies his opponents face, but his opponent keeps coming forward throwing hard for all three rounds, but not landing anything clean or meaningful.  In the end, the judges give a very controversial decision win to his opponent based on aggression. All in all, Kombat Arts had an excellent showing at the tournament, missing a complete first place sweep by a hair. Good jobs guys! [gallery link="file"] Thanks to Lee for the writeup!