Paul Smith lost his MMA debut against Jake Quickenden by first round stoppage in the finale of ‘Stage to the Cage’.

Quickenden came out as the aggressor, landing hard shots, but a takedown for Smith changed the pace of the round.

Quickenden scrambled to his feet gaining control in the clinch, pinning Smith against the cage. The two then took to the centre of the octagon, exchanging strikes. Quickenden countered a kick from Smith with an explosive cross stunning him.

From there Quickenden capitalised on the opportunity moving forward to drop Smith and the referee stepped in to end it on a TKO.
In the prelims Lee ‘The Butcher’ Chadwick faced up against Zdenek Polivka for the last fight of his career.

Chadwick got off to a bad start early in the fight shooting for a take down only to get reversed and put against the cage. From the clinch Polivka was able to take him down and gain side control.
Chadwick showed impressive ground skills going for his first leg lock attempt of the night, however it wasn’t in tight as Polivka slipped out of the submission.
Polivka was able to escape two more leg locks before the round was over, regaining top control and landing punches to the head and body of Chadwick.
The second round was no different to the first with Polivka denying two early take down attempts from Chadwick, tying him up against the cage. Both fighters relied on wrestling against the cage throughout the round to land big knees to the body.
Towards the end of the round Polivka was able to get Chadwick down to the ground taking his back. Despite the dominant position he couldn’t keep Chadwick down as he got back to his feet just before the end of the round.
Going into the third round ‘The Butcher’ looked to be down on the scorecards and needed to make a statement. From the start, Chadwick was out-boxing Polivka coming forward with heavy pressure until an accidental eye poke stopped the flow putting both fighters back to the centre of the cage.
Both fighters then wrestled for a dominant position against the cage with little success until the end.
Having gone the distance the fight was left in the hands of the judges, scoring the fight in favour of Polivka for a majority decison.
In the main event Aaron Aby faced the toughest opponent of his career so far in Elias Garcia for the flyweight title.
It was a competitive first round with both fighters having their moments landing shots and winning grappling exchanges.
During the second round Aby picked up a cut on his eyebrow forcing the doctor to stop the fight, crowning Garcia is the new flyweight champion.

Shem Rock’s much anticipated fight against Jaroslav Pokorný was cancelled after the Liverpool fighter threw a round house kick at Pokorny during the weigh-ins.
It has not yet been revealed what injuries Pokorný has sustained but it was enough for the doctors to stop the fight from going ahead. It is also unclear what will happen next for either of the fighters.
OKTAGON MMA co-owner Pavol Neruda said: “The whole situation is very damaging for Pokorný, who of course prepared for the fight, for the fans who were looking forward to the fight, and last but not least, for the whole organization, which invested a lot of money in this fight.”

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR