UGP #1 IN THE BOOKS

Shotgun Koa celebrates his R1 KO win in Chicago.

CHICAGO — It was a wild night in the Windy City, and judging by the social media feedback, it was a commercial success. The night had nine scheduled fights with a bevy of talent from rookies to veterans, and from young and old (sorry Koa). The 9500 seat UIC Pavilion was officially sold out, which brought in an total gate number of $1.14 million. UGP #1 also raked in $900,000 in sponsorship deals thanks to Irish Whip Clothing, Firestarter Clothing, Brutal Apparel, Deathsteaks, and The Elysian Network. With earnings paid out to fighters totaling $815,000, the show netted a profit of $1.225 million. Battleground Network officials reported a dramatic increase in subscriptions weeks prior to the event, and hope to see those numbers continue to increase as UGP presses on.

The night started off with a bang, with two rookie kickboxers setting the tempo for the night. Roscoe Robinson beat Kevin Van Damne by a third round high kick KO. Simon Bishop and Kira Izumi then came out and put on a technical clinic. The two submission artists wowed the hardcore fans with their ground game, and Bishop took the victory with a second round submission via kimura. During a short intermission afterwords, field correspondent Toussaint Harper was cageside with MMA veteran Navorro Williams, who revealed he had signed a contract with UGP. He noted that he is still training and preparing for Fatherhood, but expects to return to the cage sometime in December. Back to the action, Aeron Roberts took on Cristian Bonanno. Bonanno is known as “Uccisore”, which is Italian for killer, and he lived up to it with a dominating round 2 KO. Derrick La’Bell and Ferdinand Diao ignited fireworks in the first Heavyweight bout of the night. La’Bell took the win with an impressive KO punch in the first round.

The first half of the night played out as expected, with all favored fighters from our social media polls winning their bouts. However, the tides were about to turn.

Robb Daniels vs Seth Daniels was the closest social media poll result (53%-47%, respectively), and the underdog Seth Daniels defeated Robb Daniels by TKO with a flurry of punches in the very first round. This upset set the trend for the rest of the night. In the next fight, Hanako Takeuchi completely stunned the crowd when she caught Hailey McIntyre with a devastating head kick to end the fight in just 25 seconds. After that was the second of three consecutive Cruiserweight fights when Lux Forte took on Xabier Belazco. These two went to war and came to a judge’s decision, giving the nod to Lux by a unanimous decision. The final Cruiserweight bout was the play-in headliner, with Kenzi Grey earning the victory over Kaelan Laughlin via kneebar submission at 4:50 in the third round. Some speculated that had Laughlin pushed through to the buzzer, she would have won a judge’s decision. This one looks like a potential main event rematch in the future. And with our main event of the evening, another shocking finish ended the night when the grizzled vet Shotgun Koa defeated the Chicago hometown hero Dog Face Donnie Calabrese with a haymaker KO in the first round.

The night was filled with excitement from the opening fight to the main event, and the talent deserves all of the respect for putting on such a fantastic show. During a post-fight conference, Kenzi Grey And Kaelan Laughlin were awarded Fight of the Night bonuses, while Hanako Takeuchi And Lux Forte earned Performance of the Night bonuses.