Well, that didn’t take long…
Amateur bouts can be as fun, if not more fun, than watching professional fights. The technique isn’t nearly as good, but the fighters are hungry to show they can make it in the sport. This Saturday in Arkansas, once such amateur fighter made an impact, at a time when he really needed to.
Jordan Fowler came into this bout with an 0-3 amateur record (courtesy of Tapology.com). Another loss and it would be clear his future prospects in MMA are bleak at best. It was either get a win, or give up on his dream.
Being An Amateur Fighter
In most combat sports, fighters will compete in amateur bouts before deciding to go pro. This is usually required for a fighter to receive a licence to compete, but as we saw with CM Punk, these are not hard-and-fast rules. Punk’s being allowed to fight as a pro despite having no amateur bouts, or much training, is a controversial issue as it concerns licensing fighters.
Amateur bouts are also important for a fighter’s confidence and familiarity with the sport. There is only one way to gain experience as a mixed martial artist, and that is to fight people. Although gyms do their best, it is difficult to recreate a real MMA bout scenario in training; a fighter needs to actually fight before they truly know if they are ready to go pro.
Some fighters will only need a few amateur bouts before they feel they are ready. Others however, will require years of toiling in amateur fights. It all depends on the athlete.
Pyramid Fights
Pyramid Fights is an Arkansas based promotion, which holds events featuring both pro and amateur fighters. They ran their first even back in January, and also have a deal in place with the Fite App for live and on-demand streaming of their shows.
The people behind Pyramid Fights might want to go out of their way to say thank you to new state record holder, Jordan Fowler, for providing such a highlight-reel worthy moment on just their second show. No doubt, more fight fans from Arkansas will be checking out the promotion now that its known what kind of knockout artists are on their roster.
Jordan Fowler Sets New Arkansas State Record
Jordan Fowler may have needed a win coming into this bout, but his opponent, Dylan Goforth, was possibly more confident. With a 2-0 amateur record, Goforth may have been thinking he was already the light heavyweight amateur king of the Arkansas scene.
He’d fought, and won, at Pyramid Fights 1, submitting his opponent in the 2nd round. Things didn’t go as well for him here. Watch, as 4 seconds after the bell to start the round, Fowler turns the lights out on Goforth’s 2-fight win streak.
What a confidence boosting win this must have been for Fowler. Dropping 3 straight on the amateur circuit would have had him wondering if he was cut out for this sport. A flash knockout like this always manages to boost a fighter’s self-esteem however.
As for Goforth, he may want to reassess his future plans.
