Names to Listen For: Desert Edition

Roland Sarria’s Rage in the Cage 134 descended upon my home turf this past Friday, and I was among the riveted fans at Desert Diamond Casino sitting on the edge of my seat, watching local fighters kick ass and take names. I suppose “Tucson Edition” might be a more appropriate title, as I’d like to focus on three of our very own.

Freddie Lux is an amateur MMA fighter training out of Master Your MMA under veteran fighter Drew Fickett (36-13). At 137 pounds, Lux was dwarfed by his opponent Van Sanders, who stood at 149 pounds. This, however, did not stop Lux from using some extremely polished wrestling moves to take Sanders down at will–and Sanders is no slouch. Both fighters demonstrated incredible athleticism and put on quite a show. While we all know theoretically that a well-executed technique can be effective against even a highly skilled and larger opponent, seeing it demonstrated was pretty awesome. Lux won his fight by split decision, but it looked like he won all three rounds to me. Can’t wait to see what’s to come once he starts fighting pro.

Lyle Steffens (5-2) has been on my radar for quite some time. Steffens (pictured left) trains at Apex MMA under head coach Joey Rivera (2-0), featured in Josh Stein’s Names to Listen For: Undefeated (and headlining the WFFMMA fight this October).  Nicknamed Sledgehammer because he has a penchant for slamming the hell out of his opponents, Lyle Steffens easily made short order of opponent Leroy “Wolverine” Fornoff (3-5) by 1st round (2:59) knockout. This was the Sledgehammer’s first fight at middleweight, and he looked like a million bucks. More to come, I’m sure.

Last but not least, Eddie “Crazy Face” Arizmendi (11-4)  successfully defended his middleweight belt against David “the Hit Man” Hulett (3-5). Arizmendi is always a blast to watch with his unconventional fighting style. Guerilla warfare was on as Hulett succeeded in landing some takedowns and demonstrated tons of heart and a rock hard chin and took the fight all three rounds. Arizmendi landed some crazy shots out of nowhere and won by unanimous decision.

There were, of course, many other good fights that night–Andres Acuna‘s :19 knockout win over Jose Diaz,  Gracie Arizona’s Doug Moore demonstrating textbook technique against Julian Samaniego‘s street brawl, and a couple fights that rocked until unfortunately declared “no contest.” Check out the videos at rageinthecage.com.

Todd Butkowski contributed to this article.