WCL Opens Second Season

By Benjamin Lloyd Colorado Daily

The World Combat League hosted its first competition for the “Toughest City in America” on Friday at the Denver Coliseum. The four West Coast teams, the Denver Fury, Los Angeles Stars, Texas Dragons, and the Oklahoma Destroyers, battled through 24 fights in front of around 2,500 fight fans.

The WCL is in its second year behind creator and founder Martial Arts expert Chuck Norris. Norris was in attendance with a special guest, country singer Randy Travis. The World Series bound Colorado Rockies’ LaTroy Hawkins and the Denver Nuggets’ Nene were also both in attendance.

The platform for this new Mixed Martial Arts competition is a six person team consisting of five men and one woman. Each competitor fights within their weight class for a solid three minutes. Every fighter then gets a chance to rest before their second bout against either the same opponent from their weight class or an alternate.

It was an exciting opening fight between the Oklahoma Destroyers and the Los Angeles Stars. L.A.‘s Jack “Flash” Felton and Oklahoma’s Thomas “Thunderkick” Longacre showed impressive skills to kick start this high-octane evening. The L.A. Stars won the first bout jumping out to an early lead.

The women of the WCL, Oklahoma’s Jeri Sitzes and L.A.‘s Alicia Ashley, stunned the audience with high flying kicks. Their fighting techniques and ferocity with which they attacked each other was astonishing.

The last fight before half-time was one of the main events for the night as it featured L.A.‘s Raymond “Real Deal” Daniels against Ryan Madigan. Daniels taunted Madigan most of the fight as his wild Muay Thai fighting style wowed and impressed the crowd. Daniels arrogance only seemed to anger Madigan, but it was to no avail as

“The Real Deal” dominated the fight. Just as the fight was about to end Raymond landed a strong one-two punch straight to the head of his opponent sending him down to the canvas and to an eight count. “I train really hard, so it’s fun to go out there,” said Daniels of his imperial skills in the circle. “What happens in the ring is nothing compared to what I put my body through before hand.”

Later in the night, Texas’ Gia Wilson was unfortunate to have to fight against Denver home town favorite Katie Meehan. Meehan of the Fury had the crowd behind her and was working the inside of Wilson. Meehan earned two knock downs within ten seconds of each other by not allowing Wilson to have any room to throw a punch. Meehan won the fight with a decisive victory and the first for Denver.

“This air sucks, nah just kidding. I love fighting at home, but the air is a big change. I will fight wherever though,” said the Denver Fury’s Matt Callahan about being home for the opening fight.

Callahan was the lone fighter to appear in both of his fights for Denver and he was skilled enough to win them, even though he could not secure a win for his team. “It felt good I just wish the whole team could have gotten the overall win,” said Callahan when asked about winning both fights.