Two Sweet Home fighters won their fights and another lost Saturday night at Capital City Cage Fights in Salem.
Shorty Weikel, 10-2, won by unanimous decision after going three rounds with Even Lux, 5-2, of Team Spartan at 155 pounds.
At 205 pounds, Eli Pauls, 3-2, defeated Bo Ferrion, 0-1, of Valor by technical knockout at the end of the second round.
At 170, Brandon Nunn, 1-1, tapped out against John Constien of Valor 2:29 into the second round after Constien put an arm bar on Nunn.
The battle between Weikel and Lux raged back and forth in standup and on the ground, with Weikel constantly turning bad situations around and winning the upper hand.
“I suck at Jujitsu honestly,” he said. “He’s got better Jujitsu than I do.”
Weikel’s game was to stand up and go to the ground if necessary then to “make my presence known on the ground,” he said. He needed to win at least two rounds to win the match. He believes he won all three.
Lux “gassed” a little earlier than Weikel did, Weikel said. Endurance was a key in the fight.
“You want to make your opponent not want to fight you,” Weikel said, and he did a lot of that, forcing Lux to back off several times. At the end of the third round, Lux backed off, and Weikel followed him with up kicks from the ground before getting up and going after a tired and battered Lux.
Pauls went after Ferrion quickly with a flurry of punches. Ferrion took the game to the ground, but Pauls hands were open to pummel Ferrion in the side. Tied up on the ground later in the second round, the ref stood the fighters up.
As the two touched gloves, Ferrion sneaked a kick to the right side of Pauls’ face and sealing his own loss as an angry,
determined Pauls blasted him into the cage. Pressing his attack, Pauls followed Ferrion to the ground. Tied up, the ref stood the two up again, and an exhausted Ferrion threw a weak kick in Pauls’ direction again.
Pauls ended the round relentlessly firing punches at Ferrion, who was covering up his head.
“That kick,” Pauls said. “I thought I was going to drop. I thought I was going to go down when I saw his shin coming. It was a good fight, a good fighter. He gassed out sooner than I did.”
Pauls thought he had the match about halfway through the first round, he said.
After the kick and a dominating performance putting Ferrion on the ground, Pauls still wasn’t sure he had the match, with the energy it takes to keep hitting like that.
“When I had him on the ground, I didn’t think I was going to make it,” Pauls said.
In Nunn’s match, Constien quickly had him on the ground where Nunn was weaker.
“I was hoping he’d want to stand up and bring it,” Nunn said. “I’m not really a wrestler. He’s a great wrestler.”
Constien shot in on Nunn’s legs to put it on the ground, and he kept it there through most of the match.
Nunn sustained one punishing blow after another, but it didn’t faze him much, he said. “I love getting hit. I love pain. He finally got me in an arm bar. I’ll never tap for hitting.”
Nunn said he is planning to work on his ground game some more as he prepares for the Oct. 24 fights in Corvallis.