LEWISTON — Two brothers. Two dormant championship traditions. Two mixed martial arts debuts. Two first-round knockouts.
Chris and Dave Smith have fought together, and separately, since they were 6 years old on the wrestling mats at Greater Rumford Community Center.
They’re none the worse for wear after a few years away from combat endeavors, as evidenced by quick stoppages Saturday night as part of New England Fights XVII at Androscoggin Bank Colisee.
Fighting in front of a crowd for the first time since a brief jiu-jitsu career in Florida, Chris, 28, floored Dan Meuse with a left hook 19 seconds into their 185-pound bout.
“Even after high school, I still had that passion,” Chris, who lives in Peru, said. “The cage was the natural progression for me. Like any kid growing up, you fight a little on the streets here and there. This was the next thing. You can’t really be a pro wrestler.”
Not to be outdone, Dave, 27, of Rumford, needed roughly an extra minute before slamming Ora Spratt IV to the canvas with a thunderous takedown and ending their super heavyweight scrap with a surgical series of strikes.
“We’ve always had a bit of a rivalry, but it’s all in good fun, anyway,” Dave said of the sibling relationship. “It’s nice to see that he won, and it’s a bit of a relief off my shoulders that I won, too.”
The Smiths’ twin take-outs highlighted 13 amateur confrontations on the card. Nine of them ended by first-round knockout or submission.
In the main event, Jamie Harrison (6-1) of Orange Park, Fla., by way of Windham, defeated NEF lightweight champion Bruce “Pretty Boy” Boyington (10-8) of Milford by tapout due to rear naked choke at 1:15 of the first round.
The non-title bout was scheduled to be the second defense of Boyington’s 155-pound belt, but Harrison weighed in Friday at 1.3 pounds over the division limit.
“Jamie earned that victory,” Boyington said. “I just got caught.”
Jesse Erickson (4-4) of Auburn got back to the .500 mark as a pro in authoritative fashion, knocking out Floridian Mark DeFord in the opening round.
In another amateur highlight — and the fight that drew the loudest response before, during and after — Boyington’s fiancée Randi Knowles made a successful debut with a unanimous decision victory over Alex Walker.
Chris and Dave Smith’s dominating wins continued the run of early success for Berzerkers MMA, a gym run out of GRCC by Gary Dolloff, the brothers’ former wrestling coach at Mountain Valley High School.
Their stablemate, Ryan Glover, knocked out his initial opponent 12 seconds into a February fight. Glover was scheduled to participate Saturday, but his opponent withdrew two hours before the show.
“We’ve never had anything like this around the area. There’s been boxing here and there, but MMA is just starting out,” Chris said. “I’ve been training for about a month. It was kind of short notice. Matt Peterson, the promoter, asked me if I wanted to fight. I got my training from Gary and took the fight. It was kind of my way of getting back in. I had my home crowd here. It was really something I wanted to do, and that commitment of saying ‘yes, I’ll fight’ got me training harder.”
Chris was a three-time high school state champion in wrestling. Dave took the gold twice, then suffered a torn ACL his senior year before he could complete the triple crown.
“In my opinion it would have been three consecutive,” he said. “I love this. You have to be in a similar kid of shape to box, wrestle, MMA. It’s a lot of dedication and a lot of time, but it’s great fun.”
Meuse is a purple belt in jiu-jitsu, Chris Smith said, so despite his own extensive wrestling and grappling background, boxing was his plan of attack entering the fight.
The tactic worked out more effectively than he could have imagined.
“It was a good catch. I saw him open. It didn’t look that technical or that great. I just threw a flurry because it was right there,” Chris said. “I backed up and his right hand was down. His chin was open, I saw it open, and I just threw a hook and dropped him.”
Chris trained with another brother tandem, local powerlifters Anthony and Mark Rocray, for the past six weeks in an effort to build his strength.
Despite the brothers’ extensive fighting background, Chris admitted to anxiety before opening the door to the cage.
“I did have some nerves. If you’ve ever been part of the fighting world, wrestling, jiu-jitsu, it’s just part of the human being’s reaction to feel those nerves,” he said. “It’s almost like the respect factor. You know you can’t be too cocky or confident. It’s two men training as hard as they can for that one goal.”
Dave wrestled for a year in college and dabbled in amateur boxing before work commitments took him away from it.
“No disrespect to (Spratt). I appreciate him coming out, and I respect him, but I was confident in my abilities,” the younger brother said.
In the nerves department, nobody had anything on Boyington, who said he could only watch his future wife’s bout from the safe distance of the hallway between two hockey locker rooms.
Knowles, 30, and a mother of four, sported two black eyes from a smattering of Walker’s roundhouse kicks and punches that connected.
“She bruises easily,” Boyington said. “Just from being in the gym, she walks around with black eyes all the time. It’ll look bad tomorrow, but she’ll wear it well.”
The 115-pound bodybuilder stayed in control of the high-energy fight throughout.
“It’s harder going into the ring, just before stepping into the cage. Watching Bruce, I’m always confident in him,” Knowles said. “I wanted to have fun with the fight. I felt good. I had a lot of fans out there to keep me motivated.”
In one of four amateur bouts to go the distance, Sheldon Bang of Auburn improved to 2-2 with a unanimous decision victory over Mike Crespo.
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