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Show Full Contact Karate Is A Man's Game power to knock Ilulnck dow n twice. THKN IN the second round James had trouble mount: and Morley quickly moved in tor the kill. Which might hae happened, hap-pened, literately. had not the seconds from Hydi icks corner thrown in the towel. In the dressing room Md-rick Md-rick was treated for a possible broken foot. "I broke it before and thought it was healed but 1 guess not. In the first round I kicked him and he blocked it and the foot just gave. I kept on fighting but couldn't move." Hydrick said. Even with a healthy foot it would have been tough for James to have beaten this guy from Texas who remained unbeaten as a professional. Then came the featured event. Dale Cook of Tulsa and Scott Ochoa of Salt Lake City. Cook is the number one welterweight wel-terweight in the country bul the local dude gave him all he wanted. Truth of the matter is many fans booed (he close decision de-cision given to Cook. As for me I don't know how they judge a karate event so I came away thinking the Salt Lake guy w as just as good as the one from Tulsa. By DAVE WIGHAM SALT LAKE CITY Had a couple of firsts happen last Saturday. A friend called up and informed me he had a ticket tick-et for me to attend the full contact con-tact karate fight that night at the fairgrounds. HAVING NEVER seen either the coliseum or a karate fight I quickly took him up on the offer and ventured in. The fairgrounds isn't exactly exact-ly the ideal place to take that special female and ask her the big question but it struck me as the ideal place to hold a fight. Inside looked the same as 1 always al-ways pictured the 1930 s and I was informed that that was about ab-out right since it was in it's original ori-ginal state. THE RING itself was more like a trampoline with all the bounce it gave, but then maybe it was set up that way to enable these karate guys a good spring for all those kicks they get off. Hopefully when the boxing takes place there is a little less spring since one of those big guys could bounce right back up after getting drilled. Don't get this report wrong, the facilities were very clean and well kept but it was like going into a time warp machine and stepping back a couple of decades. THEN I met the main man of the night, at least he was billed as that. James Hydrick is right out of the Bruce Lee mold, which is fine with him since he idolizes the man. He runs a huge Kung Fu studio in Salt Lake City and is the guy you've see on television moving mov-ing those objects with nothing but positive thinking. Most of the experts, those wearing the karate outfits, were all concerned for James since the guy he was taking on was about 20 pounds heavier than he was. You see all these commercials about the little guy beating up the big guy w ith karate but that doesn't hold true when both the guys know karate. Truth was, most folks gave James a pat on the back for even getting into the ring with this animal from Dallas who hadn't lost a fight. BEFORE THE main event though the fans were treated to a few little sidelights. First of all James got into the ring and showed some of his stuff, right out of one of those karate movies. He had a helper, who should also get some award for courage, hold up pads while James kicked him all over the ring. He then demonstrated how high he could kick and believe be-lieve me Kareem Abdul Jabbar isn't safe. Then he tried to move an object ob-ject off the table but was unable un-able to do so indicating the lights were too hot and bothered him. "In reality the lights should be dark, that's the way it is in the Orient," he noted. THEN THREE amateur fights pitting guys from Salt Lake City against three from Tulsa got the fans going. The local lads won all three and the crowd was really jumping. Aggressiveness seemed to be the winning ingredient in these battles. Whoever went after the other guy got the upper hand. These were no full contact con-tact bouts but you still wouldn't catch this guy going for it. Then there was a couple of full contact fights, getting the crowd ready for the main event. The fans didn't want to see style and grace they wanted some knock downs and heads split. They soon got their wish as both fights ended with knockouts. Sitting at ringside ring-side I could see and feel the impact of some of these punches pun-ches and kicks. The kicks are important since each fighter must get in at least eight kicks per three minute round or he's penalized two points for every one under eight. THE ONLY thing missing was a knockout with the foot. All the fighters seemed aware of the kicks and were particularly particu-larly defensive about it. Then came the Hydrick bout, which was only put together a short time ago since no one really wanted to fight this Morley guy from Texas. Soon the fans saw why. Morley Mor-ley was all over Hydrick from the start. James tried gamely to outwit and out quick his opponent oppo-nent but Morley stocked him like a caged animal and moved in for the kill. Twice in the first round Morley cornered him against the ropes and used his I THE FIGHT was supposed to go live rounds but just prior to the bout the ring announcer informed everyone that Cook had a bad back and his trainer didn't want him to fight at all but the fighter agreed to three rounds. Ochoa got stronger in the match and common opinion opin-ion was he would have won in five. The last two events were what I expected, grace and quickness along with power. These guys were showing everything ev-erything they had in (heir arsenal. Spinning high kicks, quick front kicks, full twisting punches, straight boxing at times, jumping kicks, counter punching and out and out meanness. They weren't pulling pull-ing anything as they went lotto lot-to toe at times. IT WASN'T as barbaric as it might sound since they were all required to wear padding on their feet for protection and ten ounce boxing gloves. Well that was the card. The amateurs impressed me with their enthusiasm and a desire-to desire-to give the fans a show while the professionals were a little more concerned with their health. WALKING TO my car after the bouts I fell ready to take on the first brick I could see-across see-across two boards but as luck would have it 1 couldn't find anything like that to break. My hand is thankful for that. |