The crowd is clearly in favor of Darron Morse for this match, cheering with abandon as he entered the ring. The love seemed strong for Steve Conley as well though, and so I expected some serious noise.

Morse started in with a liver kick that Conley took advantage of to bring the fight to the ground. Somewhere in there, Morse caught Conley’s knee and worked it into a clean lock, forcing a tap.

Morse took it at :39 by submission. The crowd literally exploded from their seats. They were less excited to hear that this was Conley’s last fight since he was getting cancer surgery on Monday. Kinda took the wind out of their sails, you know?

I’m actually really looking forward to this one, as Baize needs a good win after his last Bodog Fight which saw Uscola break the guy’s face. Brant was looking really tough, however.

Joe started with a really weird takedown from the ground, obviously going for his signature ankle-lock, but failed and took ground control instead. Joe scrambled like a snake, finally snagged the ankle, and twisted like a demon. Brant slammed-out rather than tapped – a nasty fucking ankle lock that had Brant hopping one-legged around the ring moments later.

Brockmole awarded Joe the win at :53 by tap-out submission. Joe was positively jubilant.

Osbourne took a moment to talk the crowd up about Baize – and then Baize announced he’d easily beat either winner of the Overfield-Merritt match in one round. It was an old-skool callout, and the crowd loved it. Osbourne said he’d see what he could do…

“Savage” Chad George came in looking extremely confident – downright arrogant, actually, and that somewhat bolstered by the new pink swervehawk. Troyer was bouncy but more contained.

Troyer wasn’t messing around though – he slammed Chad down pretty fast and wrangled a tight side-control. Chad reversed it for a weird… I don’t know… 69 mount?

Almost immediately, Chad was looking tired, clinging to his opponent for no apparent reason and finally receiving an easy-won high guard. Troyer was having none of it and let Chad stand up.

Chad quickly achieved a fast double-leg takedown and had a half-mount for a moment, but Troyer flipped and they did the human pretzel, Troyer finally taking half-mount. Chad had things under control though, locking Troyer down against his chest. Again, Troyer volunteered to bring the fight to their feet.

Almost immediately, they crashed to the mat again and Troyer managed to deliver several strikes while George was on his hands and knees. They fell to the ground with Chad’s arm locked in a tight armlock – but the round zeroed out before Troyer could sink it.

Round 2 saw Chad pursuing the ground game with a wild toss that brought both to another close-quarters struggle on the mat. Chad seemed to have better control and eventually sunk a guillotine, but later released him, foolishly, for Troyer manager to rain down shots immediately afterwards. Troyer took control and managed to pin Chad to the ground and landed some weak body strikes. Both opponents took it easy for a moment, but Ref Sean Brockmole wasn’t having any of that.

They fell to the ground once more and Chad managed an armbar that Troyer narrowly escaped, then used it to take control. They stood and Troyer dodged a nice leg kick. Chad took Troyer to the mat very hard, shaking the Evansville Coliseum. There, Troyer managed to lock Chad’s skull in a triangle leg lock, rendering him defenseless. Troyer delivered several strikes, all of them to Chad’s ear and temple, but all were weak. The round zeroed-out soon after. I’m calling it for Troyer right now unless Chad manages something gorgeous in the third.

The final round started off with Chad kicking Troyer in the gut with little apparent damage. Again, Chad took his opponent down but almost received a painful-looking arm lock for his trouble. Chad flipped over and narrowly escaped it, showing his impressive strength. There, the two wrestled equally until Chad showed some worrying fatigue, then went still. Despite controlling the action, Troyer couldn’t land or sink anything. George struggled to the mount but lost his arm to Troyer once more at the 30 second mark. Chad escaped and began to rain down blows, but they got tangled in the ropes and Brockmole separated them.

They were stood up and Chad neatly slammed Troyer once more just as the bell rung. Matt Troyer took the win by unanimous decision at a pretty impressive point lead.

Eben wasn’t even the ring yet and already the crowd was yelling “Ooo!” in response to his unique tattoo. Mike joined moments later, himself sporting a sweet angel tattoo (I think) that I don’t remember seeing before. And so away they went, both looking extremely calm and cool. Someone nearby said they looked as if they’d just woken up.

As usual, Eben started in with his weird crouching. Eben started in first, perhaps prematurely. Brown took him down fast and seemed to control things. Eben took top position fast, then somehow got twisted around with Brown taking his back. There, they struggled for about a minute, Eben finally managing to spin but with Brown achieving full mount.

Brown delivered dozens of strikes that Eben tried to resist. Finally Brown seemed to wear him down and nailed his head to the mat. Mike Brown took the match at 3:15 in the first round due to referee stoppage. Eben was shaking his head in disappointment, and no doubt – the guy didn’t get off a single Bruce Lee kick, the likes of which were littered through his fight earlier this year with DJ Taiki.

The crowd is filing in just now for Jeff Osbourne’s seven millionth Hook ‘N Shoot event. The beer is flowing and I’ve got perfect seats – a glorious 30-degree angle on the hexagonal ring, and a Budweiser in-hand.

The night started with a special screening of Dan Hornbuckle’s match against Piotr Jakaczynski in Vancouver – special because no one’s seen this match except us office-dweebs. They’re showing it to warm the crowd up for the final event of the evening: Hornbuckle VS. Courtney Ray. Then, after some disturbingly loud pyro, we began with Eben Oroz VS. Mike Brown, one of the many fights I’ve been looking forward to all week.

Stick around – I’ll have all 14 matches written-up and posted this very evening.