In many ways, the storylines emerging from Hard Knocks 24 took a hard turn away from the narrative of the first two fights in Estevan.
Who would have expected that only one local fighter would lose, and that it would be Derek Daku.
Who would have guessed that Daku and Devon Smith would spend the entire heavyweight title bout grappling, rather than throwing the heavy bombs and leg kicks fans have become accustomed to?
We saw Wade Baldwin and Felix Jimenez get their first wins, and a look in their eyes that said it wasn't going to slip away again.
We saw Craig Gaudry win his second fight, with the same uncharacteristic style and a third round that was mostly a breather.
We saw what is believed to be the first junior MMA fight in Saskatchewan, and we also saw the first fight ruled no contest since Hard Knocks arrived in Estevan.
And we saw Ryan Starkell, he of the 204 area code on his head, grind his way to victory in another fight that nearly ended the same way after he took an unfortunate kick to the family jewels.
With 12 fights on the card, down from an original 14 after a couple of late injuries, the event ended shortly after 11 p.m.
Getting as many guys on the card as possible is nice, but you also have to keep the crowd engaged and this card length did the trick. Let's hope Hard Knocks sticks to it.
As for the future, there are plenty of reasons for the local guys to keep going.
Daku will be looking to bounce back from his first taste of disappointment in an MMA career that started off as wildly successful as you can imagine.
Baldwin says he'd like to avenge his losses, and the more experience he gets, the better he will become - particularly on the ground, where he won this fight.
As for Jimenez, more success will come with more experience and fine-tuning, as he looked good in his first two fights despite losing.
Hard Knocks put on another excellent show in their third event in Estevan, and again did a good job of keeping the card rolling and minimizing the dead time.
But next time, how about not putting that screen in front of our press box? We have a job to do too.
Josh Lewis can be reached by phone at 634-2654, by e-mail at [email protected], on Twitter at twitter.com/joshlewis306 or on his Bruins blog at estevanmercury.ca/bruinsbanter. He is mourning the loss of Richard Dawson this week, a man who will be remembered most for his days hosting Family Feud but did his best work as Newkirk on Hogan's Heroes.
