It was a great night for local fighters at the top of the bill on Cage Warriors Academy South East 37 in Colchester.
In the main event at the Charter Hall, unbeaten prodigy Mason Kinsella defended his European amateur featherweight title with a second round TKO stoppage of tough foe Jamal Azzouzi.
Kinsella, who fights out of Colchester's BKK Fighters Gym, moved to 7-0 with the win. Nicknamed 'The Wolf', it can't be long before he decides it's time to start hunting in the pro ranks.
In the co-main, popular Australian scrapper Christian Young defended his amateur flyweight title for the first time with a unanimous points win over Rajivan Somasunderam, using his trademark slick grappling and an improving striking game to get the verdict and improve his record to 6-3.
Young, who fights out of Colchester's Combat Institute, bounced back from defeat last time out when he stepped up to bantamweight to try and become a two-weight champ, losing on points to Dacre Bradley.
But gym-mate Sam Hadley scored some revenge for him here, defeating Bradley via unanimous decision to unify the amateur bantamweight crown.
Hadley's rise has been nothing short of remarkable - now 3-0, he's already wearing two title belts and can lay claim to being one of the best prospects in Europe at 135lbs.
In the other title fight on the card, juggernaut Karle Mullings defended his amateur light heavyweight crown for the third time with a second-round stoppage of the game Leyton Clark.
Force MMA's Mullings (now 5-0, 4KO) had to weather an early storm from Clark in the first round before overwhelming him with power shots in the second, forcing referee Dan Movahedi to step in as Clark looked to escape the onslaught.
Elsewhere on the card, there were good wins for more local fighters - BKK duo Ben Edwards and Danny Parker both took unanimous points verdicts in their welterweight fights.
Edwards improved to 6-1 with his win over the determined Klorenc Dedja, while Parker showed real improvement in his wrestling and grappling to even his record at 3-3 against the well-rounded James Howlett.
There was a first win in style for Combat Institute's Steve McMorris as well, as he moved to 1-3 with a first round rear naked choke finish of BKK'S AJ Coffey in a local derby fight at bantamweight.
Brentwood's SX MMA scored two wins too, with bantamweight Lilian Pavalache making it two impressive stoppages from his first two fights as he ended Daniel Azam's night in the first round.
Gym-mate Padda also stayed unbeaten, moving to 3-0 with a split decision win over Musharaf Siddeek at flyweight, despite having two points docked for a flagrant illegal kick to the head of a grounded opponent in the second round.
In other highlights, Silverbacks MMA bantamweight George Hoad (now 4-2) likely scored submission of the night honours by putting BKK's Ethan Lewis to sleep with a ninja choke in the second round of their dispute. Unusually, there were two other ninja choke finishes on the card - Force MMA's Darnell Jackson moved to 4-1 by tapping Oussama Laklit in the first round of their bantamweight scrap, while Viktor Zacharia also secured a third round win over BKK's Aidan Bailey in the same way.
While the light-heavyweight title barnburner between Mullings and Clark was certainly a contender for fight of the night, your writer plumped for the back and forth lightweight thriller between Frontline’s Gnamien Zalo and Massimo Riva of MMA Clinic Angel. Zalo emerged with his hand raised via UD after a fight which saw both men hurt and empty their fuel tanks in search of the finish.
