Meet the fighters: Paul "Stella" Badhams

Paul kept smiling despite dropping the barbell on his foot

A regular face at Black Country Combat, ex-bachelor Paul likes to train as often as he can, unless he’s down the pub sinking a few stellas. However, since getting married this could all change very quickly, and his beloved glow-in-the-dark renault has already been changed to something that matches the wife's new handbag. Believed to be one of the pioneers of the camouflage shorts at BCC, Paul is hoping that his new “Corona” fight top will encourage Rob to install a mini-bar behind the cage for a between-round refreshment.

Welsh Grapple and Strike 3rd Leg

I'm in. Anyone else?

Meet the fighters: Paul "Heavyweight" Dunn

Paul was not afraid of making himself look like a complete prat

Many people have encouraged Paul to register his alter-ego with Marvel Comics, for he is "The Incredible Shrinking Man". Ex-super heavyweight fighter Paul has used his secret powers by slowly collapsing in on himself like a dying star into a borderline lightweight-welterweight. Being a superhero can be expensive, and Paul has been forced to sell his car and steal his daughter’s bike to get to training. On the mat, Paul uses his height to sneak beneath any jabs, slam people and somersault into a flying kneebar, injuring himself in the process while allowing his oponent to escape.

Meet the fighters: Kevin "The Law" Brown

Mean, lean hurting machine

He just likes hurting people! Black Country Combat’s resident copper likes to hone his career skills on the mat, pretending that everyone else is a felon resisting arrest, and getting the odd sly boot in while no one is looking. Having admitted that he just likes hitting people, Kev has been forced to take a few weeks off to calm down, pretending to have a shoulder injury as a cover story. Evenin’ all.

Meet the fighters: Paul "The Animal" Holmes

You'll be alright... I'll go easy on you

A fighter with massive muscles is famous for being a strong, but slow fighter who will easily tire after but a few minutes. Paul doesn’t know this unfortunately, and continues to flout the laws of the universe, relentlessly dominating any fight with incredible speed and strength. Paul likes to lure unsuspecting victims into his cage with reassuring phrases such as “I’m going easy tonight”, “I’m getting old” and “I’ve hurt my shoulder”, while promising to only go “50%”, which in reality means “150%”. Easily being the richest member of BCC, when not fighting Paul can be found at home buffing up his newest sports car, or pouring over the housing market to buy yet another property to add to his empire.

Meet the fighters: Roger "No name" Woodward

Roger took his school photo seriously

A fighter that has inspired many who train at BCC, who continues to be a driving force behind every win at competition, who is at the forefront of every new technique, and has helped shape Black Country Combat into a lean mean hurting machine. But enough about me, lets talk about the man with the girlie haircut. Roger has been training since 1704, first starting out in tradition Jujitsu. After gaining his black belt, he turned to fighting crime in the ghetto known as Tipton, before returning to MMA and starting Black Country Combat. Roger has had a few weeks (or months, years?) off from training, claiming to have injured his shoulder, so I can’t actually remember what his fighting style is… He was last seen heading towards McDonalds for a Big Mac and coke.

Meet the fighters: James "The Chosen One" Steele

Air guitar? Rubbish! Check out my air trumpet!

Few manage to achieve perfection in the short time that they have on this world, and I can say that I am one of those few. Handsome, intelligent, witty, athletic – these are a few of the words that people would like to use to describe me, but don’t because they think I’ll get embarrassed or something. Being the 4th longest serving member of Black Country Combat, I have managed to hone my skills on the mat to such a level, that I now have to carefully pick my sparring partners for fear of seriously injuring them. Claims of dirty fighting are completely unfounded – people just insist on head butting my elbows all the time.

Deep in the valleys boyo!

Check out the speed!

Glen gets into the swing of things... no head shots!

Great action shot of Tim

Just moments before Ant's win by "weird" armlock

Paul about to rip off a text-book armbar

Welsh Grapple and Strike - 2nd Leg



The Welsh are often angry and don’t like the English. They also seem to prefer striking and kicking to grapple, or so it seemed on Sunday 24th June, where the only grappling and ground fighting going on involved someone from the BCC team.

The high standard was set by my good self after being the 1st fight on the mat, dominating against someone who must have just squeezed into the lightweights from above. It would have been a win by triangle if only the round was but 1, maybe 2 seconds longer. My 2nd fight was much quicker, winning by armbar before the other fighter had even reached the middle to touch gloves. Job done.

Paul “kick me as much as you like I’m not gonna hit you” Dunn decided to take the interesting approach of turning into a human punch bag to tire out his opponent, even standing on one leg, before slamming the sh*t out of him and finishing on a dominating draw. However, Paul’s 2nd fight saw him win by SUBMISSION! Armbar! Result! Paul was so pleased that he treated everyone to a round of onion rings at Burger King.

Despite nearly poisoning himself on route with some “dodgy” Ginster pasties, Glen “my brain thinks its cheese” Cross managed a good performance. Both of his fights were taken wherever he wanted, ending in a draw. Unfortunately, nothing short of the total decimation of all his enemies is good enough for Glen, who is now considering taking a 6 month holiday with BJ Penn to improve his game.

Having been let out for the day by his girlfriend, Anthony “She’s spent all my money” Phillips was clearly inspired by my skills and went on to bag himself a draw and an easy win. Impressive, considering he didn’t even know if he was competing until 5 minutes before the actual fight.

Tim “5 times a week” Redfern was the only loser for BCC, being submitted by his own favourite technique! (Chicken wing? I couldn’t see the technique clearly) It was apparent that Tim wasn’t dedicated enough and needs to put in some proper training if he wants to improve, and not be such a part-time fighter. Cheers for lending your pads though!

Results

James Vs Ben Brumby (Draw)
James Vs Mark Reeks (Win – armbar 0:19)
Paul Vs Phil Jones (Draw)
Paul Vs Ritchie Jones (Win – armbar 1:54)
Anthony Vs Ben Brumby (Draw)
Anthony Vs Robert De La Cruz (Win – Weird armlock 2:17)
Tim Vs Jack Marshman (Draw, then lose – Keylock 0:51)
Glen Vs Chris Lane (Draw)
Glen Vs Joe Jones (Draw)

MMA rankings

Had a look at MMAUniverse.com, and decided to list everyone's current rankings according to the website, out of the 26,000 fighters listed. I've always thought that its best to be in the top 10,000 fighters, but thats just my opinion.

3200 Roger Woodward
4434 Paul Holmes
9761 James Steele
9766 Stephen Wildboar
9778 Kevin Brown
9783 Chris Smith
9806 Paul Dunn
12458 Radoslav Radziuk
12484 Michael Wildboar
12490 Glen Cross
12668 Paul Badhams
12691 Anthony Phillips
12704 Tabasim Riaz
12710 Dylan Fisher
12931 Craig Barnshaw
12987 Tim Redfern
13067 Nas Ahmed
14032 Dean Jones

Coming soon...

Meet the fighters!

Yes fans, the moment you've all been waiting for! Want to know what your favourite fighter's favourite technique is? How many pairs of camoflage shorts he owns? How often he trains or whether he turns up at the last minute when everyone's knackered, just so that he can beat everyone and look good? Watch this space...