Lincoln Fight Factory in France

Once again our friends in St Lys looked after that team fantastically, nothing was to much hassle, the food was great and the fights were very well matched.

We arrived at Toulouse airport on Friday just before 12pm, but we had a long weight before the weigh in at 7pm.  The team we hungry and getting restless.  We thought we were going straight to the hotel to chill out for a few hours, but we were taken straight to a restaurant for some food.

This was great for the coaches and fans, but not so good for the fighters who were worried about weight.  Thankfully the ever prepared Shawn Burton had his scales in his suitcase and suggested that the lads check their weights before deciding if they should have some food and drink.  The lads were all well within weight and decided to have some food.  We were given lots of salad, steak and chips which went down very well with the team.

Karl Trice and Edward Bettison weighed in with their opponents, but Tom Scutt’s opponent wasn’t arriving from Paris until the Saturday night and Wiktor Gornicki was getting weighed in on the Saturday at 4pm.

Karl Trice came in at 62.7kg, Ed weighed 63.8kg and Tom tipped the scales at 69.5kg.  These weights were well within their categories, which is very good considering the big dinner they had a few hours before.

We were then given more steak and socialised with our French friends, reminiscing about the laughs they had when Shawn and Aaron came 2 years ago.

Saturday was fight night and first up was 9 year old Wiktor Gornicki against Team Tamas’  Paul Berdugo matched at 40kg.  Wiktor came in at 37.2kg and gave away weight, height and 2 years in age.  Undeterred by  any of this and just grateful to be part of the team in the international event, Wiktor knew he would have to force the pace and work on the inside against a tall, rangy kicker in Berdugo.  It was a face passed fight with Wiktor frantically to get on the inside, despite all of his best efforts the size difference played a massive role in this 2 round fight and Wiktor suffered his 3rd defeat in a row.

We have plans in place now to change Wiktor’s style and possibly bring him down in weight as due to his frame he keeps fighting taller opponents.  He is already asking when his next fight is though.

Next up was Tom Scutt, hoping to put his only defeat from Argentina behind him and get back to winning ways.  He faced Paris’ Johny Gaudin, a small, stocky fighter he had a big punch on him.  The fight was over 5 rounds at 71kg.  Tom bossed the first round, looking like he belonged in a completely different level to Gaudin.

In the second round it almost went horribly wrong for Tom as he was caught with several heavy blows from Gaudin followed big a kick to the head.  A worried corner frantically tried to calm Tom down and get him to work behind his jab and put Gaudin on the back foot which is where Tom had all his success in the first round.

Tom started to take control in the 3rd round and in the 4th almost forced a stoppage landing many unanswered punches to the body and head of Gaudin.  Fair play to the gutsy French man as he stayed in for the whole 5 rounds but at the end of the contest their was only one winner with Scutt taking his record to 10 wins and 1 loss now.

Up next was the undefeated Karl Trice against Agen’s Jean Marie Pietzak.  Not only was this Karl’s first 5 round contest, it was his first away from Lincoln and his first time abroad and the nerves were beginning to show when he came into the ring.

Pietzak looked very sharp in the opening rounds and used great ringcraft to move Trice around and land with some heavy roundhouse kicks to the head and body.

This was the pattern for the first 2 rounds, as Karl was really falling behind and saying that he was feeling tired in the corner.  Going into the 3rd round he was given very clear instructions to push Pietzak back and landed heavy shots to try and hurt the French man.

As always Karl followed the instructions to the word and really took the fight to his opponent landing rib bending body shots and forcing the referee to give Pietzak a count.  This was the same in rounds 4 and 5 as Karl really got hold of the fight.

The corner were fairly confident that Karl had done enough to take another victory back to Lincoln but the judges saw it differently and gave the decision to Pietzak.  This was a very good match and a rematch is now in negotiations for the Kickboxing Classics event on 26 October 2013 at the Lincolnshire Showground.

Last up for the English team was Wolverhampton’s Edward Bettison against the highly rated Alain Lebrun from Team Tamas in St Lys.

This was another 5 round cracker with the fight swaying one way then the other.  To be honest Lebrun was probably the busier fighter but it was Bettison landed the more meaningful shots.

After 5 greatly contested rounds Lebrun was the victor taking his record to 11-1, but Ed but in a great performance in only his 3rd kickboxing fight.

Despite the results the team conducted themselves well all weekend and they were a pleasure to corner for during the fights.  Coaches Adam Butler, Aaron Robinson and Shawn Burton are very proud of the team and would like to thank Thierry Tamas and the whole of the French team for making us feel very welcome.