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16 Feet Underground Kickboxing Review
by Simon Rogg
Well another birthday has come and gone, and as part of the celebration my brother Sean dragged me to a “top secret” event on Thursday night. I’m sure you can picture my face as I was dragged across Farringdon and Smithfield being told to look out for a NCP car park and to avoid any fliers. Well finally after two false alarms we arrive at the right underground car park to be greeted by a group of bouncers and girls in Chinese dresses thrusting free Tiger beer tokens into my hand, and then we descended deep into the belly of the car park following the loud noise of Asian Drum & Bass as my mind desperately tried to fathom what was waiting for me at the bottom. What was he taking me too? Some rave or gig in an underground car park? Tiger beer was promoting this? What the hell is going on? And then I saw the ring.
 As it turns out Tiger had decided to stage an exhibition kickboxing tournament featuring some of Britain’s top kickboxers, but with a twist: create a fight-club style atmosphere and hire Radio 1’s top Bobby Friction and Nihal to DJ for the evening. The format was simple: 8 fighters, 2x 2min rounds, 3 rounds for the final, with the ref doubling as judge. The fighters were introduced and gathered together in the ring. We were invited to pick a fighter and fill in a form, pick the winner and you could win a year’s supply of Tiger beer. Sean picked the large and mean-looking 2x Swiss champ Gerald “Ice Melter” Van Da Moosen, but I bought into the showboating of Cimac champ “Ice Cold” Audifax Kinga.
The first match of the night was between the lightest fighter in the tournament Keith “The Warrior” Morris and the boxer-turned-kickboxer Jason Derek. Despite being obviously quite advanced in years Jason was light on his feet and tried to use classic one-two combinations against his opponent, but Keith moved in and out scoring with single shots and backing Jason against the ropes. It looked as though Jason scored a knockdown late into the first but the ref called it a slip, and despite landing some good shots the decision went to the more active Keith Morris.
Next up was the Swiss champ vs. Steve “The Butcher” Mc’Aronny. Despite his movie villain appearance Da Moosen could mount little in the way of effective attacks and seemed to sway in and out of The Butcher’s attacks. Having caught his opponent off-guard Steve pressed the fight and threw some nice crowd-pleasing kicks. Things were different in the second though as Da Moosen changed his tactics and used his reach to good effect causing Steve to walk into his jab throughout, but in the end The Butcher had done enough to earn the nod from the ref. No year’s supply of beer for Sean.
Finally I got to see my pick for the evening show his stuff, and judging by the crowd’s reaction I wasn’t the only picking Ice Cold to take it but he would have to go through a very game Ross Burgess first. From the first few seconds of the round it was clear that Burgess was outclassed, Kinga danced around the ring and showboated for the crowd, but with some hard jabs, a deadly spinning kick and some quick sweeps he proved to be not just all show. Burgess fought hard but it was no contest, and Kinga would be advancing to the semis.
The last of our quarterfinals seemed like a mismatch, as the crowd could not help but comment on how young Tony Bale looked next to the shaved-head and confident smile of Steve Clay, but this turned out to be one of the toughest wars of the evening. Clay fought aggressively but every time Bale seemed in danger he managed to escape and take the fight right back to Clay. This really was a great fight to watch and although Clay’s aggression and power clinched it, Bale proved why he deserved a shot and was no pushover.
So for our first semi-final match The Warrior returned to the ring to face The Butcher. In his first fight Keith looked as though he had a tendency to just cover up and take it when in trouble, and Steve exploited this. But again Keith seemed to move well enough and land enough shots to counter Steve’s combos. Not a very popular decision but Keith got the decision and was advancing to the finals.
We were really looking forward to the second semi-final as arguably the two best fighters in the show went head-to-head. Both fighters stuck to their original tactics with Kinga getting the best of it in the first, scoring the only clean knockdown of the tournament. Clay tried to come in aggressively but for the most part Kinga countered well and constantly kept him guessing. The second was all Kinga’s as he landed much more frequently and threw some very nice combos, usually ending in that devastating spinning back kick, in the end all Clay could do was cover up giving Kinga another convincing decision.
After a short break The Warrior and Ice Cold returned to the ring for the third and final time. Despite doing well against two larger and very tough opponents, Morris just couldn’t find an answer for Kinga’s smooth hit and run tactics. With no reason to hold back and his confidence growing Kinga was soon all over Morris. Too his credit he never let up, and as we were reminded he gave up a significant amount of weight to all his opponents, but in the end the night belonged to Ice Cold who became the first Tiger beer “16 Feet Underground” Kickboxing champion.
Free entry, great atmosphere, good fights, classic kung fu movies playing on the walls, and free beer. Pay attention companies because this is how you promote a product! Given the number of people backing Ice Cold I don’t rate my chances on winning the free beer, but hats off to Tiger beer for pulling off such a good idea. This was an evening I don’t think any of those in attendance are going to forget in a hurry, did I mention there was free beer?
* Article by Simon Rogg.
* Back to This Issue's Frontpage
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