The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

CALLING it a “dream come true” for himself and the local mixed martial arts community, Dr Kent Bazard said the Bahamas Open Martial Arts Championship reached another milestone when they hosted the first cage fighting card in the Bahamas.

The BOMAC Cage Fights 1 featured seven bouts on the card hosted at Mario’s Bowling and Entertainment Palace.

Fighters from Trinidad, Jamaica, Cayman Islands and United States competed alongside top local talent on the bout card.

Dr Bazard, organiser and Empire Mixed Martial Arts founder, from the Beast Mode Fight Team, said that he expects the appeal of cage fighting to grow in the Bahamas.

“It was a dream come true. I’ve never had the experience and I’m at the end of my fighting career so I probably never will, but I wanted to provide that experience for somebody else,” he said.

“This is just the beginning of things to come. We’ve come a very long way in the sport. I think from here on, BOMAC will have cage events at each of our events. Cage fighting will make a huge impact because it’s a little different from fighting in a ring. We want to push the sport locally.”

An eager home crowd provided support for the local fighters, many of whom fought at home for the first time in their careers.

“They were a little nervous, maybe a little hesitant in the beginning. Especially guys that were making their debut and that’s always tough to do in front of a home crowd. Bahamians are a tough crowd, we have high expectations and we expect the best from our athletes,” he said. “It is good to hear your people chanting your name, everyone around this sport knows we have never had that before, so to see that was a great experience, whether the guys won or lost at the end of the day.”

As for the growth of the sport locally, Dr Bazard said while the event was a success, it also provided a learning experience moving forward.

“For our next event, we repeat the success we had here. Most of the time the biggest challenge is a venue. We took a risk with an outdoor venue, but the venue worked out very well. There are some things we still need to work on, like elevated seating for our spectators in the rear of the venue to make viewing easier for them and a few other technical and logistical issues that can be improved,” he said. “We learned a lot of lessons from trying to produce a show on this level. I think we did well for our first time out and it can only improve from here on out.”

This event was sanctioned by the Bahamas Mixed Martial Arts Association, Florida Combative Sports, The Bahamas Wushu Sanda Association and The Bahamas Martial Arts Federation.

• SEE TUESDAY SPORTS for a full fight report and more photos of the Bahamas Open Martial Arts Championships.