Five members of The Combat Academy travelled to Worcester to compete in the 'Fighters' British Open Submission Fighting Championships. The event attracted over 90 competitors including a strong Russian team.
Neil Preedy was looking to improve on the 4th place he had taken at last years event and he did not disappoint. In his first fight of the under 75kg category, Neil choked his opponent in less than a minute. His second fight was much tougher with Neil forcing his opponent to submit to a leg-lock towards the end of the fight. In the semi-final he faced a tough fighter from the Blaenavon MMA club and after some good exchanges from both fighters Neil forced his opponent to submit to a painful ankle-lock.
In the final Neil faced his old advisory Nigel Symonds, an accomplished Judo player with international competition experience. The pair met in the semi-finals of the event last year where Neil lost a close fought battle. Despite a valiant effort Neil was forced to submit to an arm-lock 2 minutes into the fight an so collected a hard earned silver medal
Mark Raydon has been training for only a couple of months and was competing in his first ever event. Despite this Mark secured an excellent first round victory after submitting his opponent. In his second fight Mark was forced to submit to the eventual bronze medallist.
The luck of the draw was not with Dan Buckley as he faced Commonwealth Games Judo medallist Marc O'Connor in the first fight of the under 90kg category. Despite a spirited effort Dan was forced to submit to an arm-lock 2 minutes into the fight.
Despite being outweighed by around 25kg by his opponents in the open-weight category, Chris Konieczny took his first opponent the distance narrowly losing the decision and was submitted via a choke in his second fight.
In the under 90kg category Academy coach Dave Coles defeated his first opponent with an arm-bar, in the next fight he took a referees decision to progress to the semi-final. This fight again went the distance with Dave controlling his opponent throughout the fight to take another decision.
In the final Dave was caught in a bad position early on in the fight and struggled to take control of his opponent. With only 10 seconds of the 5-minute fight remaining, it looked like his opponent was going to take the decision, however Dave secured an arm-lock and forced his opponent to submit with only 3 seconds left on the clock.
