Combatants fight for brigade pride in post title match

By Matt Smith, Northwest Guardian

The only lights on at Soldiers Field House Wednesday, May 7 were spotlights above the octagon cage shining down on fighters of the Pride Week combatives event. Twelve combatants entered the cage with the goal of representing their brigades with a championship — six found glory, six defeat.

Jacob Grillo (145 pounds), Cody Grave (165), Adam Swift (205) and Dale Griffin (225-plus) each claimed titles for 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, and Jon Anderson (185) and Leonard Lane (225), both from 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division won the remaining championships.

Though set up in a similar manner as are many Mixed Martial Art fights, this competition had much more of a grappling/jiu-jitsu flavor to it as very few punches or kicks were exchanged while standing.

The one fight that did feature a series of devastating standing punches was the 185-pound bout courtesy of Anderson.

As soon as the bell rang Anderson was on his opponent, Christopher Laday, landing a barrage of smashing blows to the head and body that knocked him to the canvas in a hurry. Not long after the fight went to the ground, Anderson took Laday’s back and sunk in a tight rear-naked choke causing Laday to tap out midway through the first round.

“That’s just how I’ve grown up wrestling in high school and college. Intensity is what I go to, intensity and endurance. I just go out there with a mission,” said Anderson who wrestled at West Point. “The plan was to go with the ground and pound, but I started on my feet and felt comfortable and I just started swinging. It worked out; it was a good fight.”

Anderson has never had formal MMA training, but credited his training at Ranger School as well as training with other units and his wrestling background as reasons to his success.

“It helped with a lot of the mental preparation,” he said of his wrestling at the academy. “I think I had a little bit of an advantage because (I have) prepar(ed) for a big tournament (before).”

Though he showed a knack for this style of fighting, Anderson isn’t sure if he’ll pursue any type of MMA career in the future.

“We’ll see,” he said. “I’ll take it one day at a time. It’s fun, I like it. Anytime you can get into a sport where it’s you versus another opponent, you have no one to blame your mistakes on or how it turns out. It comes down to mano y mano and let the best man win and that’s the kind of stuff I like.”

The other fight featuring a plethora of punches, not to mention several powerful kicks, was the 225-pound bout between Lane and Mike Bransen.

In an attempt to give 5th Bde., 2nd Inf. Div. its fourth title of the evening, Bransen came out strong early in the first round pushing Lane around the ring with several well-placed punches to go along with his overpowering kicks. The fight eventually found its way to the ground where control of the fight went back and forth between the two combatants.

Round 2 took to the ground much earlier than the first, and while there, Lane gained control, got to the mount position and spent most of the round landing blows to Bransen’s face.

The final round mirrored the second as Lane again found his way to the mount position and proceeded to pummel Bransen until the final bell sounded. Lane was declared the winner by unanimous decision.

Lane said it was Bransen’s lack of conditioning that enabled him to control much of the second half of the fight.

“None of his prior fights had gone over two minutes so I wasn’t sure how his conditioning was,” said Lane of Bransen, “so I fought conservative, I protected myself from the kicks. My coaches told me to counter his kicks and that seemed to be working. After he caught me a couple times in the first round, I felt his conditioning started deteriorating so I knew I had a little more advantage there so I started pushing the envelope and tried to maintain side control and go to ground and pound from there.”

Lane said he has had a little MMA training prior to 3rd Brigade’s deployment in 2006, but credited his recent work as a level I and II instructor at the combatives fight house for giving him the training he needed to be victorious.

Both fighters were ecstatic to be given the opportunity to represent their teams during Pride Week doing what they do best.

Lane said he felt this particular competition helped “build competitive Soldiers with warrior ethos because some of them have never fought before and this helped get them a little bit of training that will make a difference (in the field).

“I think it’s a good program even though people get banged up a little bit,” he continued, “but it’s good training that helps the Army in general.”