Chism TKO’s Roberts, Naville fight called off

By Adam MacDonald

VALDOSTA — For Brett Chism, Summer Heat was a night of redemption. For Kamrin Naville, Summer Heat was a night of disappointment.

Chism defeated former UFC fighter David Roberts by technical knockout four minutes into round 1 of Valdosta’s annual mixed martial arts event, held at Mathis City Auditorium Saturday night.

Chism and Roberts fought in the main event because earlier in the evening the original main event of Naville vs. Chris Thorne for the Georgia State Professional Lightweight MMA Title was canceled because Naville didn’t have up-to-date blood work.

“I’m really disappointed because I had a lot of people here that came to watch me fight,” Naville said. “I had family drive from Miami to watch and they’re stuck in a hotel because I messed up. I’m disappointed in myself more than anything.”

Naville found out he didn’t have up-to-date blood work at the Summer Heat weigh-in Friday night. Along with Valdosta Martial Arts Center owner James Corbett, he worked late Friday night and all of Saturday up to the fights to get the fight approved but couldn’t.

“As soon as we found out my blood work wasn’t good to go, we did everything we could to find a way for me to fight because I didn’t train my (rear end) off and lose 20-something pounds to come here for my blood work to be bad. It’s disappointing.”

Naville, who moved from Valdosta to Miami a couple of weeks ago hopes that the fight against Thorne can be rescheduled, maybe even for Winter Heat.

Thorne was equally disappointed and joked that he was willing to fight anybody because he was so ready to go.

With Naville out, the main event belonged to Chism, his former Valdosta High wrestling teammate. His opponent, David Roberts from Team Rampage, flew all the way from California for the fight. He probably regretted the decision.

The two fighters felt each other out for the first couple of minutes of the fight, with Roberts landing a few leg kicks and the two exchanging a couple of punches.

Then late in the first round, Chism caught Roberts with a right-hand in the back of the head, and Roberts went to the ground immediately.

“I don’t even know what I hit him with, to tell you the truth,” Chism said. “I saw him fall, and I knew I had to finish it, because I didn’t want to give him the chance of taking me to the ground.”

Chism saw his opening and followed Roberts to the ground, hammering him with punch after punch and elbow after elbow until the referee stopped the fight four minutes in.

“I wanted to keep him on his back, but he rolled over and I had to drop some elbows and hope the ref would stop it,” Chism said.

Chism didn’t think it was his best fight, but it got the bad taste out of his mouth from losing a couple of weeks after Winter Heat.

“The only thing (Roberts) got me with was a leg kick. He didn’t hit me in the face at all,” Chism said. “It was good, but it wasn’t my best. I’ll take the W.”

Chism was one of six local fighters to win and one of four fighters from VMAC to win. The other winners from VMAC that won were Shawn Snow, Brent Johnson, Tony Ritter and Kelly McCarthy. Bryce Touchton of White Tiger Martial Arts Academy also won. Shaun Gay of VMAC had his fight canceled Friday when his opponent’s car broke down and he couldn’t make the weigh-in.

McCarthy’s bout was the first fight of the night, and started Summer Heat with a bang. He and Hector Espinoza from Messiah Martial Arts battled through two rounds, and in the third round, McCarthy landed a devastating uppercut that dropped Espinoza to the floor to end the fight via technical knockout.

Ritter kept pace for VMAC with a technical knockout of Brent Simpson in the first round of the fourth fight. Simpson, who took the fight earlier in the week after Ritter’s original opponent backed out, wasn’t up for the challenge. Ritter used his long reach to hit Simpson with a flurry of punches, and Simpson backed off with a smile, knowing that he was in trouble. Ritter followed him, hit him with a flurry of punches again and the referee called the fight. Ritter accomplished his goal of finally knocking someone out.

“Man, I was ready to bust the dude up and get after it,” Ritter said. “When I kicked him in the body, I think his soul left. I’m pretty sure of it. He knew it hurt. At the end, I saw he was hurt, and I had to go after him. I don’t even know how to explain how it feels. I finally got my knockout.”

Two fights later, Johnson proved to be up to the task of handling a 6-foot-7 fighter. Johnson’s first MMA win came at Winter Heat in February in a fight that barely lasted 20 seconds. This time, he and Mark Shipley went the distance, with Johnson earning a win by unanimous decision. Johnson offset Shipley’s long reach by attacking him at the beginning of each round and dropping him to the ground, where he was too strong to be pushed off.

VMAC’s only loss of the night came in the first professional fight. Mike Proctor and Nathan Barnes exchanged punches in their heavyweight match before Proctor took Barnes to the ground and got him to submit with an arm triangle 2:14 into the first round.

Snow provided one of the best highlights of the night in his professional lightweight fight with Harris Norwood for the Professional MMA Lightweight Georgia State Title.

Snow said he was nervous for the fight because Norwood had fought 55 times in his career, but the nerves didn’t show. Thirty seconds into the fight, Snow used his patented move of jumping on his opponents back like a backpack, and strangled Norwood into submission 44 seconds into the fight.

“I have the tendency to jump on people’s backs when they turn around and go for submission,” Snow said. “When I got up under his chin, I knew it was over.”

Snow was so fired up, he ran across the ring and scaled the cage in celebration, but he dislocated his shoulder in the process and was in severe pain for a couple of minutes. He laughed about it afterwards and said the shoulder popped back into place quickly and he was fine.

Other fight results: Nick Palasi defeated Jared Davis by split decision. Mitch Gunnels defeated Brandt Clowers by rear naked choke 2:10 into the third round. Corey McMickle defeated David Stephenson by submission 44 seconds into the third round. Greg Reach defeated Larry Wall by unanimous decision. Bryce Touchton defeated Gary Promise by unanimous decision. Marco Leal defeated Jason McMillan by submission one minute into the second round. David Grant defeated Jarvis Stallings by technical knockout four minutes into the first round.

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