“As far as I’m concerned this is the biggest thing that’s happened in my career,” said Davis, who caught the KOTC Canadian Middleweight Champion in the third round with an Anaconda Choke to earn his 14th career victory. “For me winning the King of the Cage welterweight belt is a huge accomplishment. It has great status, and I put in a lot of time to get to this point, so, it’s just everything about it. Being in the main event; fighting for the title, being in Northlands Coliseum (Rexall Place). This was without a doubt the biggest win of my career.”
Heading into the bout both Chiappe and Davis acknowledged the importance of the fight. After all, the match-up pitted one of Western Canada’s more experienced fighters in Davis, against one of the promotion’s most respected fighters in the middleweight champ Chiappe. When all was said and done the highly anticipated bout lived up to the hype.
“You could see that these guys had a tremendous amount of respect for each other, and even more so now,” KOTC Canada promoter Ken Kupsch said afterwards. “This was definitely the kind of back and forth action the fans came to see. We are very proud of both champions and congratulations to Garett Davis on a very tough and monumental win!”
“It was definitely a pretty entertaining fight,” Davis noted. “Ryan was really aggressive with his wrestling and his striking against the cage. I feel like I played it a little bit safe in the first round, attacked more in the second and in the third round; the last minute was definitely a highlight reel for sure. So yeah, watching the fight I’ve seen others that are a lot crazier, but this was definitely a very entertaining fight with a lot of skill. It definitely had a lot of entertaining moments for sure.”
While Davis has worked hard over the years to round out his skill set, the Vancouver fighter has always conceded, that his extensive jiu-jitsu background is the foundation for much of his success.
“He had just started lighting me up with maybe 30, 40 punches,” said Davis when asked to recall the fight ending choke. “I just tried to block everything; had my hands up, and with each punch I could feel him getting more tired. He dropped down for a double leg and I stuffed it; set up for the Anaconda Choke instantly. When you go for the Anaconda you don’t really go for it, unless you know you’ve got it, because you have to do the roll. Once I got the roll I knew it was just a matter of time. The warrior that he is, he wasn’t going to tap and go to sleep instead. That takes a pretty brave man to go out like that.”
Of course the “Lock Down” card featured 13 other bouts, and in a full night of action fighters like the legendary Dan Severn, Brad Stewart, Mukai Maromo, Trent Thorne, Tim Means and Devan Murray, amongst others, went home with a win.
“Dan "The Beast" Severn and Chad Olmstead certainly had the crowd going as did Dom O'Grady and Tim Means,” Kupsch said while recalling the card. “Trent Thorne had a big knock out, but I think the most excitement came from KOTC veteran Elmer Waterhen and Brad Stewart; lots of stand up action in this one for three full rounds. Fortunately, anyone who couldn't come out to the show will get a chance to see it on PPV this October. Watch kingofthecage.com and kingofthecage.ca for details.”
