It certainly wasn’t the debut at the IMMAF World Championship Corwin D’Anjou had wanted, but the Guyanese vowed to keep fighting following his second round TKO defeat to Ireland’s Adam McEnroe in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
Fighting in Cage One with all the main cameras focusing on what was the first time a Guyanese had entered the Octagon at an International Mixed Martial Arts (IMMAF) event, D’Anjou really didn’t have any answers for McEnroe from the opening horn.
McEnroe entered his contest against D’Anjou at the Jiu-Jitsu Arena in Zayed Sports City, near UFC Fight Island (Yas Island) coming off a unanimous decision victory in his sixth (amateur) Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) bout.
D’Anjou went into the Octagon looking confident and was even optimistic of success during his pre-fight interview.
He added that being the only Guyanese with some amount of experience in the MMA arena regionally, much was riding on him to do well in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) capital.
With D’Anjou being a black belt judoka and ‘jiujiteiro’, Coach Bruce Fraser watched from ringside as his prized fighter hardly posed any challenged against his counterpart from Ireland.
In fact, D’Anjou was ‘saved by the bell’ in the first round, when McEnroe was on top of him pounding away and the Guyanese having to resort to being defensive.
The Referee quickly stepped in during the early stages of the second round, when McEnroe once against had D’Anjou on the mat, rendering him incapable of returning any strike.
“I’m disappointed,” D’Anjou said after his fight.
He added, “Our game plan was the go out there, maintain dominance and take the match to the floor where I have the experience, but after the first round, being mounted, I defended myself intelligently but still ended up with the first round going to my opponent.”
“So, I came back in the second (round) where I was again taken down and suffered a TKO loss; not what I wanted. But I’ll get back home, return to training, try to correct some of my mistakes and take it from there,” D’Anjou said.
Meanwhile, the other Guyanese, Ijaz Cave will be in action on Tuesday in the Round-of-16 of the Men’s Light Heavyweight Division, when he faces off with Sweden’s Robin Enontekio.
While Cave is entering the Octagon for the very first time, Enontekio is coming off four consecutive defeats. He has one win seven MMA fights.
(Reporting by Rawle Toney in Abu Dhabi, compliments of the Guyana Mixed Martial Arts Federation and the National Sports Commission)
