SATURDAY night’s Battle in the Borders event at Hawick’s town hall has been hailed a huge success, writes Gavin Gibbon.
And the fighting extravaganza will return to the town in the summer.
Event promoter and fighter Darren Johnstone said: “Battle in the Borders in my opinion was a roaring success. The support from local fans was unbelievable and was as loud as any show I’ve been to.”
While the event did well, Johnstone, who runs the Twindragons MMA Academy, couldn’t top his evening off with a victory as he went down to Matty Grant in a majority decision.
There was, however, a stunning victory for debut fighter Andrew McAuley, who defeated his bigger stand-in opponent Sam Cairns inside 20 seconds.
And there was similar joy for fellow Twindragons fighter Alex Norrie who saw off Lee Smith with a choke submission.
In the second-last fight of the night, semi-pro battler Craig Johnston had the crowd up on their feet as he got a majority decision against James Miller.
He said: “I was nervous on the day because I knew I had a lot of people coming to watch.
“My training camp went well thanks to all the guys at the Twindragons Academy and Neil Davidson’s RDAS Crossfit Gym in Selkirk.”
There was a further Twindragons victory for Jacek Kwikchlewski, while late stand-in Russell Walker battled to a technical draw against experienced boxer Kerr Rodgie in the opening fight of the evening.
In other bouts, Liam Hush lost out to Andrew Bond, Cameron Rodgie beat Stuart Davies and Decca Heggie defeated Kaseem Saleem.
And in the feature fight, British champion Andy Plimmer beat journeyman Michael Ord with a choke submission.
z Visit our website – www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk – to see video clips from the event.