Hex Fight Series 8 Recap: Callan Potter, Joshua Culibao victorious in title fights

At Hex Fight Series 8 last night, Victorian stand-out Callan “The Rockstar” Potter survived an early onslaught by Sydney’s Abel Brites to claim the promotions lightweight title while Joshua Culibao defended his featherweight belt, edging opponent Jordan Cameron.

The event was held at the Melbourne Pavilion in Victoria, Australia and for the first time was telecast live on Fox Sports Australia.

In the main event, Potter entered the cage the obvious hometown favourite, to a vocal Melbourne crowd. The champion ‘Brites’ looked to be in a calm and collected demeanor in his entrance.

In the initial stages on the bout, Potter threw a heavy leg- kick which put Brites off balance and onto the canvas. Brites quickly got back to his feet and began to rush forward with a flurry of strikes. Potter reciprocated with strikes of his own. Brites secured the takedown and Potter worked back to his feet. Brites next burst forward with heavy wild punches which clipped Potter numerous times as he moved back and he continued with powerful punches onto a downed Potter. Potter remained composed, managed to weather the storm and got back to his feet.

Potter pushed Brites back against the fence, and took Brites down where he started to take control. He began to work for a rear-naked choke submission. Brites slipped out and reversed position, but Potter attacked with a triangle choke and persisted with the tight submission until Brites went unconscious.

The official stoppage came at 1:48 of the first round with the strong home-crowd erupting into UFC chants in support of Potter who remains undefeated in his last six bouts and takes his record to 14-6. Brites drops to 10-5.

In the the co-headliner of the night, Australian Top Team young gun Joshua Culibao defended his title against Adrenaline MMA’s product Jordan Cameron. The bout was a close back-and-forth battle in the stand-up. Culibao worked his jab more to keep Cameron at bay in anticipation for the takedown. Culibao looked to be very confident in his stand-up and mixed up his combinations well while on the front foot.

Cameron threw a mixed bag of powerful hooks and kicks which connected on Culibao on numerous occasions throughout the match. Cameron made his intentions known early, and constantly was active with takedowns, Culibao demonstrated great takedown defense and was able to get a few takedowns of his own. He locked up a tight rear-naked choke in the opening round but to Cameron’s credit, he found his way out of it.

Cameron finished off strongly as he looked to put on an exclamation point in the last round, but in the eyes of the judges Culibao did enough to edge out the split decision victory after five competitive rounds and in the process retained the Hex featherweight title.

After that competitive and close bout, don’t be surprised if you see these two rematch sometime down the line. With the win, Culibao remains undefeated and takes his record to 5-0. Cameron with his first loss drops to 5-1-1.

Also on the night, Judo specialist Kitt Campbell continued to show great improvement in his striking with his highlight reel KO against WA based Aldin Bates. Another rising star in Jim Crute, continued to impress and was dominant in his round one TKO victory over Nathan Reddy. Melbourne based Brazilian Rodolfo Marques looked to be on his way to a victory, but was stopped by hard hitting Kiwi Kai Kara France via a stunning KO late in the bout.

Results (Pro):

• Callan Potter def. Abel Brites via Submission (Triangle Choke), Rd 1, 1:48 – Hex lightweight title
• Joshua Culibao def. Jordan Cameron via Decision (Split) – Hex featherweight title
• Kitt Campbell def. Aldin Bates via KO (Punch), Rd 1, 2:18
• Jim Crute def. Nathan Reddy via TKO (Punches), Rd 1, 4:59
• Kaiwhare Kara France def. Rodolfo Marques via KO (Punch), Rd 3, 2:59
• Lance Ettia def. Raphael Scott via KO (Uppercut), Rd 2, 4:01
• Jack Becker def. Jesse Medina via Submission (Rear-Naked Choke), Rd 3, 1:15
• Sam Hibberd def. Raymart Quintana via Decision (Unanimous)
• Kora Maea def. Phil Ikafunga via TKO (Knee & Punches), Rd 2, 0:56
• Jack Jenkins vs. Jordan Wallace via TKO (Punches), Rd 2, 2:46
• Joshua Togo def. Anthony Barbuto via Decision (Unanimous)

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