Wow, now we know that if you survive being punched in the face multiple times by Mark Hunt it isn’t actually life at all, it’s undeath. Ben Rothwell ‘survived’ Hunt’s barrage of fists for fifteen minutes but by the end of the third round he was turned into a member of the walking dead, stumbling around the cage with blood on his face.
The first round had Mark Hunt keeping it standing for the most part, showing awesome take down defense (trained by the British no less) but Rothwell takes him down midway through. Hunt scrambles to his feet and then gets his own takedown and moves into side control. Hunt starts elbowing Rothwell and busts open his eye real nasty like. The two heavyweights move back onto their feet. Hunt is timing Rothwell’s shots and is looking for uppercuts.
Hunt is stuffing Rothwell through the opening of the second and then Hunt starts with kicks that buckle the legs of Big Ben. Rothwell presses forward and keeps on trying to close in but Hunt keeps escaping and circling out. They are both breathing really heavy. You can hear it. It makes me breath heavy too. The Samoan gets taken down then he gets up and gets a takedown of his own halfway through the second and works the GnP with Rothwell threatening armbars from the bottom. Hunt eventually passes into side control and drops knees to the belly and elbows to the head of Big Ben. A slow scramble happens and Hunt ends up in full mount and then transitions into an armbar as the seconds expire in the round. Duke Roufus runs into the cage and lifts Rothwell to his corner.
The third round starts with an exhausted Rothwell stumbling to the center of the cage, Hunt takes advantage and just starts laying into him, opening another cut on Ben’s battered face. Both men fall into guard but they are quickly stood up. Rothwell literally does a Frankenstein walk towards Hunt with his arms extended and blood pouring out of his face. Hunt is tired too but keeps hitting him. Hunt gets a takedown and moves into side control then the referee inexplicably breaks them up after only about 20 seconds in position. Another takedown and somehow Rothwell gets a full mount as time expires. Incredible fight. Both men are really, really tired and head to the center of the cage where Hunt is awarded the hard fought victory.
We must now begin the campaign for Barry vs Hunt.
The Walking Dead season two begins October 16th on AMC.
