OKTAGON Challenge enters the semi-finals stage, with a £25,000 contract up for grabs, who will the coaches chose to fight next?
After 5 episodes of action-packed fights and challenges, OKTAGON’s reality show enters its final stage. Episode 5 saw a break from the fights and instead pit the teams against each other in a quiz. With the winners getting to pick the semi-final bouts.
Team England emerged victorious 14-10 and won the right to pick the fights.
OKTAGON Challenge: The Semi-Finals
Bryan Lacey opened the show with the results that were on all of our minds. Who would Team England chose to fight in the semi-finals? Bryan passed over to head coach of Team England Brad Pickett who would announce the fights:
Semi-Final 1: Beau Gavin v Denis Frimpong
Semi-Final 2: George Staines v Armand Herzeg
No doubt incredible fights! Both teams believe that their fighter will come out with the all-important win. We’ll waste no time and get to what potentially is the fight of the season so far!
Beau Gavin v Denis Frimpong
The pair are certainly opposites, Denis being the outspoken and trash-talking Irishman. Whereas Beau is more of quiet and introverted but confident scouser. Fighting styles too are opposites with Denis opting to use his range and Beau preferring a closer ‘phonebox’ style fight. From whichever angle you look at it this fight is competitive in all areas.
Round 1
Beau looked immediately for Octagon control by pressing Denis against the fence and towards the outside of the mats. Denis was actively firing his jab and keeping Beau from shooting into the grappling exchanges. Denis showed again why he’s such a great fighter with his speed of kicks and punches, but he couldn’t deter Beau from coming forward, despite cutting him.
Once the fight established a rhythm in the centre of the cage both fighters were able to establish their best weapons. Beau with his short and sharp hooks and straights, and Denisx with the leg kicks and long jabs. Then in an exchange against the fence, Beau landed a number of good shots and eventually knocked Denis down with a right hook. Beau went into Denis’ guard where the Irishman was able to establish half-guard and avoid more damage.
In the last minute, the pair went back to their feet and both again started to hit their signature shots. Denis came into his own with relentless knees and kicks that at one stage looked to hurt Beau, Denis certainly finished the stronger but the story of the round was the knockdown.
Round 2
The round started very similarly to round 1. Beau closing the distance, Denis against the fence using his length to keep Beau off him. This time Denis was able to change the pace much sooner and managed to establish his feitns and stance switches. Denis continued to show the speed and creativity of his hands despite being tripped from a leg kick.
Denis kept working his jab and heeded the advice of his corner to “keep touching him.” Frimpong looked in flow, everything was landing and he was moving majestically, he landed a brilliant short elbow that opened the cut back up on Gavin. The Englishman struggled to establish his game towards the end of the round and was eating jabs consistently.
Round 3
With the fight potentially being 1-1, both fighters had everything riding on the third round, the mini arena showed its appreciation with applause as the fighters touched gloves to start the third round.
This time It was Frimpong who established the cage control early, landing the solid jab he had been for three rounds. Beau looked gassed in the first exchanges and for 2 minutes ate everything that Denis threw at him with little offence coming back. Even Beau’s corner sounded desperate with calls of “Please Beau, give it everything. We have to win this round.”
With 1 minute to go Beau secured a take down and ended up straight in Denis’ guard, Denis tied him up knowing how the fight was going and what he needed to do to try and secure the win. Brad Pickett was heard saying “We’ve gotta finish him, come on Beau.” The fight went back to the feet for the final 10 seconds, and that’s how it ended.
Shem Rock called this fight “The fight of the whole season.”
It went to the judges decision with a scorecard of 30-27, 30-27, 29-28… Find out the winner in the next episode!
You can watch the full episode here:
Featured image credits to Channel 4 Sport on YouTube
