Another great result for the Cambridge University Kickboxing Society (CUKBS) winning 6-2 against the Loughborough University Kickboxing club.  Held in Cambridge on Sunday 18 November the challenge saw a display of great skills and sportsmanship with an undisputed victory for the Cambridge team.  All bouts were 3 x 2 minutes according to the WAKO Light Continuous rules, with 1 referee and 3 judges from the Wako GB team. Here is a breakdown of the fights:

• Cenan Djenan (CUKBS, 66Kg) vs. Max Meisterman (65Kg) was an unfortunate opening bout for Cambridge; Max started very aggressively scoring several points. Cenan, already in a disadvantaged position, managed to injure his ankle by the end of the first round and was forced to stop the fight as he could not stand on the very painful foot.
• Tim Williamson (CUKBS, 68Kg) vs. Steve Millward (70Kg) was the first win for the Cambridge team; Tim, at his third fight, managed to pace himself with good combinations of both punches and kicks and simply outscored Steve.
• Daphne Tsalli (CUKBS, 60Kg) vs. Daniela Bright (58Kg): Daphne, strong of her footwork and boxing skills, managed to spot a few weaknesses in Daniela’s guard, particularly at short range fight and secured the second victory for CUKBS.
• Charlie Samson (CUKBS, 67Kg) vs. Zen Lee (70Kg): here we saw Zen immediately showing great skills and broad variety of good punches and kick that was quite obviously outscoring Charlie, who was at his first fight.  The fight managed however  to be well controlled and finished with a clear win for Zen bringing the second and last victory for Loughborough.
• Samuel Dahan (CUKBS, 72Kg) vs. Andrew Smith (68Kg): this was a debut fight in kickboxing for two very experienced Tae Kwon Do (TKD) practitioners.  Samuel is 1st dan black belt in TKD, with over 10 years experience; Andrew is 2nd Dan in the same discipline so we expected a fight mostly based on kicks.   By the end of the first round it was pretty obvious that Andrew was not handling well pressure from punches so Samuel adjusted his strategy and managed to dominate his opponent with a close range strategy.  Being Tao Kwon Do a full time sport this bout attracted many warning and a near disqualification for excess of contact.
• Ollie Osunkunle (CUKBS, 87Kg) vs. Rhys Morris: a very well matched bout with both fighters having similar weight and experience.  Ollie managed to dominate Rhys with very effective footwork, control of the ring area and good combinations of punches and kicks.
• Alex Kaus (CUKBS, 77Kg) vs. Christopher Radcliffe (75Kg): in this bout we saw at the beginning Christopher landing quite a few punches through Alex’s guard.  At the same time it was obvious that Alex’s kick would land and score points most times so changing strategy toward a long range fight helped Alex to secure the match point.
• Konstantin Semeniuk (CUKBS, 83Kg) vs. Martin Morgan (78Kg); another fight between athletes with over 10 years of experience.  Martin had a very aggressive start charging Konstantin and pushing him around the ring.  Within a few tens of second Konstantin started to ramp up his pace putting together some of his super fast combinations with double kicks from the same leg.  Then, in a blink of a eye, he threw a very controlled right hook that hit Martin in the right (or shall we say wrong) spot on his jaw, putting him KO.  The referee declared Martin unable to continue the fight and confirmed the final victory for Cambridge setting the score to 6-2.

Once more CUKBS, coached by CARISMA’s team of instructors and coaches, has gained another victory against a fellow university club, displaying a clear technical expertise and in depth preparation.  More pictures of the fight (courtesy and copyright of Duncan Grisby) are available at this page.  Videos of the bouts will be available soon.