BTC Fight Promotions got their 2022 campaign off to a strong start with their inaugural card of the year.
BTC 14 unfolded Saturday evening in London, Ont., featuring 10 professional fights, including the semi-finals of the BTC $10k bantamweight tournament.
The main event saw Adam Assenza (now 15-6) turn in an almost flawless performance, taking every round against Kazuma Maruyama (now 12-6) en route to a unanimous decision win.
Assenza has now collected five consecutive wins, each against top-tier opposition, and believes he has earned a chance to compete at the highest level.
"I feel like what's next for me after having won five in a row against tough competition is a step up away from the regional scene to the UFC," said Assenza in an interview with MMA Empire.
In the co-main event, Scott Hudson (now 13-5-1) found himself tested to the limit before earning a split decision victory over Xavier Nash (now 6-5) in a rematch from their 2018 encounter, which also went to a split decision in Hudson's favor.
Hudson admitted the bout proved tougher than anticipated, noting it was a riskier fight to take on, particularly under short notice.
"It was harder than I hoped. That guy is just a f**king machine," Hudson told MMA Empire.
"I'm glad to be on this side of the win. I fought him before and he gave me a tough fight already, and I'm at a point in my career where something like this comes up I'm the one taking all the risk because I think people expect me to beat him. I know that it's a tough fight. If I win, great, I'm supposed to win. If I lose, which is extremely possible, then it kind of looks bad on me because he's a fighter with a smaller record. I just didn't want to have to go another however many months without fighting, already coming off the longest layoff of my career."
The victory pushed Hudson's streak to six straight wins, marking one of the longest current runs on the Canadian regional circuit.
Hudson expressed his desire to keep facing the toughest competition available, regardless of whether that means the UFC or another major promotion.
"I'm in the process of hiring new management and then going over my next steps from there. Things are so weird right now with the UFC not really doing events in Canada or internationally for the most part, outside of Abu Dhabi and Las Vegas," said Hudson.
"If they were doing events in Canada, like in the past, that was a doorway for Canadian talent getting the shot and then getting signed. I kind of missed the boat on Contender Series last year, which could've been an option. Obviously, I came close to the UFC before, but after that they told me with what's going on in the world right now we're not interested in signing Scott outright at the moment, and I think that was two wins ago. So if not them, I'll maybe look to Bellator or get into PFL or something. I'm not set on fighting for a specific organization; I just want to be able to challenge myself on the world stage."
In one of the BTC $10k bantamweight tournament semi-final matchups, Vinny Dias (now 3-0) deployed a suffocating grappling assault to secure a unanimous decision over Izzudeen Atmeh (now 2-2) and move forward to the finals.
Dias expressed satisfaction with his showing and the chance to display his complete skill set.
"I think, honestly, it went pretty well. I was able to control the entire fight. I stayed pretty safe on the feet; he wasn't able to land too many shots and I actually feel like I was able to get some of my striking off a little bit, which I was happy about," Dias told MMA Empire.
"Takedowns went pretty much exactly how I thought they would be. He's going to put himself against the cage for extra balance and I was going to have to work off the cage. I still managed to get him down plenty of times, but what actually surprised me the most was his ground work. He was actually more difficult to finish than I expected. But in hindsight he probably knew what I was going to try and do and worked really hard at defending it for the last eight weeks."
Dias now awaits Izzudeen's brother, Albaraa, in the championship round. Albaraa earned a bye to the finals after his semi-final opponent, Ariel Zuniga, was unable to compete due to medical clearance issues.
Dias anticipates matching his earlier success in the wrestling and grappling exchanges against Albaraa, believing he operates at a higher level than anyone Albaraa has encountered.
"He has shown some better takedown defence, but he's also fought guys that don't know how to wrestle. I said the same thing about Izzudeen; guys that are shooting takedowns on them don't know how to wrestle. They're not wrestlers and they're still managing to get them down," Dias explained.
"The guys he's fought I just don't think are skilled enough to take down anyone worthwhile. He might be a little bit better, but I think there's levels to this and I'm a pretty damn good wrestler. I don't think he has enough time to catch up to me. I don't think he can catch up in three months."
Chris Lee Byrne, Kevin Popowick-Bastien, Jake Geauvreau, Cody Chovancek, Seth Connor, Liam Gallagher, and Gino Ghalehpardaz all walked away victorious from BTC 14 as well.
