| Brew City Brawl Succeeds, Butterbean Doesn't |
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| Written by Paul Fladten | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 04 October 2009 14:15 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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With an aggressive marketing campaign, a good division between local talent and marquee stars, and a venue as large as the US Cellular Arena, the Brew City Brawl had an opportunity to host its show in front of an enormous crowd.
While the majority of the 12,700 seats remained unused, the promotion put on an extremely entertaining event that had the audience bouncing out of their seats for nearly four hours.
Butterbean’s Last Fight
The night’s main event featured a rematch between Harry “The Ho-Chunk Hammer” Funmaker and the well-known Butterbean. The fight had been marketed as Butterbean’s last ever boxing match.
The Milwaukee crowd rose to its feet in anticipation as the massive Alabamian lumbered towards the ring. The crowd erupted as the opening bell sounded and 600 pounds of humanity charged towards the center of the ring.
The first round, much like the entire four round fight, consisted of Butterbean resting on the ropes as Funmaker actively worked to land punches. A chant of “Ho Chunk” reigned down from the crowd as the Wisconsinite looked to take the first round.
As Butterbean made somewhat of an effort to steal the round from Funmaker in the final ten seconds, the lights around the arena went dark. The round, which Funmaker won, ended with only a few lights left shining throughout the building.
While technicians attempted to fix the lighting malfunction, Butterbean and the crowd grew impatient. Butterbean yelled, “Harry, can you see? I can see. Let’s fight.”
The second and third rounds played out similarly to the first. Butterbean proceeded to rest along the ropes for the majority of the round, and would then save up energy in attempt to knock out Funmaker with a flurry of punches. It never happened.
The fourth and final round was Butterbean’s most active and dominant. With his tenth career loss nipping at his heels, Butterbean used his looping haymakers to open a cut under his opponent’s right eye and eventually win the final round.
Unfortunately for the near 400-pounder, the final flurry was not enough to steal the victory away from Funmaker. The judges scored the fight 40-36, 39-37, and 37-39 in The Ho-Chunk Hammer’s favor. His ability to stay active and his continuous ring control gave the hometown favorite the win.
In a recent interview with Wisconsin Combat Sports, Butterbean eluded to the fact that his heart was no longer in the sport of boxing. It was evident in his split decision loss to Funmaker.
Linenfelser Vs. Ledon
In the night’s only 8 round bout, “Bazooka” Joe Linenfelser was able to defeat Ivan Ledon by unanimous decision. Linenfelser used superior conditioning and poor decisions from Ledon to secure the victory.
The bout began with Ledon outworking his opponent for the first three rounds. He was able to stay on the outside of Linenfelser and continually stick his straight left hand. However, Ledon’s increasing fatigue would eventually cost him the contest.
In the sixth round, the referee finally took a point from Ledon who had spit out his mouthpiece for the fourth time. The planned action, which he would do when Linenfelser was in control, was done in order to buy time and create rest periods during the rounds.
In rounds six, seven, and eight, Ledon spit out the mouthpiece and eventually had two points taken from his scorecard. He eventually lost due to unanimous decision, but would have won without the loss of points.
KO of the Night
Hometown favorite Matt Ellis used his speed and power to earn the WCS Knock Out of the night. In defense of his championship, Ellis used a lightning fast right hand to put his opponent Mike Krull to the canvas within the opening seconds.
Krull would eventually regain his footing, but would have been better suited to stay on down. On the restart, Ellis pounced on his opponent and knocked Krull out with a vicious right hook. The fight lasted only 34 seconds.
Fight of the Night
The most entertaining fight of the night was between Dean Peters and James Todd. The two constantly exchanged punches back and forth for the entire 12 minutes. The fight ended with both combatants visually beaten and tired. Dean Peters’ hand was eventually raised as his blood stained “Menominee Nation” shorts told the story of a beautifully violent battle.
Unfortunately for Caleb Esch, the son of Butterbean who was to make his boxing debut, his opponent failed to show after weigh-ins. His boxing debut was not to be in Milwaukee.
The Brew City Brawl and the return of Milwaukee boxing was a success. The event was well run and extremely exciting. Hopefully, this will be the first of many from Iron Fist Promotions.
HWT - Harry Funmaker def Eric "Butterbean" Esch - Split Decision 165 - Joe Linenfelser def Ivan Ledon - Unanimous Decision 149 - Dean Peters def James Todd - Unanimous Decision 146 - Matt Ellis def Mike Krull - Round 1 :34 - KO 145 - Justin Danforth def Joshua Rodriguez - Unanimous Decision 153 - Jose Juan Sanchez def Allante Davis - Round 2 1:33 - TKO 132 - Deboe William Thomas def Taide Torres - Majority Decision 148 - Mike Culbert def Antoin Elerson - Round 2 1:51 - TKO 142 - Alexander Tousignant def Harold McLeod - Round 1 1:37 - TKO
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Comments (5)
CJK
said:
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On Saturday night Iron Fist Promotions brought an exciting night of boxing action back to the city of Milwaukee; in the night’s main event, headliner Eric “Butterbean” Esch seemed ready for retirement as he lost a disinterested decision to Harry Funmaker.
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Brew City Brawl Succeeds, Butterbean Doesn't The title of this article should be changed because there was nothing that spelled success about the Brew City Brawl. The seats were empty and the fights had the making of an exhibition not an exciting night of boxing. If boxing was supposed to have returned to Milwaukee this past weekend, it should consider taking another sabatical. |
Luke Summerfield
said:
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... the crowd turn out was really light... but they were pretty into the fights... I thought they were pretty loud They could have gotten away with a 1000 person venue fine. I thought the fights were entertaining... but I don't know much about boxing, so what do I know... |
hoss
said:
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brew city brawl I think that it was a good fight and a good story. I hope they do another fight soon maybe smaller yes. But they had good fights the people seemed happy. |
BlackCowboy
said:
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Esch-Funmaker:Six-hundred sixty-five lb. of FLAB!!!!(Four-hundred-five of it by"Butterbean!!!!!") Let's see...Esch-Funmaker featured 665 lb. of PURE BLUBBER!!!!First,Butterbean,the main-and by 145 lb.,the larger culprit. To put this behemoth into proper perspective,at 5-9,224 lb.(sporting a 49'' Chest Normal,51 1/2'' Chest Expanded,43'' Waist and 19'' Biceps amongst my vitals!),I'm a big boy,yet I'm dwarfed by my 6-4,300-lb. best bud and his 5-11,275-lb.youngest brother.The three of us had a boys'; night out at "Grumpy's"-the older brother's,my pal's-apartment in October,which meant that 800 lb.of male humanity bantered over beer,nachos and pizza while viewing some of Grumpy's heavy metal concert videos.Still,I'm 180 lb. lighter than Butterbean. Now,Funmaker,a "skinny" didn't look buff,either,but I guess was probably more mobile than Esch. Finally  id the "commission"order physicals for these two behemoths lest they risk a fatal heart attack-probably Esch's,though as I've written above,Funmaker is hardly a Mr. America candidate,either?NOT!!!! |
BlackCowboy
said:
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Clara Peller would have "Found The Beef" in the third-ton Esch-Funmaker "bout." If Clara Peller,God rest her soul,were alive to see that "Big Boys' Battle," she wouldn't have had to ask,"Where's the beef?" She'd have seen a third-ton of it in those two slobbos!!!! |
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