Special UFC Sparring Session

by: DarthMolen March 22 2007

Komikazee was invited by the UFC to a special fighter workout session at Houston Metro Fight Club owned by Saul Soliz and we want to bring you, the fans, an inside peek.

Roger Huerta, Pete Spratt, Melvin Guillard, Diego Sanchez, and Pachito Mojado (a boxer) all participated and literally sparred each other with boxing gloves in rotation for a good hour and a half. It was a unique opportunity to see fighters from different gyms spar each other outside the octagon even if it was in a friendly manner.

Diego started the boxing session out. He looked surprisingly quick and you can tell that he has been working boxing a lot. His hands are quick and his feet move with his body but he isn’t as light on his feet as the other fighters. He had the hardest time with Pete and Mojado but I can tell that he has improved his boxing skills greatly since his inept Ultimate Fighter days.

Mojado was next and Melvin was the fighter that had the hardest time with him. This was surprising since I considered Melvin a solid boxing type. Melvin kept getting hit in the body and refused to drop his weight to lower the surface area that Mojado could target. When he did hit, it was fast and hard and you can tell that Melvin has knock out power.

Roger Huerta was next and it was hard to tell with him. He wasn’t as quick on his feet as Pete Spratt but he used his angles pretty well until he gassed and then he started to just walk in on the punches. The last person he had to spar was Melvin and it was like he hit a buzzsaw. Roger had already gassed and Melvin turned up the heat and started to throw at full speed and 75% power. Roger tried to counter and did a pretty good job but he wasn’t keeping his hands up and he got nailed a lot of times. After the sparring match he had a huge blood pocket, a la Rich Franklin, underneath his left eye.

When all the sparring was done, Diego then got into the ring and did some conditioning drills that centered around his core. The guy went for nearly 30 minutes straight with no breaks. Melvin tried to jump in but even he tired and dropped out after awhile.

It was a unique opportunity to see where a couple of the fighters were in their training cycles and their boxing skills. Komikazee would like to thank Saul Soliz and the UFC for inviting us out to the press coverage for UFC 69 which will be in Houston, TX and PPV on April 7th.

Follow this link to see a full list of all the photos Komikazee took of the sparring session. The Houston Chronicle was also there and you can find video of the sparring session on their site here.