Well, last night was absolutely incredible!!! Our good friend Justin Gill, although not winning his fight, had an EXCELLENT match!!! I was able to take HD video of the whole fight, you can check it out RIGHT HERE ON THE FOUNDATION'S NEW YOUTUBE PAGE! Also a very special thanks to Justin who donated his ENTIRE commission for the fight to our foundation. We are truly blessed to have friends like him in our lives.
Tom Call, Dave Terrell and David Mitchell put on quite the event last night. Amanda and I personally had never been to an MMA match of any kind before. We were absolutely blown away!!! Some of the highlights of the evening were Collin Hart brutalizing his opponent in a 46 second win, Dom 'Shonuff' Waters' decisive victory and Nate Loughran's main event win against Jaime Jara! It was a very successful night for the NorCal Fighting Alliance. I haven't seen a Santa Rosa event that packed in years. I also gained a complete and utter respect for the hard work, determination and dedication that these fighters displayed. The training that these guys go through is no joke. They were also generally very respectful of one another and exhibited a level of sportsmanship and camaraderie that is noticeably absent in most mainstream sports. So many times in the news and on talk radio I hear of showboating, narcissistic athletes with bloated salaries that are so concerned with their image that they forget that they are part of a team that only works properly when every member is focused on their part, their cog in the wheel. These fighters are a true team; even in a sport where they battle individually, you can see how close they are and how much they utilize each other for encouragement and support.
I'm sure for any of you that were there or have been following this event on Facebook, you knew about the awesome raffle that was put together for the foundation. The prizes included a beautiful Schwinn bike from The Bike Peddler in Santa Rosa, WileyX sunglasses, tickets to another MMA event coming up in Oakland, and much more. The fans were incredibly generous and the raffle tickets were darn near sold out by the middle of the event! Amanda and I were brought up by Amanda's long time friend Jessica Terrell, who was instrumental in involving Jon's foundation in this event and who we cannot thank enough for her love and support of our son, to come into the ring and pick the winning raffle ticket. We came into the ring and were introduced by, funny enough, an old soccer buddy of mine from high school, Craig Bangsberg. Craig was a first time MC of this sort of event but he did an EXCELLENT job, even leading the entire crowd in a round of 'Happy Birthday' for Jon at one point! (YOU CAN CHECK OUT A SMALL SNIPPET HERE AT OUR YOUTUBE PAGE!) As I heard many people say before, during and after the event, we couldn't believe it was Craig's first time doing this and I hope he is called on to do many more events like this, he was awesome!! We picked the winning raffle ticket and an excited gentleman ran up to the stage to get his picture taken with the lovely ring girls. After the event, we were able to shake hands with him and a few of his friends who had gone in on the tickets together and thank them for supporting our son's cause. Then the unthinkable happened...they were gathering their winnings and conferred briefly with one another, came over to Amanda and I and said that they wanted us to take all of the raffle goods and re-auction them for our son's cause in some way. We are still just stunned by this completely self-less act that these fine gentlemen engaged in. We are very proud to say that most of these items will be featured at the silent auction and raffle at the golf tournament that is being organized for Jon's foundation this September (more details on that soon!). A special thanks to those gentlemen, who we only caught first names of. We will not forget what they did and will honor the sentiment of the gesture.What a night. I can't wait until the next time I get to see these warriors in epic battle! Again, thanks to Jessica and Dave Terrell, Tom Call, David Mitchell, Justin Gill and ALL OF THE FIGHTERS, Craig Bangsberg, all of our wonderful friends and family that came out to the event to support Jon and the NorCal Fighting Alliance and ALL OF THE WONDERFUL FANS WHO BOUGHT RAFFLE TICKETS!!!!
Thank you all again and we'll be posting more pictures and videos of the night as they come our way. Have a beautiful evening!
~Jeff Martin
