Urijah Faber's A1 Muay Thai sells out inaugural event in Auburn

A new crowd was in Auburn on Saturday night at the Gold Country Fairgrounds, as nearly 800 martial arts fans from across the state made the trek to The Armory for the inaugural Urijah Faber A1 Muay Thai event. The 18-fight card didn't disappoint, with several bouts going the distance and leaving the crowd on their feet as they supported their fighters. "It was a great night for our first Muay Thai show. Nice crowd, great fights and a really cool location," said A1 Combat founder and president Tom Anderson. "We usually do shows at the casinos, but there was a great turnout here for a sold-out crowd so I can't complain." Anderson said A1 Combat looked at The Armory before, and with the turnout, he hopes to continue to host events at the site. "There's not a lot of venues in the whole entire Sacramento market for this size of a show, especially for combat sports," Anderson explained. "We finally pulled the trigger on it and decided to try a show up here and it was a great success." The success of the show was noticed by coaches as well. Marc Reaves has been one of the more successful coaches in the mixed martial arts community and has coached many amateur and professional fighters at the Underground Lab Fight Club and at Faber's UFC Gym location in Sacramento. Reaves coached Ermias Jones, who defeated Christopher Lao-Scott on Saturday night. "I love these events. It's really good for the fighting community and I'm glad they're doing it," Reaves said. "I definitely think it's gonna grow. I think this is a great event and we need it. We really need something like this to grow, and with Urijah Faber's name on it, that's going to help as we expand." Reaves also offered his thoughts on the crowd, saying he felt Jones fed off of their energy. Jones wasn't the only fighter to feed off the energy of the crowd. Kevin Cummings, who won the title at 154 pounds, was thankful so many people would spend their hard-earned money to support them as the fighters competed. "It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. It really is," Cummings said. "I know a lot of fans are living in tough times, paycheck to paycheck, so for somebody to take $40 out of their pocket to come see us fight and support us is a true blessing. I know a lot of my coworkers at UPS came out tonight to watch me." Among those who spent their money to watch the fights were Chris Garcia and Jesse Laura of Los Angeles, who drove up to Auburn in support of Jesse D'Lara, who defeated Daniel Torres by TKO due to an injury sustained by Torres. "I was pretty surprised for being the first Muay Thai event in town," said Garcia, who didn't know what to expect. "I was pretty surprised how big it turned out to be. I liked it, there's a lot of supporters here." The event also brought followers of A1 Combat to town such as Arturo Buitron of Fresno. Buitron found A1 Combat when it came to the Central Valley and has followed it since. When he found out about the Muay Thai event, he made a note to come and see Auburn for the first time. "I liked it a lot. There was good energy, good fighters, and it was a good show," Buitron said. "I would definitely encourage and tell people to come check out the fights. It's not typical amateur MMA, like I said, a lot of good, quality fighters." The outreach from the fight stretched far beyond the fairgrounds, as some fighters even encountered fans around the town after the event. "The crowd was awesome and so were the fans. I went to Lucky J's Pizza after the fight and I met like there's a bunch of locals from Auburn that were there," Keelan Weekes said. "They didn't even know about the fight until that day and they just wanted to have fun so they went out to support." Anderson commented on the stigma around amateur fighting events but encouraged fans that were on the fence to come out next time it is in town. "It's a family friendly event. We have kids of all ages here," Anderson said. "There are some people that I've run across that have kind of a preconceived idea about combat sports, but these are dedicated, respectful, young athletes that are focused on a particular goal and we support that." A1 Combat has another local show July 22 at Hard Rock Live in Wheatland.