EFL "Before and After" Images and Contest

As you can imagine February 16th was an interesting evening. I went into this self assigned project with a few simple goals (the most important being to avoid any bodily harm at the hands of a disgruntled fighter). I have watched a little bit of MMA (stands for Mixed Martial Arts if you didn't know) on television but had no idea of what to expect from a local amateur league in Kansas City.

I was surprised by a number of things, mostly the fighters themselves. As you will see from the series of images the fighters came in all sizes and ethnic backgrounds as did the crowd. I was even more surprised how generally friendly the fighters were to each other after the fights. Literally seconds after trying to cause major physical harm to each other many of the fighters were hugging and congratulating each other after the fight. That was unexpected and cool all at the same time.

I also thought based on the time I would have with the fighters before their matches that I might be able to pick the winners. Lets just say I have no future as a MMA fight handicapper. I was wrong on half of the matches.

I thought it would be interesting to see if the readers of this blog could have a little more luck predicting the winners of the matches just by looking at the "before" images (heck you have a 50/50 shot). Starting on Thursday, May 15th I will post the "before" image of the fighters from the first fight and ask everyone to guess the winner in the comments section. On Friday I will post the "after" image with the results of the fight. The following day I will post the "before" image of the second fight and continue the pattern until we get through the entire series (which is fourteen fights by the way).

And to keep things interesting, whoever correctly guesses the highest number of matches I will send a "11 x 14" print of their choice from the series (or if preferred another image from my archive).

So if you want to compete for the prize you will have to check back at least every other day to make your guess. Should be fun.

One minor note...I didn't get a chance to shoot everyone (particularly after the fights) some refused to be photographed and a few were receiving medical attention. All in all I shot 28 total fighters before their fights and 20 afterwards. Should make for an interesting couple weeks of posts.