Fire and rain and fire: A night of MMA in C.R.

CEDAR RAPIDS -- Brent Stepanek was a U.S. Army Infantry staff sergeant who served in Afghanistan. so to say he is capable of facing challenges is an understatement.

"I was in the Army for seven years," he said. "When I get nervous, I start reflecting back to the worst situation I was in over there. It really calms me. Because I think if you go through that, you can go through anything."

Saturday night, Stepanek was in a situation that would make most people downright terrified. He was in a cage for a Mixed Martial Arts fight Saturday night against a successful veteran fighter, and it was in the baseball stadium in Stepanek's Cedar Rapids hometown.

Blake Breitsprecher of Waterloo came to the Iowa Challenge MMA event at Veterans Memorial Stadium with three championship belts that he displayed proudly on the stadium's concourse before the fights started.

"I'm 37-9. I really don't have nerves anymore," 23-year-old Breitsprecher said between posing for photos with fans. "I'll hang around until three fights before mine, then go put on the gloves and go. If you get nervous, you've already lost.

He left with one less belt and a TKO loss to Stepanek after their Iowa Challenge light-heavyweight championship bout. The result, a first-round TKO, was very pleasing to the crowd. It also put some salve on some hard feelings in the crowd, and among the fighters themselves.

You see, the first five bouts of the night went off as advertised, then a scheduled 15-minute intermission began. But almost as soon as the break started, a downpour plagued the festivities. In a baseball stadium, fittingly, a tarp was put over the cage floor, but not in time to beat the rain from a soaking.

The delay was about 90 minutes. The rain stopped, and event staff teamed with fighters and others to get on their knees with towels and try to absorb as much moisture as possible. In their midst, fighter Michael Glenn of Indianapolis entered the ring, did a backflip, and learned what he wanted to learn.

Glenn was one of three contestants in the four remaining bouts to withdraw when the promoter gave them that option because of the circumstances, acknowledging that the safety factor and the way a potentially slippery surface might affect their style of attacks. The three who withdrew were all out-of-towners. The Cedar Rapids fighters, getting a chance to perform at home, were angered and frustrated by their opponents' decisions.

Chris Lane of Cedar Rapids was supposed to fight Glenn, and was stomping-mad when Glenn didn't agree to fight.

"He took away from my night," Lane said.

"We're professionals. We're trained to fight anywhere, any time. It doesn't matter."

Glenn backed down from no one when defending his decision, which was greeted with derision by many in the fighters' dressing room.

"The whole audience saw me do a back flip on the canvas," Glen said. "And I slipped when I came down. So you know what that means? That you can slip by even moving. It's wet. To me, it's unprofessional.

"I'm from Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm not going to fight for the purse that they're gonna pay me in this type of condition. My name is Mike Glenn, and I do this. My record is 20-5 as a professional. So I don't really lose. I've got a winning record, so I want to keep that winning record.

"I did everything professional, I did everything on time, and I validated them by coming. I put my own gas in the car to come down here to fight. All the rest of these men running around here calling me cowards and chumps and whatever they want, that's all talk to me. Because I ain't seeing nobody come to Indianapolis.

"We came here to fight, too. But we didn't come to fight in the rain. We fight in the rain on the street. Not in a professional ring.

"If I was unprofessional, I'd be out there fighting right now, in the stands. Real fighters aren't about to fight because somebody else says something. They don't want to lose their show, so of course they're going to say fight. My whole thing is about life, prosperity and safety. I've got kids. I do this stuff because I know I'm a beast. I fear no man. I fear God, but not no human. I came here last-minute, man. So that shows that I have heart and I'm not a chicken."

If you've ever gotten in as much as one MMA match, no, you are not a chicken. Ray Hedges of Cedar Rapids had a cut over his right eye and another on the bridge of his nose after his fight that opened the night's proceedings, but got the win.

"It's nothing a little Vaseline won't handle," said Hedges, 23. He had emotional hugs of joy for all sorts of people in the stadium after the win, including the 10 young men from the Down to Fight MMA club in Hiawatha who accompanied him to the ring for the bout.

"This is the one-year anniversary of my first fight," Hedgs said. "I'm 4-3. I've always enjoyed fighting. I love the sport. This is me getting the chance to do something I've always wanted to do in life. It's a surreal feeling.

"I went to a local show in Iowa City. Me and my brother made a bet. I said I'd be able to get in a cage. One month later, I was.

"The only injury I've had was when I suffered a knockout. I'm going to take this as far as I can."

That's what these young men say. They want to take it as far as they can. Marc Tong Van of Cedar Rapids said as much after his bizarre bout.

Tong Van nailed Kevin Burke of Davenport with a flying knee to the head, and the fight was stopped after just 17 seconds. The crowd went wild because of the flurry. But the result was declared a no-contest because Tong Van was an amateur, and knees and elbows to the head aren't allowed in amateur competition.

Still, Tong Van showed nothing but happiness after the fight, and posted the following later on Facebook:

"In my mind a fight is a fight and I won anyways, so that's all that matters. That being said, I think it's time to turn it up to the level and make a move towards professional"

Immediately after the fight, the 23-year-old said "I've been active in martial arts my whole life. I'm still an amateur, looking for experience and knowledge, getting used to fighting in front of crowds, and being in there, period.  I'm trying to grow as a human being and trying to make an impact in a positive way using MMA."

Then there was Stepanek, 31 years olf and in his sixth pro fight, headlining the card. He flattened Breitsprecher in the first round and climbed to the top of the cage in glee. He is 31, and is an account executive at ARAMARK Uniform Services.

"I've got a family and a professional job," he said. "I've really, really been training hard and I want a real go at this."

"Brent's made a commitment," said Dave Scherzer, the founder of Hard Drive, an MMA training facility in Cedar Rapids. "He's giving it a real shot to see what he can do in the sport. This really was was just his first step, a localized title. From there, to be able to move up to bigger shows, better competition, tougher fighters ..."

After Stepanek's fight -- the only one of the four scheduled after intermission that went off as planned -- he was surrounded by family, friends and fans, and posed for a lot of photos with a championship belt around his waist.

"We're very proud of him," said his mother, Dana Christensen. "He's a wonderful human being."

The several hundred fans who attended got a discounted ticket-price for the next MMA show in town. That, and the result of the main event, seemed to pacify them. It's not like the rain was in anyone's control.

Besides, they got to see plenty of the physicality they came to witness. A bloody nose, a puffy eye, a few cuts and scrapes, and a knockout in the finale. Only one of the six Cedar Rapids fighters who performed got defeated. And the dreams of the winners only grew larger.