Fight night returns to Juneau after five years with a 10-count of boxing and MMA bouts

After waiting five years to return to AK Beatdown 36 as part of the main event on a 10-bout night, longtime Ketchikan fighter Tyson Duckworth sat down on the floor of his corner after entering the ring. It was his way of joining shouted demands from the crowd the boxing match be extended to five two-minute rounds instead of the scheduled three rounds.

His opponent, Marco Reina of Juneau, was game. And so it officially was, just like that.

Not that it ultimately made much difference.

Reina won the first three rounds on the judges’ scorecards, making Duckworth’s sitting protest a wise one in theory since it still gave him a chance to prevail with a knockout in either of the final two rounds. But Reina kept the upper hand during those extra rounds and got an easy decision, ending an evening that featured 10 boxing and MMA bouts by fighters of varying abilities witnessed by a sellout crowd of about 400 people.

“I heard we were only doing three, but I trained for five and — as you just saw — I finished the five,” Reina said afterward.

For Reina, 24, it was a chance to go against someone he’s been watching since he was 12 years old and Duckworth was in the prime of his three decades as a fighter. But the younger fighter also has experience himself, including a previous victory in the last AK Beatdown in 2019 when he raised his record to 3-1 before the multiyear interruption.

Reina isn’t planning on waiting nearly as long for his next fight.

“I’m going to Anchorage next week and I’m getting another fight — a Thursday Night Fights at a different boxing promotion that they have up north,” he said.

The return of AK Beatdown featured six MMA bouts and four boxing matches in the octagon ring surrounded by a chain link fence to protect the crowd — from the MMA fighters in particular who often crashed up against the fence as they sought to bring opponents down and pin them by whatever means possible.

The five-year interval was because Jamiann S’eiltin, who organized and was the announcer at Saturday’s event, said back in 2019 “I needed to focus on my culture. I needed to step away from this arena, and I needed to focus on me and my healing.” But she said she started fighting at the age of 13 after “hanging out at the teen center and a couple of people were pushing me around,” and since this year she turned “13 in leap years” it felt appropriate to revive the event.

Finding fighters, referees and judges was easy since most of those taking part Saturday were known to organizers and have expressed interest in returning, S’eiltin said.

The evening began with an introduction of the fighters, who gathered around the inside perimeter of the ring for a “standing-10” count in tribute to Clifford “Weezy” White, a former AK Beatdown participant who was reported missing in October of 2021 and whose body was found in the Mendenhall Wetlands in March of 2022.

Five MMA bouts started off the night featuring a wide range of bodies and levels of talent. At the light end was Michael Friedricks, a 147-pound Juneau resident, who emerged the victor in a battle against 150-pound Brian McFadden of New Orleans that went for the full three two-minute rounds and saw both men too weary to engage each other in the closing moments.

Friedricks, while in great pain afterward, said he wants to return to the ring, although “maybe I’ll do more training.”

“I didn’t train at all,” he said. “That’s just learning from the experience.”

At the other extreme was the following faceoff between 254-pound Damian Trujillo of Roy, Utah, and 238-pound Colin Rose of Douglas. The match lasted only 15 seconds as Trujillo almost immediately bodyslammed Rose to the mat in what turned out to be the hardest blow of the night.

Subsequent boxing matches featured a mix of brutality and finesse. The heavyweight event of the night led off as 342-pound James “The Beast” Roberts of Klawock defeated 277-pound Eric “Smash” Ashenfelter of Kake after the latter declined to come out after the bell for the third and final round.

Roberts said he’s been waiting for another chance to fight since the last AK Beatdown, but even though he only spent a couple months training for this one he felt he had “way better cardio” that helped fuel his win.

“I always wanted to be a wrestler, a professional wrestler, but I don’t have the chops and I’m not much of a talker,” he said afterward. “So I figured next best thing is boxing and MMA.”

Michael Busby of Juneau continued fighting in a subsequent MMA bout despite a seriously bloodied face, representing something of a triumph despite losing a decision to Terrence Wheat of Juneau. Another Juneau resident, 214-pound Maake Maake, defeated 202-pound Hoonah resident Kolbjorn Skaflestad in a unanimous boxing decision in the co-main event that was the penultimate bout of the night.

For Maake, who said afterward he’s self-trained and last competed in an out-of-town event in March, it was another step toward what he hopes will be a professional boxing career.

“I wasn’t really looking for a knockout on this one,” he said afterward. “I was just playing play smart and I know he’s got power. He’s a good fighter. I know he’s got the belt in MMA so it wasn’t just no walk in the park. But it was a good fight.”

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.

Results of AK Beatdown 36

• Landon Smallwood (157 lbs.) defeated Randy Churchill (154 lbs.) of Wrangell in MMA.

• Scott Haas (191 lbs.) of Juneau defeated Duncan Meyer (212 lbs.) of Nowthen, Minnesota, in MMA.

• Colin Jack (148 lbs.) of Hoonah defeated Thomas James (152 lbs.) of Klawock in MMA.

• Michael Friedricks (147 lbs.) of Juneau defeated Brian McFadden (150 lbs.) of New Orleans in MMA.

• Damian Trujillo (254 lbs.) of Roy, Utah, defeated Colin Rose (238 lbs.) of Douglas in MMA.

• James Roberts (342 lbs.) of Klawock defeated Eric Ashenfelter (277 lbs.) of Kake in boxing.

• Nickolas Daniels (178 lbs.) of Juneau defeated Seth Elisoff (159 lbs.) of Juneau in boxing.

• Terrence Wheat (159 lbs.) of Juneau defeated Michael Busby (157 lbs.) of Juneau in MMA.

• Maake Maake (214 lbs.) of Juneau defeated Kolbjorn Skafelstad (202 lbs.) of Hoonah in boxing.

• Marco Reina (176 lbs.) of Juneau defeated Tyson Duckworth (176 lbs.) of Ketchikan in boxing.