Aaron Meisner vs Marcus Ajian, Locked in the Cage 2
Philadelphia’s Aaron Meisner started 2010 on a very rocky road. His last win was over two years ago, and since then he lost his first round bout against Brandon Sene in UFC‘s The Ultimate Fighter: Season 7, and after a year off lost back to back fights on home turf in 2009. Losses to Costa Phillipou and Leo Pecanha had exposed weaknesses in Meisner’s ground game. Entering the new calendar year, Aaron had two bouts on his schedule in a one month stretch, starting at Locked in the Cage against submission specialist Marcus Ajian. When Aaron missed weight and admitted to not being too upset, it looked like more of the same was in store for one of Philadelphia’s most popular fighters.
But, it took Aaron 94 seconds to set the record straight. After focusing on his ground game with Team Balance under the instruction of Renzo Gracie black belt Phil Migliarese, Aaron shut the mouths of his critics.
Marcus Ajian wanted no part of Aaron’s stand-up, and chose to shoot for an immediate takedown. The shot was stuffed by textbook sprawl and landed the two in a neutral position on the ground that lead to the seated kimura attempt (shown above). Finding no joy with this submission predicament, Meisner moved on and continued to maintain a dominant position on a very seasoned grappler.
It wasn’t long before Ajian gave up his neck and Aaron started to lock in a guillotine earning the submission victory at 1:34 of the first round. More importantly, Aaron broke his twenty-seven month long shnide and did so against a ground fighter. With four fights in the first quarter of 2010, a win against Ajian started the momentum.
A month later Meisner was back in action in Philly. For an undercard bout for Matrix Fights — which is co-owned, coincidentally enough, by his jiu-jitsu coach, Phil Migliarese. This time Virginia’s Francois Ambang stood in the pocket with Aaron for 15 minutes. In this striker’s delight fight neither fighter wanted to take the fight to the ground. Ambang did shoot for takedowns, but they were defensive shots, an attempt to get out of the way of Meisner’s hands and shins. Again, though, Aaron’s ground defense was strong, and he stood up most of the attempts. Despite getting knocked down three times during the fight, Meisner did quite a bit of damage himself and earned a decision victory.
But it was the Locked in the Cage tilt with Ajian which was Aaron’s Come to Jesus fight. Starting 2010 with a win kept Aaron above .500 on his pro career, and launched a very active 2010 on the right foot. Doing so with a guillotine showed us all his much improved ground game and erased memories of a tough first round loss to Leo Pecahna back in October.
Aaron Meisner will midcard on the inaugural Xtreme Fight show on March 27th (opponent TBD) and on the next Ring of Combat against George Sullivan on April 16th.
Below is an interview I did with Aaron after weigh-ins for Locked in the Cage 2.
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