It was an exciting night of fights from start to finish at Ring of Combat 29 on April 16 at the Tropicana Casino, Atlantic City, N.J. With five preliminaries and 10 main card bouts, fans paying for violence got their money's worth.

In the main event, Demetrius Richards of Elite Performance in Omaha, NE, was crowned the RoC light-heavyweight champion. Richards won by first-round TKO due to slam over RoC heavyweight champion Gian Villante, a hometown favorite, who was looking to hold two promotion belts at the same time.

The action began at the opening bell and did not let up. Both men showed power and resilience, giving as good as they received, in a well-matched and fast-paced fight. The end came when Richards slammed Villante and the Bellemore Kickboxing fighter grabbed his arm and grimaced in pain. Referee Dan Miragliotta called the fight, much to the crowd's chagrin. The severity of Villante's injury is not known at this time, but the result was announced as "TKO due to possible broken arm."

"I'll tell you what, I've never been hit that hard in my life," said Richards, sporting his new belt as the crowd booed. "You may be booing, but I've got nothing but respect for Gian."

The night's co-main event, a flyweight championship tilt between Jesse Riggleman and Louis Gaudinot, was scrapped due to a training injury Gaudinot incurred last week. Instead, Tuan Phan jumped in to face Riggleman. Phan's wrestling gave him a slight edge in a competitive first round, but Riggleman roared out of his corner for round two, catching Phan in a D'Arce choke. Phan, whom Gaudinot knocked out at Ring of Combat 28, elected to nap rather than tap. Riggleman and Gaudinot will square off for the vacant 125-lbs. title at Ring of Combat 30 on June 11.

The night's fastest stoppage belonged to welterweight Mike Medrano of the vaunted AMA Fight Club, who tapped opponent John Salgado just 1:07 into the first round. Medrano ate a right cross on his way to take down the much taller Salgado, and had to fend off a guillotine attempt. Medrano passed to side control, switched to north-south position, and locked in a deep choke to coax the tap out. Medrano has won two in a row since losing to Derek Gauthier at MFL 1 in October 2009.

If there was an award for most crowd-pleasing fight of the night, Nick Pace and Jose Adriano's bantamweight battle would have gotten it. It was a non-stop grapple-fest as Pace used superior wrestling, ground-and-pound, and cage acumen to bully Adriano on the ground and during scrambles en route to a unanimous decision win. At the end of the second round, Adriano had Pace's back and was looking for a reverse triangle, but Pace stood up and slammed Adriano with a piledriver a la Urijah Faber.

The event got off to a vicious start as Ryan Vaccaro dominated his opponent on the ground. Vaccaro wasted no time in securing a take down, and spent most of the first round in mount, raining down unanswered blows before transitioning to an armbar for the win at the end of the first round. Vaccaro, a former standout wrestler from Long Branch, N.J., improves to 3-0.

Ring of Combat is one of the east coast's longest-running and most well-respected MMA promotions. Promoter Louis Neglia, himself a world champion kickboxer and member of many martial arts halls of fame, prides himself on stocking his shows with "undiscovered but not untalented" fighters....