RSS

E-mail

Twitter

Facebook

Tumblr

Local MMA fighter makes professional debut

By Paul Tambasco
News Editor

Mixed martial artist Billy “The Freak” Dowey is a joker outside the cage.

Carolina Fight Promotions owner Doug Muhle, left, and special guest Royce Gracie, right, give Billy Dowey credit for having the night’s best professional fight. KEN HALL, KENHALLPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

Before a recent on-camera interview with a local television reporter, Dowey showed his funny side, horsing around at a local fitness center. With his blue eyes wide and tattooed torso in full display, he made funny faces with a young girl on the set, taking a break from training a day before fighting in front of a hometown crowd of thousands at the RBC Center Saturday, Oct. 24.

When the jiu-jitsu black belt gets in the ring, however, he’s all business.

“He can afford to be funny because you don’t want to see him when he’s serious,” said Doug Muhle, the promoter of Carolina Crown II, Saturday night’s MMA ticket, which featured Dowey in his professional debut. Muhle recruited Dowey because of his phenomenal jiu-jitsu skills and his popularity in the local MMA scene.

Dowey, who lives near Garner, is not new to MMA fights; he won all but one of seven amateur bouts before leaving the circuit to focus on teaching the discipline to soldiers and young students.

His match Saturday, however, was his first in six years. When the reporter asked about returning against Jerry Spiegel, a New York City brawler with more than 40 professional fights, Dowey responded with a shrug, a show of overconfidence and uncertainty.

“He’s not as good as me,” he told the reporter. “But I haven’t done this in a while, so it’s up to me not to freeze.”

Dowey understands that anything can happen inside the cage.

The fight

On a card with 15 other bouts, Dowey’s match turned into the most exciting of the night. Fighting in front of his instructor, Brazilian jiu-jitsu legend Royce Gracie, Dowey withstood enormous physical punishment to reach the scorecards.

Read the Q & A with Royce Gracie

Watch a slideshow of pictures from the fight

Spiegel, however, won a split decision after three rounds. Disappointed by the outcome, Dowey still managed to enjoy his return to the ring.

“I forgot how much fun it was,” he said afterwards, his left eye black and swollen.

Dowey has a different taste for fun than the average citizen. He trained intensely for two months, dropping 35 pounds to fight at 185 pounds — an exacting process that ran until the night before the fight. Like many matches, Dowey’s contest featured submission holds, kicks and punches to various areas of the body, including at least one strike to the groin.

Though he prepared for the big crowd of a professional fight, Dowey said fighting in front of his mentor and a large local crowd unnerved him.

“The second I got in the ring, I lost all of my energy,” Dowey said.

Nevertheless, Dowey controlled the fight early, dominating on the ground and landing a flurry of elbows, knees and punches. He seemed primed to end the contest late in the first after gaining position atop Spiegel. But the referee pulled Dowey off and stood both fighters up. The break drew boos from the crowd; Dowey downplayed its impact.

“If my nerves didn’t have me, I would have finished him in the first,” he said.

In the second, Dowey appeared to tire but continued attacking Spiegel, who looked to be biding his time. From ringside, Dowey’s supporters implored him to slow the pace and take the fight to the mat.

“We’re breathing, Freak,” friend and Team ROC training partner Jason Culbreth said to Dowey.

Dowey said he was focused on Spiegel and didn’t hear the crowd. He also was knocked out at some point during the round and forgets much of what happened.

“I just remember getting woken up with another punch and thinking to myself, ‘This isn’t good,’” Dowey said. He doesn’t remember the third round at all.

By then, ring rust had made him vulnerable to Spiegel’s heavy strikes and turned the bout into the evening’s most brutal. Spiegel worked on Dowey’s legs with kicks and struck him in the face with greater frequency. By the end of the match, Spiegel opened a deep gash on Dowey’s forehead. Both fighters left the ring covered in blood.

Immediately afterward, Dowey, still concussed, was indifferent to the blood loss, remembering the sound of it dribbling onto his opponent’s face.

“It went da dunk, da dunk, da dunk,” he said.

Dowey’s teacher said the first round went perfectly and Dowey simply ran out of gas. He applauded his pupil’s toughness.

“He showed a lot of heart,” Gracie said. “Ninety-nine percent of people would have quit instead of taking that beating.”

Getting back to normal

All stitched up a day later, Dowey insists fighting was worth the blood and bruises.

“I look like hell, but I don’t feel too bad,” he said.

He was paid well for the fight, he said. The fight also reinforced that he needs to add more boxing to his repertoire. He plans to return to the cage soon, perhaps in the next three months.

In the coming weeks, though, he is focused on getting back to normal life: joking around and eating again.

“I just want to try and get fat and happy again,” he said.

He didn’t expect to lose Saturday, but that unpredictability is what makes the sport so addictive, he said.

“Once you get in there, anything can happen. You can take the greatest fighter in the world, put him against a bum, and the bum may very well win.”

Related articles:

• Photos: Billy Dowey meets his match at Carolina Crown
• Quick Q&A with UFC Hall of Famer Royce Gracie

 Print This

Leave a Reply

We believe that reader interaction is a valuable feature on our website and aim to foster an online community that is enriching, robust and respectful. We reserve the right to remove any comment that contains profanity or obscenity; is an advertisement for services or a solicitation of funds; contains a personal attack or a threat; or is unrelated to the story.