Cage Warriors Academy South East 36: Report and pictures

Falco, who fights out of local powerhouse gym BKK Fighters, took a big step up in class to defend his title against Japanese star Namiki Kawahara, a veteran of Asian super-promotions ONE and Rizin.

And what followed was a close, compelling and high quality fight in front of a vocal crowd at the Charter Hall, with both men having their moments.

Charlie Falco, right, impressed despite the defeat to Japanese star Kawahara (Image: Brett King) Falco had an excellent second round, using his grappling to really push Kawahara, while the Japanese fighter was a threat on his feet throughout, throwing fast, hurtful combinations.

It was a dose of the latter which saw Falco rocked in the final minutes of the scrap, but he survived the scare and made it to the final bell, both men finishing with their faces bloodied as the crowd showed their appreciation of such high-level MMA.

Kawahara (now 9-6-2) took a deserved unanimous decision and will take the belt back to Japan, but Falco (now 6-4) can take solace from the fact he proved he can compete with an elite-level operator and veteran of some of the world's biggest shows.

Connor Hayes got back to winning ways (Image: Brett King) In the co-main event, SX MMA talent Connor Hayes got his first win as a pro, wasting little time in taking foe Robb Peters down and bludgeoning him to defeat in the very first round of their light heavyweight clash.

Hayes (1-1), who lost his pro debut against Angus Hewitt in an absolute war on the main Cage Warriors show, remains a prospect who looks poised to do big things in the sport.

Elsewhere on the card, six amateur titles were decided. The highlight for many in the crowd was Sam Hadley's remarkable points win in his European bantamweight title clash against the much more experienced Yassine El Mahdi.

Sam Hadley celebrates his European title win (Image: Brett King) In just his second trip to the cage, Hadley - who fights out of Colchester's Combat Institute - showed his trademark composure and made adjustments on the fly to out grapple and out point former 135lbs champ El Madhi, who drops to 7-3-1.

Hadley's gym-mate Christian Young came up just short in his bid to become a champ champ though, dropping a points decision to Dacre Bradley (4-2) in their bantamweight title dispute.

Christian Young, left, came up just short in his attempt to become a champ champ (Image: Brett King) Popular Aussie Young (now 5-3), will likely return to the flyweight division and look to make the first defence of that belt in short order.

BKK Fighters product Ben Edwards (5-1) suffered his first defeat and lost his welterweight title to the grapple-heavy attack of Jovan Mastorovic (3-3) in a five round points decision, while Karle Mullings moved to 4-0 as he made his second defence of his light heavyweight crown with a points win over the teak tough Guolaugar Por Einarsson (2-3).

Ben Edwards, left, lost his welterweight title and suffered his first defeat against Jovan Mastorovic (Image: Brett King) In the other two title fights, Tony di Gasparro (3-3) lifted the interim European featherweight title with a split decision win against Mehmet Maslak (4-4), but brother Tom (8-2) couldn't make it a family double as he lost a split decision to Bejamin Edozie (4-0) in their interim featherweight title scrap.

Fight of the night, for this writer at least, was the astonishing back-and-forth lightweight war between BKK Fighters man and Karate Combat star Mitchell Thorpe, and former welterweight champ Kadre Dene.

After a strong first round for the much bigger, more powerful Dene, Thorpe worked his way back into the contest and almost tapped Dene to a rear naked choke in the third round, in what would have been an extraordinary turn of events.

Mitchell Thorpe, right, and Kadre Dene put on a brilliant fight (Image: Brett King) Dene survived to take a split decision win and move to 4-3, while Thorpe suffered his first loss and dropped to 2-1. 

There were mixed fortunes for Thorpe's BKK team-mates, with bantamweights Liam Yeaman (third round RNC) and Ethan Lewis (second round TKO) both having their hands raised, while featherweight Jakub Kawiorski dropped a points loss to Sandryno Dobrin. AJ Coffey, meanwhile, shared a unanimous draw with Aggelos Antoniou. 

It was a perfect night, however for SX MMA, who saw Hayes win in the co-main and bantamweights Jack Williams (tap to strikes) and Lilian Pavalache (TKO) both win in the first round.

Indeed, Pavalache's KO of Gard Eymundsson, which came in just 32 seconds courtesy of a pair of seismic left hands, probably took knockout of the night honours.

Cage Warriors Academy returns to the Charter Hall on Saturday, December 7th.