Team Hammerhead fighter Robert Dean brought the crowd to its feet at a mixed martial arts events at the Caledonian gymnasium on Saturday night.
The 22-year-old freezing worker retained his International Sport Karate Association South Island light heavyweight belt when he defeated Christchurch's Shannon Dillon (27) in a re-match of last year's title fight.
Both fighters put on a clinical display of grappling and striking until Dean managed to force his submit opponent to submit late in the second round of their scheduled three-round contest.
Before the fight, Dean talked about the hard work he had been putting into his training while preparing for the fight and it certainly paid off as he wore his man down.
He landed good blows at the start of the second and finished off his dogged opponent when he wrapped his legs around Dillon's torso.
He stood and raised his arms in triumph, saluting the stands as he was engulfed by jubilant Team Hammerhead members.
Dean said he was "stoked" with his win and it felt "awesome" to reap the rewards of some very hard training before the fight.
With a fight record of six wins and two losses he is considering dropping to middleweight for his next bout.
Earlier in the night, Team Hammerhead members Kasey Koster, Chris Eden, Chase Haley and Brogan Anderson won their fights to give the Hammerheads a perfect five from five fight win.
Haley (19), who arrived from Melbourne, was particularly impressive in his first-round welterweight kickboxing stoppage of Dunedin man Vinny Lucas, fighting out of FiG gym.
The other Dunedin Club to have a perfect win ratio was Combat Sports whose two fighters, Caleb Stevens (MMA) and Blake Tomlinson (Muay Thai), won their respective bouts.
Tomlinson impressed with a unanimous points decision over Queenstown's Finbarra Long in their three-round lightweight kickboxing fight.
Nic Aretema, from Mejiro Dojo, and Hamish Te Whata, from New Zealand Fight and Fitness Academy, both won their kickboxing fight bouts.
Fight of the night went to Christchurch's Mitch Mckay for his middleweight kickboxing win over Sean Stocker, from Dunedin's New Zealand Fight and Fitness Academy.
In total there were 16 fights, with eight of those being mixed martial arts and eight kickboxing.
Dunedin fighters won nine of the fights and had an impressive eight to three win ratio when fighting opponents from other cities.
Hammerhead Promotions promoter and coach Matt Toa said he was pleased with the way his fighters had performed and with the positive feedback from the fans.
A crowd of about 800 attended Saturday's show.
