XTreme Combat AAR

The Xtreme Combat Weekend was an enormous success.  There was over 400 players and spectators during the 3 day event.  Players and spectators had many opportunities to play paintball with Randy Couture as well as Alex Schoenauer, Ryan Couture and Martin Kampmann.  They also were able to take pictures, talk to, and get all the autographs they wanted from these MMA Superstars.

A couple of the many highlights at A Pirates Paradise Paintball Complex were the Randy vs. Ryan Couture “High Noon” old school western duel as well as the nearly $30,000 in paintball and MMA product raffle.  Some items that were donated were a Planet Eclipse Ego and Geo, Dangerous Powers G3, Kingman pistol packages, Spyder markers, new Special Ops Fusion X jerseys and UWL Event Free Entries just to name a few.  The raffle tickets ranged from $1 to $10 depending on which group of products the buyers wanted to have a chance at winning.  We also had a Randy Couture autographed glove from one of his previous fights.  Just to give you an idea of how much product we had for the raffle, it took us nearly an hour to give out everything.

As for the Randy vs. Ryan Couture duel, this stemmed from a previous incident that occurred during our event photo shoot in July of this year.  During the shoot, Randy was messing around and shot Ryan in the stomach from about 3 feet away.  It was an accident but Ryan, in fun, vowed to get his dad back.  So when Kingman offered the pistol rental program to A Pirates Paradise, which is on the new 43cal. Pistols, Ryan saw a perfect opportunity to get his revenge.  The duel was witnessed by everyone at the field and occurred at “High Noon” on Saturday.  During the duel Randy was splattered with paint by Ryan as well as shot in the goggles by a sniper in the bushes, that Ryan had setup for the dual as well.  It was all in good fun and father and son had a big hug for each other after the dual.  Only after the dual did we find out that not only Randy was hit by a sniper in the bush but who ever loaded his pistol gave him an empty clip.  I can not confirm or deny who that was but I will tell you one thing I am glad I live in Mesquite and not Vegas.  The only problem is that he knows where I live.  Maybe it’s time for me to invest in a few bodyguards.  I guess Randy never really had a chance to win that one.

The other activities included in the weekend were awesome.  We had Tuff N Uff (amateur MMA fights) fights Saturday night as well as an event opener club and after fight night club.  The Tuff N Uff fights have given us preliminary numbers of over 1000 spectators with the after fight night club nearly filling to capacity.  Some of the special guests that joined us at the fights were Frank Mir, Randy Couture and the man of MMA Dana White.  These men were all over the fight tent signing autographs and doing media interviews.  What a night.  These events were such a success that many residents in Mesquite and Las Vegas are still talking about it like it was last night.  Good times!

The weekend’s events were able to bring a preliminary count of $20,000 to the foundation.  But the fundraising doesn’t stop here.  With the event being such a success, today I was asked by a company promoting the new Call of Duty 4, Modern Warfare 2 video game, in conjunction with Blockbuster, to come help advertise the selling of the game on November 9^th.  Blockbuster will be donating $1000 to the foundation for us to come out and talk about the event and how we were able to combine 2 extreme sports together for one great cause.  There are also negotiations with the UWL donating to the foundation throughout the year as well.

A Pirates Paradise along with the Xtreme Couture G.I. Foundation would like to publically thank all of our sponsors, KEE Action, Spyder/Kingman, Planet Eclipse, Special Ops, Full Clip, Blackjack Paintball, APG, Ben Haslam Photography, Martin Ayala Photography and are great friends at PBLive for making this 1^st Annual event possible.  Without all of your support we wouldn’t have been able to make it happen.

If anyone is interested in footage, photos and articles of the event, you can go to www.apiratesparadise.net and click on the Xtreme Combat Weekend page.  We will be updating the site as all the media info rolls in.  Also registration for the 2^nd Annual event will be opened shortly.  Hope to see you all there.

Tim Andrus

President

A Pirates Paradise

In a separate submission attendee Sarah “Phoenix” Meehan gives her thoughts and opinions on the weekend in Mesquite

We stayed at Mesquite, NV, which is about an hour from Vegas. The field was about a fifteen minute drive, across the border in AZ. We walked the field on Friday. It was difficult to do even without gear due to sinking into the soft sand. The terrain at A Pirate’s Paradise was nothing like what I was used to. (or the Canadians for that matter!!) The field is in a mountain valley… one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. There is a natural spring on the land that is just a dream to see after a hot day of paintball. The brush was heavy, but still was a blast to try to fight your way through.

Friday night there was a meet-and-greet at the Casablanca. Apparently ladies got in free, and no one gave my American ID a problem at the door. Hehe. That was nice. Saturday we played some paintball… it was capture the flag on a grand scale with lots of firefights and glory. There was a flag at each base and a spool in the middle. We had to have our flag in the spool at the end for it to count, although we got points too every time we pulled the enemy’s flags out. There was one point during the game when I was about fifteen feet in front of the enemy for about fifteen minutes telling them “move up blue” (I was red) and watching them as they fell for it. Haha. I was playing pump. I think I was the only one there that was. Although I always got a few shots off first I was no match for the ropes of paint without bunker cover.

They ended up getting a hard-shelled paint so that it could penetrate the brush, but it ended up causing more bounces. This really made my one-balling a challenge. I switched over to my 98 on Sunday with better results. I got to see some old friends as well as make some new ones. Bad Karma was there, and shared their shade/water with us. I’m not sure what we would have done without them, because it was 95 degrees and sunny!! Some of them were at Living Legends at CPX two years ago, and remembered meeting me there. Randy and Ryan Couture were both there fighting on opposite sides for the day. Both of them were surprisingly down-to-earth and seemed to be having a lot of fun. They had a pistol duel with Kingman pistols. Ryan won, but it was due to a fix. Randy’s gun was rigged so that it wouldn’t shoot, and Ryan was aided by a sniper in the distance (who gogged him!!) They also had a signing session where Randy and Ryan autographed, arm bands… or whatever you could find!!

Saturday night there were Tuff n uff fights at the Casablanca. I didn’t go, but a lot of the other guys did, and they said it was a lot of fun. They said they got to meet the fighters at the same club area that we were at the night before. Sunday was even hotter than Saturday. After the game was over there was a LARGE RAFFLE PRIZE PACKAGE. They had three kinds of tickets… $1, $5, and $10 tickets. There was a whole overflowing table of stuff plus boxes of extras, including t-shirts signed by Randy. The coolest prize was one of Randy’s gloves, signed and encased in a box. There were also awards handed out for each side… MVP and sportsmanship award, determined by the refs.

Then we all left to go party in VEGAS. Yea.

I had so much fun. I really hope I can go next year. This was a weekend I will remember the rest of my life.

Here’s a good video from Wolf of the Wolf’s Den