Owens back to business after MMA win

With the task at hand complete, Chad Owens can go back to his day job.

The reigning Canadian Football League most outstanding player left Junyah Tevaga bloodied and battered in a unanimous-decision victory at "DestinyMMA: Na Koa III" on Saturday night at the Blaisdell Arena.

Owens won his first MMA fight contested under amateur rules. The two fought two three-minute rounds, and no elbows or knees were allowed on the ground.

"I’m happy it’s done," Owens said after the fight. "I came out healthy, and as far as all of my experiences go, it ranks up there."

The Roosevelt High alumnus racked up more than 5,000 total yards at the University of Hawaii and was named one of the 10 greatest UH football players of all time by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 2009.

After a brief stint in the NFL and the Arena Football League, Owens has found a home in Canada, leading the Toronto Argonauts to the 2012 Grey Cup title while setting a professional football record with 3,863 all-purpose yards.

Instead of kicking back and relaxing after his record-breaking season with the Argonauts, Owens returned home for the offseason to start training for a new type of challenge.

Three days after his 31st birthday, Owens found himself walking toward a cage in front of a boisterous crowd of supporters to go one-on-one in an MMA fight.

In the world of MMA, there are no teammates to back you up.

"That was one of the things I was looking forward to. I get to focus on one guy," Owens said. "There’s nothing like it because you’ve only got that one guy coming at you. I don’t have to worry about some guy coming from the blind side and hitting me. In football, you never know where they are coming from."

As soon as the bell sounded, Owens got right in Tevaga’s face, throwing a solid 1-2 combination before shooting in and taking Tevaga down hard to the canvas.

Not wasting any time, Owens threw a barrage of punches, but gave up position in the process. At one point, Tevaga managed to get on top of Owens and lean him up against the cage.

"I had it in my mind that if I get him to the ground, I am going to end it," Owens said. "First round I got him down and I tried to end it and I just — you’ve got to get position before execution and I probably should have worked him to the mount before I tried to finish."

Owens clearly understood what he was getting into and took the fight seriously, performing far better than many other athletes who dabble in MMA.

This wasn’t professional boxer James Toney fighting Randy Couture in the UFC, or retired baseball player Jose Canseco fighting MMA in Japan.

Owens looked like a professional despite his amateur status. With CFL training camp less than two months away, he promised his focus would be 100 percent on football the moment the fight ended.

He escaped the fight unharmed and plans to be on the field for the Argos’ first preseason game June 12.

But he also admitted fighting MMA was very different from anything he’d experienced on a football field.

"When I was done, I couldn’t breathe, because I was so tight, the adrenaline was so unreal," he said. "I do have a newfound respect for the sport. I’ve always had it when I started training, but the fight itself? It’s way different."

In the other professional fights contested on Saturday night:

» Jared Torgeson knocked out Molokai’s Sale Sproat in the third round to win the DestinyMMA middleweight championship.

» Ryan Mulvihill retained his 145-pound title with a unanimous decision over Ricky Wallace.

» Gabe Solorio submitted Kaleo Kwan in the first round to retain the DestinyMMA lightweight championship.

» Hilo’s Joey Gomez submitted Ray Cooper III in the first round of a 170-pound fight.

» Justin Wong submitted Mark Tupas with a guillotine choke in the first round of a featherweight bout.