FREE 30 Days Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) in Miami & Davie

The Freestyle Fighting Academy celebrated its 6 year anniversay this past weekend with our Annual Awards Banquet. Once a year, we host an amazing banquet where we cover all our accomplishments of the year, promote students, give out awards, give out speeches, and finish off with a highlight video of the year and dancing!

This year was by far the biggest of the parties… with over 250 guests! On top of that, we had the largest set of promotions. But better than that… was the accomplishments!

Our pro MMA team went completely undefeated in 2006 and last year, 2007, although we did not go undefeated, we scored a milestone high 20 MMA victories! Of the 20 victories, 18 were by KO, TKO, or submission! That is an impressive 90% finish rate… with only four fighters suffering losses.

Overall, our competition team competed in 26 events in 2007 – with 17 of them being MMA events. That is an impressive rate of more than one event every two weeks! Since our gym’s creation in January 2002, our team has particpated in 134 events. Another highlight was our grappling team, which scored its first NAGA victory over local rivals American Top Team.

Even more outstanding, is the amount of promotions we had this year… 26! Last year we had 14.

The following were proudly promoted to FFA Blue Belt:
Omar Bembry
Cassidy Pepin
Ahmed Cure
Dylan Cure
Giovanni Moljo
Joe Ray
Cesar Jordan
Joshua Mercado
Lamberto Duarte
Troy Gray
Pablo Alfonso
Steve Trager
Danny Chavez
Dale Alderson
Kevin Perez
Victor Raphel
Joel Sanchez
Denis Hernandez
Richard Fernandez
David Lago
Adron Morrison
Jose Rivas

The following were proudly promoted to FFA Purple Belt:
Billy Barrow
Glenn Hernandez

And the highest promotion of the banquet, FFA Brown Belt, was given to:
Jorge “El Fantasma” Vigo

We also had a BJJ promotion:
BJJ Brown Belt (no-gi): Luis “Wicho” Rodriguez

On top of the promotions, we also had a set of awards given out:
Rookie of the Year = Joe Ray
Most Improved = Alexander de la Torre
Unsung Hero = Willie Davis
Most Dedicated = Efrain Ruiz
MVP = Michael “White Crane” Bernhard

Congratulations to all those promoted and to FFA!

 
 
 

  
  
 
Michael Bernhard receiving his MVP Award with FFA head instructors Marcos Avellan, Efrain Ruiz, Enrico Cocco, and David Avellan.

It’s on!  This Saturday, Feb 2, at 10:00pm, FFA will be hosting UFC 81 – “Lesnir vs Mir”!  We are going to be charging only $10 at the door.  You can bring anybody with you.

 We will have the fight on 2 Plama TVs and on a Projector as well!  We’ll have pizza and soda available as well!

 The main fights will be:

Brock Lesnir vs Frank Mir
Tim Sylvia vs Antonio “Minotauro” Nogueira

Ok everyone, see you Saturday!

As many fighters know, the Florida Boxing Commission has a history of lacking logic at times… and this was one of those moments.  Efrain’s original opponent, Reggie Pena, dropped out at the last moment, two days before the fight was scheduled.  The day before the fight, a replacement fighter was found.  The brave man, who took a fight on one day notice, drove 14 HOURS from Georgia to take the fight…

However, there was some sort of deadline created by the commission that said he had to weigh-in by 1:00pm… the fighter arrived at 4:00pm… so they DID NOT ALLOW the fight to happen!

I’m guessing that this rule orginated to prevent people from weighing in at the last minute and making things difficult for the commission and promoters… but considering the circumstances, you would think that not only would the commission thank this fighter for driving down 14 HOURS but also be more flexible with their rules, considering he arrived hours before the start of the show.

Both guys weighed the same and were eager to fight – it was a disgrace the fight was not allowed to happen.  During arguments with the head of the Florida Boxing Commission, he threatened that he wants to “Ban MMA from Florida”.  This is one of MANY reasons a Florida MMA Commission needs to be established.

We had sold about 100 tickets to this event… and Coach Efrain feels bad about it.  We are going to announce a special seminar with all the FFA black belts for students who bought tickets to this event.  We will announce the date and time by this Friday on this website.  Thank you all for your SUPPORT and understanding.

The title says it all… Our CDs have either gotten scratched up, missing, or played out :)  If you have any CDs you would like to donate, let us know.  The only thing is that we would prefer music without many curse words.  Thanks for your help!

We are going to be closed this Sunday for the Banquet – however, we will open up for the Intro Sec 9 class, which is from 4:00pm to 5:15pm.  So if you are an Intro Sec 9 member, don’t worry, your class is still on :)  For info about the banquet, scroll down the blog for more info.

The fight is taking place at:

Bayfront Ampitheater
301 north Biscayne Blvd.
Miami, FL 33132
(next to Bayside Marketplace downtown Miami)

Efrain has been training very hard and looking to score a big win for the team in our first fight of 2008!  Come support “El Lobo” and the team!  Tickets are for sale at FFA starting at $20.  For more info, either call us at 305-225-4610 or hit us up by email at Info@FFAmiami.com .  We take cash or credit.

On Saturday, Jan 19, FFA’s BBC members met up and had a great BBQ at Crandon Park!  This is part of a new monthly tradition.  It was really nice, we rented out a shelter, had BBQ, played football & soccer, and even hit up the beach!  Here is a group pic from the event.  Thanks to everyone that went and see you again next month!

BBC at Crandon Park