FFA Florida goes 4-0 at MMA Fights & NAGA Champs!
April 30, 2009The Freestyle Fighting Academy, based out of south Florida, had an outstanding performance this past weekend at the Streetwise Fight League… FFA went 4-0!
Giovanni Moljo Victorious
This is Coach Marcos Avellan and a couple of months ago FFA suffered back to back straight losses in two events, giving the team a 0-5 streak… something that has never happened in the team’s 7 year history. FFA has an all-time fight record of 107-32, so losing 5 in a row is something that our team isn’t used to. It was enough to draw me out of a four year lay-off and for our guys to rally back with some extreme training and hardwork.
FFA fighters Giovanni Moljo, Robert Rodriguez, Michael Bernhard, and I fought last weekend and finished with a great performance. The first up was Robert Rodriguez, who was making his pro MMA debut versus American Top Team’s Joe Stutzman. Robert went to work right away, landing blow after blow from the standing position as he avoided Joe’s takedowns. Eventually, Rob took it to the ground and continued landing hard strikes. After the 1st round ended, the doctor stopped the fight and Robert was awarded the victory.
Next up was Giovanni Moljo. This was Gio’s second MMA fight – he was one of the five who lost a couple of months ago. He was facing a very tough opponent in Eric Luke from American Top Team. Eric had defeated one of Gio’s teammates a month ago, so Giovanni was looking forward to redeeming his debut loss and avenging a teammate’s loss at the same time. This fight went back and forth and was a true demonstration of aggressive wrestling and grappling – with both guys locking on submissions on each other and escaping. At the end, Gio finished strong and won a split decision in a very exciting fight.
Mike Bernhard finishing Ailton Barbosa for the title
I came up afterwards. I fought Travis Bartlett. The fight started and got the takedown and passed the guard, took the back, and eventually sunk in the choke in the first round. It felt good to fight again after a four year layoff. What made me really proud was making the 155 pound weight class, it is something I thought I would never be able to do again. I trained really hard for this fight and got into great shape. I’m looking forward to hopefully getting in another three more fights before the end of the year.
The final fight, the co-main event, was Mike Bernhard versus American Top Team Black Belt Ailton Barbosa (ATT Coconut Creek) for the ISKA 170lb MMA Title. Mike and Ailton have competed twice against each other in grappling, with Mike winning one match and Ailton winning the other… this MMA fight was the rubber match. Mike won the fight with a heavy KO eleven seconds into the first round. The fight started with a kick by Mike, which Ailton caught. While Ailton was holding his leg, Mike landed a really hard bomb and KOed Ailton. Below is a video someone posted on youtube:
Congrats to my teammates for a great performance and thanks to www.BrawlandMaul.tv for their support and thanks to all of our students for their support as well. I’m glad to do my part in ending that losing streak and I hope to continue adding to our new winning streak.
By the way… the turn-around in momentum didn’t really start with this event, it started the week before at the Orlando NAGA grappling tournament, where six of our color belts went and competed – and five finished 1st place and one finished 3rd place!
FFA black belt Enrico Cocco and purple belt Danny Chavez competed in the same Expert division and both finished 1st place, sharing the NAGA belt… and in another weight class, FFA purple belts Giovanni Moljo (who fought a week later) and Pablo Alfonso both got to the finals and shared 1st place and the NAGA belt as well! And then we had FFA blue belt Andre “Ace” Padin finish 1st place in the intermediate division and we had FFA purple belt David Lago who finished 3rd place in the expert division.
Great job guys! Let’s keep up the good work and keep that momentum going!
–COACH MARCOS AVELLAN
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