Last night the Freestyle Fighting Academy had an awesome showing at the 1st Annual Tri-State Battle in New Jersey! Edir “Belico” Terry, Leo Hernandez, and Luis Hernandez all made their MMA debuts last night and all WON in very impressive fashion!
Here is a basic description of each fight… but you can later watch the fight online at www.GoFightLive.TV :
Leo Hernandez vs Gregory Urso
Leo came out landing power shots right off of the bat! His opponent at first was trying to stand with him, but after getting hit with some strong shots, he attempted to take Leo down – but Leo’s takedown defense was stellar! Eventually, in the second round, Leo stuffed one of his takedowns, took his back, and won via rear naked choke submission! Awesome performance by Leo!
Luis Hernandez vs Marvin Menjivar
Leo’s older brother, Luis, came out just as vicious as his younger brother, landing impressive power shots that always seemed to find their mark. Marvin had no answer whatsoever to the Hernandez onslaught of power hooks, over hand rights, and uppercuts. Eventually Luis scored the TKO victory in the 2nd round – awesome fight for Luis!
Edir “Belico” Terry vs Danny “Massacre” Massa
This was fight was awesome – it was an amateur MMA fight that looked more like a pro fight in the WEC… these two guys came to bang! In the first round both guys traded shots in the center of the ring, landing punches, kicks, and knees! Danny got the edge though landing stiffer strikes. In the second round, Edir came back strong, pinning Danny against the cage and getting a takedown with some good ground and pound. In the last round, both guys let everything hang out! Edir secured another takedown, landed more ground and pound, and secured the close split decision victory, and earning the Fight of the Night trophy!
I can’t emphasize enough how PROUD I am of my guys! Great job! FFA went 3-0 for the night!
Today the three fighters and Master David will be visiting New York City for the day, have a great time guys! See you back in Miami on Monday! The next fight for the team is Joe Ray in Strikeforce Miami on January 30th! You can buy tickets for the Strikeforce show at our Miami MMA gym.
Tom Lawlor lost a very close split decision to Aaron Simpson at the UFC Fight Night 20 last night. Tom completely dominated the first round, landing blows upon blows and almost finishing the fight! The second round was close and then in the third round, Simpson won the round with top position control.
Many in attendance thought Lawlor should have been favored in the split decision, as confirmed by the crowd’s disapproved booing. On the UG (Underground Forum), out of 441 voters, 75% thought Lawlor had the edge.
Regardless of the outcome of the decision, everyone at the Freestyle Fighting Academy is very proud of Tom Lawlor and his stellar performance. As usual, he was entertaining, putting on a great show and demonstrating what a talented, well-rounded fighter he is.
The 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 www.BestFreeTrial.com
Locations in Davie and Miami, Florida
1-888-FFA-GYMS
A pic of one of the two new training rooms upstairs for our Women Only Fitness Bootcamp! Check it out at... http://t.co/gsmTsFv91 day ago
@MannyLBranco Coming soon, this new thing I'm doing I'm sure you'll like! We're prepping a nice webinar soon for the people outside of MIami 2 days ago
