The Mark Pavelich-owned Maximum Fighting Championships (MFC) has just closed the doors on another successful event from the Edmonton Expo Centre in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. MFC 25: "Vindication" featured a solid fight card with several UFC veterans in action.
Here's how it all went down.
The featured fight of the night was a classic jiu-jitsu versus wrestling match up between former UFC number one contender, Thales Leites, and The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) season seven castoff, Jesse "JT Money" Taylor.
On this night, jiu-jitsu proved to be the dominant martial art as Leites came away with an early first round submission victory.
Surprisingly, "JT Money" showed zero concern for the Brazilian's submission skills, as he immediately took Leites to the mat the first chance he got. That decision proved to be fatal.
Leites nearly finished the fight right away with an armbar, but Taylor somehow maneuvered his way out of that. Even so, it was clear right then that he was over matched in this fight as a grappler. Not even a minute later, Leites had him tapping out from a triangle choke.
Taylor played right into his game ... and he paid for it.
This marks three straight wins for the Brazilian since splitting with the UFC and two straight under the MFC banner.
Light heavyweights Ryan "Big Deal" Jimmo and Wilson Gouveia were paired up in the night's co-main event.
Gouveia made headlines yesterday when he failed to make weight for the fight, despite having competed 20 pounds lighter as a middleweight for the last two years in the UFC.
Not surprisingly, that apparent lack of focus carried over into the fight, too.
Gouveia fell behind on the scorecards early and stayed there. Jimmo out-struck him and used a couple of very nicely-timed takedowns throughout the fight to secure the unanimous decision.
Jimmo basically dominated every aspect of the fight from bell-to-bell. In fact, two of the judges scored the fight 30-26 for the Canadian, citing a 10-8 round in the second where Gouveia was dangerously close to being finished.
With the win Jimmo is now in line for a shot at the vacant MFC 205-pound belt.
His potential opponent in that future bout was also decided on this card -- Emanuel "The Hardcore Kid" Newton and local favorite Dwayne Lewis fought hard for three entertaining rounds in their number one contender match.
Newton did an excellent job of negating Lewis' power punching by scoring numerous takedowns and maintaining control throughout the fight with his ground and pound.
Lewis tried to stay aggressive with submission attempts while on his back, but "The Hardcore Kid" was too tough from the top position. The Canadian fighter also tried to make a run late in the fight with a flurry of punches, but one last timely takedown by Newton put an end to the rally.
In the end, the decision was an easy one for the judges as Newton won all three rounds on all three scorecards.
So it looks like a rematch from MFC 23 of Newton vs. Jimmo for the title. Should be a dandy.
Pete "The Secret Weapon" Spratt and Luigi "The Italian Tank" Fioravanti were two more of the ex-UFC fighters on the HDNet telecast. The two journeymen went back-and-forth for nearly three rounds in a welterweight contest before Spratt scored a late technical knockout finish.
"The Secret Weapon" was the aggressor on the feet for basically the entire fight. He had a lot of success with kicks to Fioravanti's body, and that's ultimately what won him the fight. Late in the second round, Fioravanti was visibly injured, clutching his right side in pain from the onslaught of body strikes. He survived the round, but Spratt turned up the heat in the third frame and was able to finish off his wounded opponent.
TUF season six contestant Richie "The Dirty Samurai" Hightower made his MFC debut on the main card across from submissions whiz Gavin "Forrest" Neil.
Neil dropped Hightower in the first minute of the fight with a huge left hook right on the chin. Hightower recovered from the punch, but he wasn't able to keep Neil from taking his back and sinking in a rear naked choke in the process.
Neil moved his record to 6-1 under the MFC banner.
Heavyweights Chase Gormley and Ryan "The Vanilla Gorilla" Fortin opened up the HDNet telecast with a three round war of attrition.
Gormley clearly wanted no part of trading strikes with the six foot, seven inch Fortin, so he did everything possible to take the big man off his feet and keep him there. Fortin had no answer for the takedowns and spent the majority of the fight on his back.
The end result was a unanimous decision for Gormley, who gets back into the win column after suffering the first two losses of his career in his previous two fights.
Here are the complete results from "Vindication:"
Main Event:
185 lbs.: Thales Leites defeated Jesse Taylor via submission (triangle) at 2:27 of round one
Main Card (HDNet):
205 lbs: Ryan Jimmo defeated Wilson Gouveia via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-26, 30-26)
170 lbs: Pete Spratt defeated Luigi Fioravanti via technical knockout (strikes) at 4:02 of round three
205 lbs: Emanuel Newton defeated Dwayne Lewis via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
155 lbs: Gavin Neil defeated Richie Hightower via submission (rear naked choke) at 2:52 of round one
265 lbs: Chase Gormley defeated Ryan Fortin via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)Under Card:
Chad Freeman (4-3) def. Mike Froese (3-3) - 3:48 Round 1, tapout via armbar
Keto Allen (4-0) def. Aaron Berke (4-2) - 2:58 Round 1, TKO
Jevon Marshall (1-0) def. Garret Nybakken (1-1) - 2:00 Round 3, tapout via rear-naked choke
That's a wrap from Edmonton.
Next up for the Canadian-based promotion is a return trip to the Edmonton Expo Centre on August 27 for MFC 26: "Retribution." Keep it locked right here to MMAmania.com for more as that card begins to come together in the coming weeks.
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