So, Mick Maynard owes Ed Soares dinner.
In the first major promotion versus promotion card since DREAM battled Sengoku on the last day of 2009, RFA topped Legacy FC 3-1 thanks to wins from Alexandre Pantoja, Adam Townsend and Bojan Velickovic.
In the AXS TV Superfight Championship, Alexandre Pantoja (16-2) extended his winning streak to nine by choking Damacio Page (19-10) out cold in match-up between promotional flyweight champions.
With about twenty seconds left in the second round and about twenty seconds until Pantoja was likely facing a 18-20 deficit on the judges’ scorecards, Pantoja was able to secure a triangle choke and tighten it up with about a dozen tics left on the clock. After the round expired, Page was unconscious from the hold. It was second straight technical submission win for Pantoja.
While he goes home with a loss, the 32-year-old Damacio Page showed power, speed and accuracy in his hands in the first round with a couple of knockdowns, and for the majority of the second, he was able to control Pantoja from a positional standpoint.
Now 25 years old, Alexandre Pantoja built a name as a prospect by running through fighters on the Brazilian MMA circuit. Since jumping to the United States and in RFA, Pantoja has choked out two skilled opponents in Page and Matt Manzares. With those two wins, the next time we see Pantoja should be inside the UFC octagon.
And while we’re having a conversation about fighters who should have Bruce Buffer call their name out the next time they compete, lets talk about Luke Sanders (10-0).
The RFA bantamweight champion defended his strap in an RFA feature bout by winning a dominant unanimous decision over Terrion Ware (13-4). Sanders earned scorecards of 50-45, 50-45, 49-46.
With the expectation being that he would wrestle his way to a win, Sanders put together a surprising outing by completely out-striking Ware in the first four rounds. Sanders punished the body of Ware with painful body kicks, attack Ware’s jab with quick counters and forced Ware’s eye shut with a jab in the third round.
To Ware’s credit, he was game in fifth round. With essentially only one eye, Ware unloaded on Sanders with strikes, only for Sanders to recalibrate and battle back with combinations of his own as well as some clinching.
In the Legacy FC featured bout, Mike Bronzoulis (18-8-1) won the vacant Legacy lightweight title by outpointing Dave Barrow (13-6) to win a unanimous decision with scores of 48-47, 49-46 and 49-46).
Bronzoulis finished the fight with strong fifth round and was able to beat Barrow by out-striking Barrow and taking advantage of Barrow’s aggressiveness on the ground by winning dominant position and maintaining it.
Elsewhere on the card, RFA lightweight Adam Townsend (13-3) won via unanimous decision and gave Yuri Villefort (6-5) his fifth straight loss by controlling the cage, eliminating Villefort’s reach advantage by attacking inside the pocket and being relentless with his strikes and wrestling.
To start the card RFA welterweight Bojan Velickovic (11-3) used his wrestling to grind out a decision win of his win against Charles Byrd (7-4), and Legacy flyweight Brian Hall (9-3) took advantage of Kevin Gray (5-2) takedown attempt by locking on a fight-ending guillotine choke in the first round.
From Bas Rutten and Kenny Rice on location greeting viewers at the start of the program to a couple of Burt Watson cameos to the solid as usual commentary from Pat Miletich and Michael Schiavello to the dueling ring announcers to quality fights, the RFA vs Legacy Superfight card did what few promotions outside of the UFC, Bellator, WSOF and Titan FC do. It stood out.
Sure there were hiccups and some lulls in action in which the event dragged, but overall, it was a positive outing on AXS TV.