Brant
Moore imposed his will and moved another step closer to a shot
at the
Legacy Fighting Alliance lightweight championship.
Repeated takedowns, crushing top control and an active submission
game carried the surging Team 515 representative to a clear-cut
unanimous decision over “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 27 finalist
Joe
Giannetti in the LFA
89 headliner on Friday at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls,
South Dakota. Moore (8-1, 4-0 LFA) swept the scorecards with
identical 30-27 nods from the judges.
Giannetti (9-3-1, 0-1 LFA) could not stay upright. Moore climbed to
dominant positions in all three rounds and bottled up the South
Shore Sportfighting product on the mat. The Brazilian jiu-jitsu
black belt did his best work in Round 3, where he used a kimura to
roll through an attempted takedown, set up shop in side control,
dropped elbows and threatened with an arm-triangle choke before
achieving full mount.
Moore, 26, has rattled off six consecutive victories.
Meanwhile, Sanford MMA standout Demarques
Jackson submitted Adrian
Hadribeaj with a rear-naked choke in the first round of their
welterweight co-main event. Jackson (11-4, 3-2 LFA) drew it to a
close 3:19 into Round 1, as he recorded his first win since Dec. 7,
2018.
Hadribeaj (10-2, 0-1 LFA) knocked down the Bellator
MMA alum with a leg kick, but in his haste to follow up, he
wandered into a single-leg takedown. Jackson moved to the back,
secured his position with hooks and pestered his counterpart with
ground-and-pound while hunting the choke. He eventually snaked his
arms in place, transitioned to a palm-to-palm grip and prompted the
tapout.
The loss was Hadribeaj’s first in more than four years.
Elsewhere,
Kings MMA rep Ricardo
Dias made a triumphant return from a two-year layoff, as he
laid claim to a split decision over Desmond
Torres in a three-round bantamweight showcase. All three
cageside judges struck 29-28 scorecards, two of them for Dias (9-4,
1-0 LFA).
Torres (7-3, 1-1 LFA) applied constant pressure with an almost
maniacal focus, moving forward despite the heavy artillery being
sent his way. Dias countered with a sharp jab, occasional leg kicks
and crisp combinations, often punctuating them with sweeping right
hooks to the head. Bleeding from a cut near his left eye, Torres
executed a takedown and advanced to full mount late in the third
round, but his bid to finish met with significant resistance and
ultimately failed.
The 29-year-old Dias has won five of his last six fights.
In other action, Factory
X export Josh Fremd
(5-1, 1-0 LFA) knocked out Lamar Gosey
(3-1, 0-1 LFA) with a knee strike from the clinch 1:26 into the
first round of their light heavyweight pairing;
MMA Lab prospect Clayton
Carpenter (3-0, 1-0 LFA) took a unanimous decision from
Manuel
Medina (0-1, 0-1 LFA) in a three-round flyweight affair,
drawing 29-27, 29-28 and 30-27 marks from the judges; and Steven
Jones (7-1, 2-1 LFA) eked out a split decision—29-28, 28-29,
29-28—in a three-round welterweight battle.