The world’s number one ranked female MMA fighter, Tara LaRosa made a successful return to action tonight at Extreme Challenge: War at the Shore in Atlantic City, New Jersey following a fourteen month layoff. LaRosa (16-1) battled Alexis Davis (6-2) in a very competitive match that saw the fight dead even going into the third round.

Davis was clearly not intimidated by LaRosa’s ranking or status and came out strong in every round. Both ladies are four-stripe purple belts and very highly skilled on the ground. LaRosa dropped Davis in round one with a big right but Davis was able to recover and attempted an omoplata and an armbar.

In round two Davis came out very aggressive and got LaRosa to the ground where she locked in a tight triangle. LaRosa’s patience and experience allowed her to remain calm until she finally escaped but then Davis immediately transitioned to an armbar and the bell sounds.

LaRosa establishes control early in round three, holding Davis against the cage. LaRosa gets Davis down and takes her back while landing some big shots to the side of her head. Davis is bleeding pretty badly from a cut over her eye that came from one of LaRosa’s punches.  LaRosa gets side control and looks to be taking the fight when the ref stops the action and calls in the doctor to check the cut over Davis’s eye. The cut is determined to be too bad and the fight is stopped at 4:23 of round 3 giving Tara LaRosa the victory.

This is a great win for Tara LaRosa after being out of action for over a year. She came into the fight a little light and under the weight limit while her opponent came in heavy and needed some extra time to lose the weight. The whole card was action-packed and not one single fight went the distance although two of them went late into the third round.

Results:
Jon Meyer def. Craig Kaufman by submission (heel hook) in rd 3
Tuan “Kid Thunder” Pham def. Nat McIntyre by TKO (strikes) in rd 1
Dan Stittgen def. Greg Killian by submission (RNC) in rd 1
Sidemar Honorio def. Mike Powell by KO (head kick) in rd 2
Josh Barnes def. Sherman “The Tank” Pendergarst by submission (guillotine choke) in rd 1
Zach Makovsky def. Justin Robbins by submission (RNC) in rd 2
Kamal Shalorus def. Johnathan Evans by TKO (strikes) in rd 1
Charlie Brenneman def. Edward O’Daniel by TKO (strikes) in rd 2
Main Event:
Tara LaRosa def. Alexis Davis by doctor stoppage (cut over eye) in rd 1
 

PRO MMA KO of the Night
Sidemar Honorio knocks out Mike Powell with a head kick in rd 2 recieves our KO of the Night honors. Sidemar Honorio on one day’s notice comes into this fight to replace Wilson Reis who did not pass his medicals. Reis was in Honorio’s corner during the fight. Honorio knocked Powell down in round one but Powell hung in there and put up a great fight until round two when Honorio landed another huge head kick that dropped Powell to the mat where he held his head in pain. He could not continue and the ref called the fight.

PRO MMA Submission of the Night
Jon Meyer submitted Craig Kaufman with a heel hook in rd 3 and receives our Submission of the Night honors. The fight went back and forth with both guys going for knee bars during the fight. However, with less than thirty seconds left in the match, Meyer went for a knee bar, Kaufman escaped it, so he transitioned quickly to a heel hook causing Kaufman to immediately tap out.

PRO MMA Fight of the Night
We are giving Fight of the Night honors to Tara LaRosa and Alexis Davis for an extremely competitive fight that went back and forth with both fighters landing some good shots and Davis coming very close to submitting LaRosa. LaRosa survived and controlled the fight with her strength, got the best of the stand up and ended up winning the fight on a cut. She didn’t let the fight go to the cards although it was close.

There was a presentation made to Eddie Alvarez for winning Sherdog.com’s 2008 Fight of the year for his TKO defeat of Tatsuya Kawajiri in the DREAM organization.

We featured a live webstream of this event here at PRO MMA (http://promma.info) and it worked out very well. This is something we plan to do more of in the future through our partnership with Go Fight Live.

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