Cooper Ices Michaud with Liver Shot, Six PFL Champions Earn Millions at the Garden
By Robert Brizel, Real Combat Media MMA Correspondent
New York, NY (January 1, 2020)– Iron Mike Tyson presented the championship belts inside the cage as six new Professional Fighter’s League second season world champions were crowned at Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2019. All titular MMA winners got a million dollars for the televised win, and the losers got 150 thousand dollars. Seven featured bouts were televised.
In the win of the night, Ray ‘Bradda Boy’ Cooper III of Hawaii, 20-7-1, 170 pounds, associated with team Lion of Judah, scored an impressive second-round knockout of David ‘Bulldawg’ Michaud to win the PFL league season two world welterweight MMA championship. Cooper, a finalist in season one, appeared to hurt Michaud, 18-6, Brookings, South Dakota, 170 pounds, team MMA lab, with a liver shot in round one. Michaud recovered, and was landing hand shots at will consistently in round two, when a well-timed Cooper liver shot send Michaud down and out to the canvas in pain, where Cooper finished him with a flurry of punches at 2:56.
Result: Ray Cooper III TKO 3 David Michaud, 170 Pound Welterweights (2:56)
Cooper wins season two PFL World Welterweight championship
Referee: Keith Peterson
Two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and judo expert Kayla Harrison, 7-0, 165 pounds female welterweight, of American Top Team, Middletown, Ohio, took the entire five-round bout primarily to the floor where she tortured Larissa Pacheco, 13-4, Tata Fight Team, Belem, Brazil, for five rounds to win the PFL Female World Welterweight MMA championship. This was a rematch of their May 2019 bout, also won by decision by Harrison. Pacheco was game, and is probably a better standing fighter than Harrison. The trouble was Harrison played a takedown game, and forced Pacheco to fight for her life with her back on the floor at close quarters. Pacheco is a nasty survivor in top condition, forcing the world-class Harrison to go the distance a second time with her in dominant frustration.
Result: Kayla Harrison Win 5 Larissa Pacheco, Female Welterweights
Harrison wins Female PFL World Welterweight championship. Referee: Mike Beltran
Lance Palmer Win 5 Alex Gilpin, Featherweights
Palmer wins PFL second season World MMA Featherweight championship
Referee: Keith Paterson
The story here was not Palmer, 22-3, Team Alpha Male, Columbus, Ohio, in his third match against Gilpin, 14-4, Chosen Few Gym, Madison, Wisconsin. The true story was Daniel Pineda, who had won the previous two matches to reach this championship final, was facing a hearing with the Nevada State Athletic Commission regarding drug testing results. Obviously, the hearing was not held before the final, allowing Gilpin, who had lost to Palmer in October 2019 in the PFL semifinal playoff, to advance anyway into the final as a last minute substitute opponent.
Natan Schulte Win 5 Loik Radzhabov, Lightweights
Schulte, first season winner, wins second season PFL World Lightweight championship
Referee: Mike Beltran. Scoring: 49-44, 49-46, 48-47 Schulte
Schulte, 20-3, Joinville, Brazil, American Top Team, the top lightweight tournament seed, matched Radzhabov with three takedowns each, but had more floor time and better maneuvering. Schulte only outstruck Radzhabov 120 to 117, so the scoring had to be on better technique, and more effective blows landed. Close, hard-fought bout.
Emiliano Sordi KO 1 Jordan Johnson, Light Heavyweights (2:01)
Sordi wins second season PFL World Light Heavyweight championship
Referee: Dan Miragliotta
Sordi, 22-8, 205 pounds, Team Novo Riao Argentina, hailing from Rio Cuarto, Argentina, scored his fifth knockout in 2019 in five MMA bouts to become the first million-dollar winner of the night. Johnson, 12-2, Team MMA Lab, San Diego, California, had an off night, as he got dropped by a sharp Sordi jab, and was then finished by punches on the floor. Sordi is a brutal hard knockout hitter who has never won by decision. So it was do or die for technical fighter ‘Big Swinging’ Johnson, who won his first 10 MMA bouts, who went 1-1-1 in the 2019 PFL playoffs. Johnson’s last five MMA bouts in 2019 have all yielded different hot and cold results.
Ali Isaev TKO 4 Jared Rosholt, Heavyweights (4:01)
Isaev wins second season PFL World MMA Heavyweight championship
Referee: Dan Miragliotta
Isaev, 265 pounds heavyweight, 9-0, Dagestan, Russian Federation, an Olympic wrestler, scored a double leg takedown of 240 pounds Rosholt, 20-8, Team Takedown / Velardi Fitness, Arlington, Texas, a three-time all-American wrestler. Eventually, Isaev landed flurries of punches the downed Rosholt could not defend himself against. When you can take down a big guy at will, he isn’t going to make it out.
Brandon Loughnane Win 3 David Alex Duarte, Featherweights
Referee: Mike Beltran. The opening bout on the card.
Loughnane, 19-3, Manchester, England, United Kingdom, all Powers Gym / Alliance MMA, a 145 pounds featherweight, outpoints Duarte, 11-5, Curitiba, Brazil, Team Teixeira MMA & Fitness.
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