http://www.ifl.tv/NEW YORK, May 16, 2008 – Heavyweight Roy Nelson (Las Vegas) and lightweight Ryan Schultz (North Platte, Neb.) defended their respective International Fight League titles while Dan Miller (Sparta, N.J.) scored a victory over defending middleweight champion Ryan McGivern (Bettendorf, Iowa) before 4,530 tonight at the Mohegan Sun Arena. Nelson capped the evening with a victory over Brad Imes (Kansas City, Mo.), after Schultz defeated fellow lightweight Deividas Taurosevicius (Lithuania) to retain his belt.
Nelson started with a blitz of punches right at the start of the first round which Imes was able to recover briefly. Nelson finished the bout with a crunching series of blows for the quick KO.
Schultz and Taurosevicius battled hard, with both surviving near-submissions and solid strikes. Ultimately, Schultz claimed the unanimous decision.
Miller’s was a quick finish, after an exciting first three minutes of the first round in which both competitors maintained a high-energy pace. Miller caught McGivern in a kneebar to win his first title.
The preliminary bouts featured athletes from four MMA camps, including Team Quest, Team Bombsquad, World Class Fight Center and Team Prodigy. Lightweight John Franchi (Cortland, N.Y.) of Bombsquad got the night off to an exciting start with a first-round submission victory over Frank Latina (Middletown, Conn.). Team Quest’s Aaron Stark (Portland, Ore.) then scored a unanimous decision over Bombsquad’s Lamont Lister (Philadelphia) in a light heavyweight bout. John Howard (Boston) then knocked out Nick Calandrino (Emerson, N.J.) of Bombsquad with a third-round flurry of strikes in an entertaining matchup of welterweights.
The second set of preliminary bouts began with Matt Horwich (Portland, Ore.) of Team Quest recording a unanimous decision over Joey Guel (Oregon) in a middleweight matchup. Josh Souder (Mason, Ohio) of Team Prodigy then wrapped up a quick TKO over Team Quest’s Zac George (Norman, Okla.), before World Class Fight Center’s Danillo Villefort (Pompano Beach, Fla.) scored a first-round submission victory via kneebar over Mike Massenzio (Paterson, N.J.) of Bombsquad.
The IFL’s next scheduled event is set for August 15 at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J., when it will unveil its new six-sided ring surface, dubbed “The Hex.”
