Well, the IFL did it again. This organization is consistently putting on quality mixed martial arts shows, and this past weekend was no exception.

4,530 fans filled out the Mohegan Sun arena for a fight card highlighted by 3 submissions and 3 TKO’s.

John Franchi and Connecticut’s own Frank Latina was announced as the opening fight, and it was a quick one. The Connecticut native found himself in a rear naked choke early in the fight, but was able to escape. Shortly after, Franchi secured another take down and sunk in a tighter choke and ended the fight in the second minute of round 1.

Nick Calandrino was able to control John Howard for a good portion of their fight using his wrestling and grappling. In the third round, though, Calandrino ate a vicious knee and was dropped to the canvas. Howard was dropping bombs on Calandrino and the referee stopped the fight. Calandrino was visibly upset after the fight and protested the stoppage.

Former IFL middleweight champion Matt Horwich easily controlled Joey Guel using his superior wrestling skills. Horwich was easily able to get into a clinch situation with Guel and play the dirty boxing game until Guel would pummel out. Much of the fight was like this, and Horwich took the unanimous decision back to Team Quest.

Submission fighter Josh Souder scored his first TKO victory when he rained vicious ground and pound over opponent Zac George. The fight ended 47 seconds into the first round, so there really is not much to say about Souder except that he came out hard and heavy, and his efforts paid off.

Mike Massenzio was riding a 9 fight win streak when he entered the ring against American Top Team fighter, Danillo Villefort. When I was analyzing this fight, I said both fighters were excellent submission specialists and this fight might come down to who has the better stand up game. Because Villefort trains with ATT, I gave him the advantage in the striking department, and predicted he would be the winner. I had half of the equation right, because even though we saw little in the stand up department, Villefort locked in a beautiful kneebar on Massenzio at the 3:25 mark of the first round. Villefort put an end to the 9 fight win streak of the highly touted Mike Massenzio.

In my pre fight analysis, I said if one new champion was crowned on this night, it would be Dan Miller. Although Ryan McGivern has great wrestling and cardio for days, he has trouble with good submission fighters. Early in the fight McGivern had Miller rocked on two occasions. McGivern landed some solid punches and an up-kick that seemd to phase Miller. Miller recovered quickly, though, and at the 3:36 mark of the first round, Miller locked in a kneebar and submitted his way to the IFL middleweight championship.

Back to back kneebars, folks. Awesome stuff.

Moving on the the lightweights, champion Ryan McGivern was defending his belt against Lithuanian submission fighter Deividas Taurosevicius. Taurosevicius took the fight to McGivern for all 5 rounds, but McGivern’s superior wrestling ability neutralized Taurosevicius’ submission attempts for the entire fight. Exciting fight that saw McGivern successfully retain his belt with a unanimous decision victory. Sorry, but I have to toot my own horn again. I called that one too.

The main event saw IFL heavyweight champion Roy Nelson defending his title against TUF 2 runner up Brad Imes. Imes took the fight on two weeks notice as a late replacement for Branden Lee Hinkle; when I spoke to him on the phone he said he keeps in shape in case an opportunity like this arises. I really thought Imes would put up more of a fight, and thought he had a good chance of taking home the title. I doubted Nelson, and I won’t do that again. Nelson gave up 7 inches and a lot of reach to Imes, but Nelson landed bomb after bomb and put Imes down at the 2:55 mark of the first round. “Big Country” is for real. Nelson never let Imes into the fight.

When I spoke to Nelson on the phone last week, he says he wants to fight the best talent in the world. He named fighters like Fedor Emelianenko and Josh Barnett. Now that he has strung together 2 dominating heavyweight title defenses, I’d like to see Nelson take on the upper echelon of free agent heavyweight fighters out there.

The next IFL fight will be at the IZOD center in New Jersey; The IFL will be debuting it’s new ring , “The Hex”. “The Hex” is a six sided ring that should help the IFL further its unique brand of MMA.