Johannesburg (South Africa) – On 1 September EFC AFRICA’s 10th event exceeded all expectations and delivered 12 incredible bouts of Africa’s ever-improving mixed martial arts action.
Congratulations go to EFC AFRICA’s two new champions: Demarte ‘The Wolf’ Pena and Dallas Jakobi. Pretoria’s Pena won the vacant featherweight title using strenuous, gritty wrestling to negate Leo Gloss’ boxing over five nail-biting rounds. Then, in a production bursting with highlight material, Jakobi’s victory during the evening’s main event stunned a capacity crowd at Carnival City’s Big Top Arena. The popular Durbanite was able to thwart grappling maestro Adam Speechly’s submission attempts and return fire with earth-shaking ground and pound for five full rounds to win by unanimous decision. In a fitting tribute to the new champion and the ex-champion, Jakobi and Speechly’s phenomenal performance earned Fight of the Night.
At welterweight, Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Jadyson Costa made his EFC AFRICA debut in spectacular fashion, submitting Wade Henderson by kimura 3:15 into round one. His showmanship came to the fore during his walk in and his victory celebration and he even got a kiss from each of the beautiful EFC AFRICA ring girls on the way out. EFC AFRICA can’t wait to see what this Brazilian import (now based in Cape Town) has to offer African MMA in future.
Knockout of the Night went to Tyron Rightford, whose 44 second TKO victory over Paul Terblanche put a decisive end to their bitter rivalry. Fans were expecting an explosive all-out war and that’s exactly what they got. Fists flew furiously from both, but in the end only Rightford was left standing. It was also an excellent night for Rightford’s teammate Nolan ‘Real Deal’ Swanepoel, who defeated top striker Leon Mynhardt.
As EFC AFRICA and its fighters have gained popularity, fans have become involved in tracking the careers of their favourite athletes, bombarding social media with predictions and arriving in force for live events. Thanks to this growing base of vocal fans, EFC AFRICA 10 resonated with chants from start to finish. At 7.30pm the excitement spilled over into Nu Metro cinemas around South Africa where thousands more fans cheered on their hometown heroes, and the exhilaration spread to the internet, where thousands more logged onto the free live stream for hours of adrenaline-fuelled excitement. Comments came in praising the production, professionalism and skill levels of the athletes, further bolstering EFC AFRICA’s position as a serious force in international MMA.
EFC AFRICA 10 was presented by MusclePharm. EFC AFRICA 11 takes place at the Coca-Cola Dome on 10 November.
Full results:
Abdul Hassan defeated Francois Groenewald via unanimous decision
Michiel Opperman defeated Daniel Sinclair via submission (triangle choke) rnd 1 (3:14)
Wesley Hawkey defeated Jean Luc Kazadi via submission (guillotine choke) rnd1 (1:58)
Armand de Bruyn defeated Keith Theologo via submission (rear naked choke) rnd 1 (2:51)
Jacques Joubert defeated Mawande Vapi via submission (rear naked choke) rnd1 (1:50)
Jadyson Costa defeated Wade Henderson via submission (kimura) rnd1 (3:15)
Tyron Rightford defeated Paul Terblanche via TKO rnd1 (44sec)
JP Joubert defeated Jeremy Scheepers via TKO rnd1 (2:05)
Martin van Staden defeated Francois Kabulu via TKO rnd2 (4:42)
Nolan Swanepoel defeated Leon Mynhardt via submission (rear naked choke) rnd1 (2:34)
Demarte Pena defeated Leo Gloss via unanimous decision
Dallas Jakobi defeated Adam Speechly via unanimous decision