Brendan Allen Pulverizes Moses Murrietta to Retain Middleweight Title in LFA 61 Main Event

This is a brutal beating at LFA pic.twitter.com/tvS9A0N7GV

— caposa (@Grabaka_Hitman) February 23, 2019

Brendan Allen became the first fighter in history to defend the LFA middleweight title on Friday night by dominating a grossly overmatched Moses Murrietta.

Allen (11-3) did whatever he wanted against Murrietta and put a painful beating on him for five grueling rounds in front of a packed house inside Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Prior Lake, Minn. "All In" rocked his foe with punches to the face before taking him early in every round. However, even though the Roufusport fighter had his way with the Californian, he couldn't put him away. Round after round, Allen landed punches and elbows from either full mount or cross body and threatened with submissions a few times.

Murrietta (8-2) bled profusely from his mouth and nose, but even with his face swelling up like he'd been attacked by bees, referee Travis Metteer decided not to intervene. It was a frightful beating that "Motown" endured and the cageside judges handed out 10-8 rounds like Halloween candy. When the mugging finally ceased, Allen walked away with a unanimous decision win with scores of 50-43 (twice) and 50-42.

In what wound up being the co-featured bout, Ken Beverly will be kicking himself for letting an apparent victory slip through his fingers. Or, elbows and fists, for that matter. Beverly (5-4) was initially getting dominated by "Nasty" Nate Jennerman (13-4) but while he was storming back in the second round, Beverly made a series of inadvertent mistakes. Beverly was deducted a point when he landed a few elbows to the back of Jennerman's head and then had two more taken away when he punched his foe in the same spot near the end of the stanza. Because he lost three total points in the round, it sent the scorecards into a tailspin.

Jennerman threatened his featherweight opponent with a plethora of submission attempts throughout the contest, but when his gas tank betrayed him, Beverly came on strong in the third. Beverly nearly subbed Jennerman in said round and dominated him for most of the final five minutes, but the penalties cost "The Bull" dearly. Two cage side judges saw it 28-26 for Jennerman, while the third had it 27-27. The scores allowed Jennerman to walk out of the LFA cage with a majority decision win.

Flyweight Sid Bice dominated Lloyd McKinney for nearly three rounds, winning a well-deserved unanimous decision. Sid "Vicious" scored multiple takedowns and landed solid punches to the head throughout and though McKinney (8-6) threatened with submissions in the third, Bice (9-2) reigned supreme. The scores were 29-28 (thrice) for the Factory X fighter.

Jake Childers was relentless from start to finish in his pursuit of taking Josh Marsh down, and his gameplan paid off. Childers (5-0) took the favored Marsh down a few times, but most of the featherweight contest was fought against the cage. Marsh (4-2) was never allowed to get into a rhythm and Childers wound up winning a unanimous decision via tallies of 29-28 across the board.

Welterweight prospect Nick Ammerman was cut and rocked by punches in the first, but he stormed back in rounds two and three to earn a hard-fought unanimous decision win. Ammerman used a better overall striking game in said rounds and scored a pair of timely takedowns. Ramirez (7-5) did well for not having fought in five years, but he came up short against the Wisconsin-based Ammerman. All three judges saw it 30-27 for Ammerman, who rose to 3-1.

The original co-featured bout between Brandon Jenkins (11-5) and Mike Plazola (13-10) was scrapped halfway through the televised portion of the card. Plazola suffered from dizziness backstage and the local commission wouldn't allow him to fight, thus canceling the welterweight showdown.