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EDINBURG — “Are you not entertained?” were the first words Los Fresnos’ Isaac “Primetime” Moreno bellowed after his welterweight bout at FURY Fighting Championship 61 on Sunday at Bert Ogden Arena.
Judging by the crowd’s roaring response, it was an easy answer.
Moreno scored a 17-second TKO victory over Johnny Pantoja by landing a devastating right knee to the body followed by punishing ground-and-pound to pick up the win. Moreno, a Los Fresnos High School alum who played football for the Falcons, improved to 3-0 in his professional career.
“I felt that knee go through and the rest was history,” he said. “We just knew we needed to land one and we did our job. We prepared and we executed. … As soon as that knee went down, I knew it was over.”
Moreno’s walkout to the cage began with some fun in front of a supportive crowd before turning stone-cold and locking eyes with his opponent. The 17-second knockout was the shortest fight of the night. Moreno received extra motivation to dish out some pain after his opponent came in over the 171-pound limit at Saturday’s weigh-ins.
“From the start, when we weighed in, he was 2.5 pounds over and he threatened not to fight. I was like, ‘We’ll fight. I’m going totake some money from you and I’m going to show you in that ring what happens when you’re not professional,’” he said. “And that’s what I did. I showed him the consequences of not being professional.”
Several Rio Grande Valley mixed martial artists made their amateur debuts Sunday and scored wins.
Pharr’s Enrique Tapia (1-0) earned a unanimous decision victory (29-28, 30-27, 29-28) after a three-round battle against Corpus Christi’s Jack Martinez. The fight was Tapia’s amateur debut and Martinez’s third, but the PSJA North alum appeared tobe the more seasoned fighter.
Tapia secured full mount, back mount, landed strong ground-and-pound, nearly locked-in a rear naked choke and held his own while standing up to earn the win. Once the announcer read the judges’ scorecards revealing Tapia as the victor, he fell to hisknees inside the cage after a wave of emotion.
“I feel like I won again. Toda mi vida, era asi con mi mama solos, ella fue quien me ayudo con todo,” Tapia said. “I had to push myself all the time, and I couldn’t lose this time. The emotion, it hit me.”
Mission natives Abner Castro (1-0) and Jessie Pantoja (0-2) squared off in an amateur bout. Castro showed off his slick jiu-jitsuby grabbing a hold of Pantoja’s neck and pulling guard. He threatened with a guillotine choke before transitioning to a triangle choke to secure a first-round submission in his debut.
“I started two years ago and I never thought I would be here in this big arena, crowd full of support in the 956 — my hometown. It was amazing,” the Mission Veterans alum Castro said. “I was pretty confident in my jiu-jitsu game. I have three NAGA (North American Grappling Association) gold titles. My striking game, I liked it, but we got it down to the floor and we got the triangle win.”
Edinburg’s Ricky Yracheta (1-0) defeated Mission’s Joshua Quintero (0-3) by decision in a back-and-forth contest that took place mostly on the feet. A hard right head kick by Yracheta landed during the third round and was followed by a flurry of strikes against the cage to secure the win in the eyes of the judges.
“Originally, the plan was getting a takedown, but I’ve grappled with him before and I knew it was going to be a tough thing todo. The next best thing was to stand and bang so that’s what we did,” Yracheta, an Edinburg North grad, said. “It was really fun,definitely very fun, but at the end of the day, what I wanted to do was come in here and have fun.”
Rio Grande Valley native Angel Cortez (1-0) closed the show with a TKO win over Alexander Sanchez. Cortez ended up with full mount position and dropped hammering strikes before the referee called the fight.
