Jackson Decisions Gutierrez
Entertaining Fight had a little of everything
De’Von Jackson (5-3) won his second consecutive fight at Front Street Fights in Boise, ID, against a game Mauro Gutierrez (3-3). This was a crossroads bout as Jackson had lost three straight before the beginning of the year, and Mauro is coming off two straight MMA losses. Mauro did have momentum with a pro boxing win a few weeks ago. The two fighters went to battle on Friday night in the cage.
De’Von charged out in the first round to try to end it early by throwing Mauro down, and followed up with a knee to the head as Mauro was getting up. Mauro shook off the early attack and slight cut to go to work, keeping the fight in the middle of the cage. Mauro worked well, landing overhand rights and hooks. Mauro displayed his striking skills to dictate the middle of the round. Towards the end of the round, De’Von was able to take Mauro down and proceeded to ground and pound Mauro until the end of the round.
The second stanza started with Mauro landing a hard overhand right and striking effectively. Mauro got the better of the exchanges while the two exchanged on the feet. De’Von landed a few good body punches around the middle of the round; nevertheless, Mauro was the more effective striker. With a little less than two minutes left in the round, De’Von was able to secure a takedown of Mauro. Jackson was unsuccessful with his attempts to secure a submission hold and opted to rain down punches on Mauro. Most of the punches were blocked and smothered by Mauro's defense; however, the volume of strikes was hard for the judges to ignore.
The final round started off similar to the second with good exchanges, but the fight went to the ground about 40 seconds in. De’Von kept up the pressure on Mauro on the ground, landing strikes to the head as he tried for several different submission holds. Around the middle of the round, De’Von was looking fatigued, and Mauro tried to capitalize with a crucifix hold, but he too was fatigued and was not able to secure the submission. Mauro was able to continue to defend against De’Von’s offense and submission attempts until the end of the round.
The volume of offense for De’Von Jackson was hard to ignore, and the judges scored the bout 30-26 twice and a wild 30-24 for Jackson’s second win this year.
In the co-feature bout, Boise’s Stephen Stirewalt (6-6) knocked out Utah’s Thomas Prestriedge (4-8) in the first round. Prestriedge started out quickly, throwing punches and trying to use his long arms to his advantage. Stirewalt defended the quick punches well and landed a left hook that dropped Prestriedge and followed up with a strike to the head while Prestriedge was down to secure the knockout victory at 48 seconds into the first round. Stirewalt evened his record with his second straight win. Utah fight fans may have seen Stirewalt on Fierce FC cards in the past.
The pro card started with Briley Streeter (2-1) stopping Arthur Dufloo (4-2) in the first round. Streeter started the fight by taking it to the ground and getting Dufloo in a north-south choke. Dufloo was able to fight his way out of the submission attempt; nevertheless, Streeter was able to use his superior striking to hurt and stop Dufloo at 3:26.
The entire fight card, including several entertaining amateur fights, can be watched on YouTube.