Da’Mon ‘Da Monster’ Blackshear lit up the early preliminary portion of the 100th card at the UFC Apex with a dominant performance and submission over Cody Stamann in their bantamweight bout.
Blackshear was able to get the fight to the mat midway through the first round; once there, he never let his foe get away. Da’Mon used his best skillset, his grappling, to transition to the back quickly and attack the rear-naked choke constantly until he managed to sink it deep under the chin and force a tap.
Blackshear is now 3-3-1 in the UFC, with this win righting his footing after losing his prior two fights to now-ranked fighters Mario Bautista and Montel Jackson. He did much better against the former, making it a close decision as an underdog, while he lost by early KO to the latter.
All that matters much less now, however, after the former Cage Fury FC champion tore through a formerly ranked fighter in Cody Stamann. Stamann is a veteran of fifteen UFC fights and had a great record of 7-4-1 with the promotion as recently as 2023, though now he sits at just .500 after three straight losses including the one today, which happens to be his birthday.
Still, in the best division in the best MMA promotion in the world, winning half your fights is impressive enough in itself. That is also where Da’Mon himself sits, though it will be a better achievement if he can also do it after fifteen fights instead of seven.
The 30-year-old doubtless wants to do better than that, and if he can keep implementing his grappling like he did against Cody then he can go far.
It has been a long time since Blackshear has lost to someone who is not respected as a bright prospect themselves, but now with a signature win against a veteran like Stamann under his belt, perhaps ‘Da Monster’ will grow in confidence and become a threat at 135-lbs himself in the near future.
Also on the early prelims were two other big first-round finishes by Charles ‘Chuck Buffalo’ Radtke, as he knocked out Matt Semelsberger, and Tresean Gore, who submitted Antonio Trocoli via guillotine choke.
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