27 year-old Da’Mon Blackshear submitted surging prospect Deandre Anderson in a back-and-forth, action packed first round at CFFC 103 on Friday night. The victory made it three in a row for Blackshear and awarded him the vacant CFFC bantamweight title. The belt was last held by Kris Mouthino, who picked up Fight of the Night honors after a memorable fight with Sean O’Malley in his UFC debut earlier this year.
Anderson entered CFFC 103 with a perfect professional record of 5-0. In his most recent fight prior to the bout with Blackshear, Anderson knocked out another undefeated prospect in Jose Perez inside one round. Anderson — who had fought at featherweight for two fights — closed as a slight betting favorite. Blackshear entered the bout on a two-fight winning streak and had spent significant time training at Jackson Wink over the course of the year.
Blackshear was able to stun Anderson with a 1-2 in the opening seconds of the fight. From there Anderson looked to work in a submission, but Blackshear was able to scramble and work to a better position. Much of the round was spent in the clinch with high level scrambles both ways. Then, with less than a minute to go in the round, Blackshear took his opponent’s back following a wild scramble and worked for a rear-naked choke. Anderson was unable to shake Blackshear off and ended up having to tap with seconds remaining in the round.
Following the big win, Da’Mon Blackshear made it known that he was ready for the UFC nod. He improved to 2-0 with CFFC and 11-4 professionally, adding to a resume that includes match-ups with multiple current UFC fighters. Blackshear’s last loss came against the surging Danny Sabatello, who has won five straight across Titan FC, Dana White’s Contenders Series and Bellator. Last time out for Sabatello, he notched an impressive win over UFC veteran Brett Johns. Other losses on Blackshear’s record include current UFC bantamweights Pat Sabatini and Kris Mouthino.
“I’ve gotta prove to everybody what I’m capable of doing,” Blackshear said in his post-fight interview. “And I’m gonna be world champion. Remember that, I said that’s a CFFC first, I’m gonna be a UFC world champion.”