French femme fatale upsets Lino

Amanda Lino, Ballito’s darling of mixed martial arts, had by far the biggest support at the 43rd Extreme Fighting Championship (EFC 43) held at the Durban ICC, when she was forced into submission for the first time in her career in a fight that lasted little over a minute.

History was made on Thursday, August 27 when for the first time ever in the EFC a female bout featured as a main card event.

Amanda “Mad Dog” Lino, who made her EFC debut in April this year by making mince meat of her much toted Irsish opponent, Stephanie Quaile, faced off against the vastly more experienced French femme fatale, Isabelle “Mademoiselle” Pare in the flyweight division.

The female main card bout was such a big deal that it was scheduled as the penultimate bout of the event, before the EFC mens flyweight title fight between Johannesburg’s Nkazimulo “Zuluboy” Zulu and hometown hero, Craig “Nemo” Ninow.

The EFC has gained a great following and in recent years produced one of South Africa’s biggest exports, Garreth “Soldierboy” McLellan, who has since graduated to fight with the “bog boys” in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in the United States of America.

Lino and Pare were perfectly matched in height, weight and reach but the tough-as-nails 33-year-old Pare’s international experience as a former boxer gave her the edge over Lino who was eight years her junior.

Not intimidated by Pare’s credentials, Lino went out guns bazing as she always does. The two exchanged even blows as they danced around the hexagon for the first few seconds until Pare landed a punch that unexpectedly caused Lino to lose her footing. As Lino stumbled to the floor, the astute Pare was all over her like a rash.

Lino gave it all she had and fought back, twisting, kicking, punching, face rapidly reddening, until it looked like her head was going to explode, but the Mademoiselle prevailed. Lino eventually went to sleep to Pare’s poweful rear naked choke.

“Amanda showed true grit, she never tapped out,” said Lino’s head coach, Guy Sheenan.

Fighters signal the referee to stop the fight when they have had enough by tapping with their hand. In stead of tapping out, Lino refused to give up and fought until she passed out under Pare.

Lino took the the disappointing loss on the chin, saying it was just not her night and thanked the Durban crowd, many dressed in Amanda “Mad Dog” Lino supporters gear, for their fantastic support.

“It is always a privilege to fight in front of my home crowd. You guys are so so great,” she said.

EFC president, Cairo Howarth made the exciting announcement that they are looking to host the first EFC female title fight early next year but did not drop any definite names.