Two local athletes to compete in weekend MMA event at Diamond Jo

Jul. 17—By Ayanna Eckblad and Josephine Petersen

This Saturday fans of mixed martial arts, wrestling, boxing and other forms of fighting will have the chance to see two Albert Lea athletes in a local event, Midsummer Mayhem.

Midsummer Mayhem is a pro and amateur mixed martial arts — MMA — event organized by Valhalla Combat Sports and Dream FC and hosted by Diamond Jo Casino. Up-and-coming fighters around the Midwest and Canada will battle for an amateur lightweight title, a featherweight No. 1 contender fight, as well as pro MMA fights, according to the Diamond Jo Worth Casino Facebook page. The event will begin at 5 p.m. Saturday at the casino.

James Clark is the owner of Valhalla Combat Sports, currently in Rogers. He opened the MMA gym in 2008. A former MMA fighter himself, Clark still participates in wrestling and jiu jitsu.

Clark said there will be 27 matches in all. The matches will take place in an octagon-shaped cage set up on stage. There will be two wrestling takedown matches, six MMA fights and many jiu jitsu fights, as well as kickboxing.

Both Albert Lea athletes, Faustino Moreno and Santana Acosta, have been doing MMA for 10 to 12 years, according to Clark.

Moreno will participate in a brazilian jiu jitsu match on Saturday, while Acosta will participate in a grappling match and possibly a boxing match.

Moreno has been fighting since 2008.

“I’ve done MMA, I’ve done muay thai, kickboxing,” he said. “As far as jiu jitsu, I just barely started doing jiu jitsu. Probably I want to say 2021.”

He got into martial arts and fighting from growing up in a rough neighborhood with an abusive family member. Moreno also had family who both were involved in fighting.

“My dad was a boxer growing up and so was my uncle,” he said.

Though Moreno had doubters during his start with fighting, he said, “I just kind of started doing it because everybody kept telling me, ‘Oh you can’t do this, you can’t do that.’ So I just started proving the doubters wrong I guess.”

During his years of fighting, Moreno has participated in a tap out for cancer, and took gold home with him. That is just one of many achievements throughout his career.

Despite the struggle to find good training places in Albert Lea, Moreno hasn’t let that stop him. He makes the effort to go out of town, finding gyms he works well with and keeping up with his practice. He has spent the last few months preparing for the event, training at camps and staying up to date with his training. Alongside martial arts, Moreno also plays semi-pro football with the Albert Lea Grizzlies.

Acosta, who has been fighting for eight years, started fighting because of exposure during his youth.

“Coming from a wrestling background, and then my brothers also fought a couple times back in the day.” Acosta said.

He has won multiple “fight of the nights” awards throughout his career, just part of his many achievements.

The one struggle throughout the years for him was the lack of proper training available in Albert Lea.

“Small town, I think that was my biggest downfall,” he said. “Not having a real team behind my back. We’ve always had good fighters come out of Albert Lea, just not the right tools.”

Despite this, he has been preparing for this event with the help of family and friends.

“I actually have two nephews wrestling out of Albert Lea that have been helping me train here and there, and then Faustino Moreno and Justin. I grapple with them,” he said.

Acosta has been training for around a month, having taken this event on short notice. Acosta had also played semi-pro football during previous years, but took a small break and hopes to make a return.

“It comes with a lot of respect and discipline, and a lot more people should get involved,” Acosta said about the importance of martial arts.

Training involves learning many types of professional fighting, including boxing, jiu jitsu, Brazilian jiu jitsu and muay thai wrestling.

“I think wrestling is the foundation of MMA fighting,” Clark said. “They say boxing is like a game of chess … MMA is like chess on four boards at the same time. You have to worry about so much. There’s a lot of strategy that goes into it.” He explained that having good strategy skills is what gives fighters a competitive advantage during these kinds of events.

Clark said he is hoping that the event is a success and that Diamond Jo Casino is open to hosting them again in the future.

“We’re going to see how this show goes,” Clark said. “This is the first time.”

Tickets are available from Diamond Jo Worth Casino’s website, tickets.diamondjoworth.com/ordertickets. VIP Tickets are $50 and general admission tickets are $25.