LAS VEGAS, Nevada — LFA CEO Ed Soares announced today that the promotion will celebrate its historic bicentennial event in the Land of 10,000 Lakes in January with a Championship Tripleheader at LFA 200. Each of the three world title fights will unify championships between current LFA champions and interim champions. LFA 200 will be the ninth LFA event to be held on a Saturday. The event will also be the twenty-third LFA event to take place in the state of Minnesota. Twenty-two of these events have taken place at the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel, which is located just 25 minutes southwest of the Twin Cities.
LFA 200, presented by Monster Energy, takes place Saturday, January 25th at the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Prior Lake, Minnesota. The main event will feature a featherweight title unification bout when champion Elijah “Baby” Johns faces interim champion Lerryan “The Gunslinger” Douglas. The co-main event will showcase a women’s flyweight title unification bout when champion Shannon “MMA Barbie” Clark meets interim champion Cheyanne “Chey” Bowers. The feature fight will see a welterweight title unification bout when champion Vanilto Antunes battles interim champion Shamidkhan Magomedov. The entire main card will be available worldwide on UFC FIGHT PASS® at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT.
“We are excited to bring three Title Unification Fights to Minnesota to commemorate LFA 200,” stated Soares. “In our 8 years as a promotion, we have only had three LFA title unification bouts, where we have a current champion and interim champion fight to unify the title. On Saturday, January 25th, that number will double to six, when we bring three of these incredible bouts to the Upper Midwest. These three bouts will unify our featherweight, women’s flyweight, and welterweight world titles. The Mystic Lake Casino Hotel is a world-class entertainment destination that has hosted more LFA events than any venue in the world. This made it the perfect location to host our historic bicentennial event.”
Tickets for LFA 200: Johns vs. Douglas are available for purchase through Ticketmaster.com.
Johns (10-2) is the younger brother of former LFA bantamweight champion and current UFC star Miles Johns. The 28-year-old prospect followed his brother from their native Kansas to Dallas, Texas where the two developed into world-class prospects and LFA champions at Fortis MMA. The younger Johns brother, affectionately known as “Baby Johns”, captured his first world title earlier this year in the promotion that he grew up in. That journey began all the way back at LFA 1, where he made his amateur MMA debut, and it culminated with him winning the title in what was a record-tying tenth professional fight for the LFA. Johns earned the title shot by dominating U23 World Wrestling Championships gold medalist Masuto Kawana at LFA 138. He then captured gold to continue the Johns brothers’ winning ways and championship pedigree by defeating Alfred Walker at LFA 176. Now the only man to compete in every year of LFA’s existence defends his title for the first time. The bout will give him the record for the most professional fights for the LFA (11), and if he wins, he will tie Victor Altamirano for the most professional wins in LFA history (9).
Douglas (11-5) is a Brazilian that has taken the LFA featherweight division by storm over the past 14 months. In that time, the 29-year-old has obliterated three of the division’s top prospects in Ivan Tena, Nathan Ghareeb, and Javier Reyes with his ungodly punching power. The human highlight reel captured the interim title this past summer by dispatching Reyes and he now looks to unify the crown. Douglas hails from Paranaguá, Paraná in southern Brazil. This is a city in the same Brazilian state that has produced MMA legends Anderson Silva, Wanderlei Silva, Maurício “Shogun Rua, and Cris Cyborg. Douglas would later meet Cyborg upon moving to the United States and now calls the women’s MMA icon a friend and training partner. The man known as “The Gunslinger” also has a head coach in the UFC Hall of Fame. That would be the legendary Cub Swanson, who has already produced two other LFA greats Dan Argueta and Danny Silva, who are currently fighting in the UFC. Douglas trains with Swanson, Argueta, Silva, and LFA contender Richie Miranda at Bloodline Combat Sports in Costa Mesa, California.
Clark (5-1) signed with the LFA as the top women’s flyweight prospect from Canada and wasted little time showing the world why in her LFA debut in October of 2023 at LFA 170. The 32-year-old bullied the highly-touted Bosnian prospect Nejra Repp en route to a Unanimous Decision victory. The win earned the former Canadian college soccer standout a shot at the vacant LFA women’s flyweight world title this past February at LFA 177. That is when the Canadian powerhouse showed the world she is more than just an elite athlete with punching power. That night, the woman known as “MMA Barbie” fought a young Brazilian prospect in Thaiany Lopes, who was a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu and nearly a decade younger. Lopes, like Clark, also signed with the LFA as a regional champion in her home country. None of that would matter as the Canadian striker flipped the script and submitted the grappling ace with a vicious Bulldog Choke midway through the second round. The choke put Lopes to sleep and went viral online. More importantly, it made Clark the new LFA women’s flyweight world champion.
Roberto Villa is the CEO, Founder, Executive Writer, Senior Editor of FightBook MMA. Has a passion for Combat Sports and also a podcast host for Sitting Ringside. He’s also a former MMA fighter and Kickboxer.
Discover more from FightBook MMA
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
