If anyone doubted Mike Sorenson's place in the Maximum Fighting Championship, the blood-stained mat at MFC 17: Hostile Takeover is proof that the Fort McMurray native is one of the best welterweights in the mixed martial arts organization.

Sorenson scored a first-round TKO over North Carolina's Lamont Davis at the event held at the River Cree Resort & Casino Friday night. Sorenson punished his opponent on the ground with elbow strike after elbow strike, splitting the bridge of Davis' nose wide open.

"It's definitely the beginning of something," Sorenson said of his win. "I almost feel like that one was too easy. I know the next one is going to be a war. It kind of gives you a false pretense I think. Nothing is ever that easy."

Sorenson was the aggressor from the opening bell. He landed a sharp kick to
Davis' right thigh and followed that with flying knee to the stomach. The fighters tangled up and wrestled into the ropes where they traded blows. Coming into the fight, Sorenson's game plan was to pressure to the American-style kick boxer and not give him room to deliver  strikes.

He followed through on that when he dragged Davis' to the corner and, after
several attempts, scored a takedown by grabbing his opponent's waist and
slamming him to the mat.

"I took his legs out and got on top of him," recalls Sorenson. "I started pounding him out and then the ref stopped it because we were to close to the ropes."

After the slight stoppage, the ring official repositioned the fighters in the centre of the ring with Sorenson back on top in a half guard. He managed to obtain a full mount and unloaded with a series of right hands and elbow strikes.

"I just bombarded him and ended up cutting his nose and his eye really bad,"
said Sorenson. "It was pretty bloody." The ref called for time in order to get a better look at Davis' wounds. He was taken to his corner where the fight doctor examined his badly lacerated nose and determined him fit to continue.

The fighters were reset again in the middle of the mat which was now smeared
with Davis' blood and sweat. With full mount back, Sorenson pinned down his
flailing opponent and landed rapid-fire punches, bouncing Davis' head off the ground like a basketball.

With one last barrage, Sorenson delivered a few more crushing blows that
forced the in-ring official to call the fight two minutes and 52 seconds into the first round. Victorious, Sorenson sprung to his feet and was greeted by his trainer Sandy Bowman and the rest of his camp.

Sorenson says the elbow strikes were his biggest weapon. He had worked on
footwork, takedowns and elbows during MMA legend Pat Miletich's training
camp in Iowa earlier this month.

"Anyone can get hit in the teeth with a short punch, but you get stuck with
an elbow, you know it," he said. The win pushes Sorenson's record to 4-1-0 and moves him up the ladder in the 170-pound welterweight division.