A difficult victory of Muradov
One of the main events of the tournament in Denmark was the debut in the UFC of the 29-year-old fighter Mahmud Muradov. He became the first athlete from Uzbekistan in the Absolute Fighting Championship. A lot was expected from Makhmudov, who showed himself brightly in the Oktagon promotion in the Czech promotion, all the more so because he got a missing star from heaven, Alessio di Chirico, who had 3-4 statistics in the UFC. Initially, the Italian did not even want to take the fight with a promising newcomer, but the leadership managed to convince him.
As a result, di Chirico unexpectedly managed to impose very serious competition on Muradov. In the first round, Mahmoud was more active and sought to work “first number”, but the opponent, who had a powerful blow, counterattacked very well. However, in the end, the Uzbek inflicted a cut on Alessio and completed a takedown.
The second round turned out to be quite equal, and in the third Muradov, forces literally began to lose strength right before our eyes. Di Chirico took possession of the advantage and began to strike blow after blow. In the end, the athlete from Uzbekistan stood on his feet with great difficulty, but still survived.
It was hard to guess who the judges would give the victory to, but they unanimously awarded it to Mahumud - 29:28, 29:28, 29:28, which at least looked undeniable. Nevertheless, Muradov, to the delight of his army of fans, started in the UFC with a victory, and the next fight can take place in the new weight category.
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Thank you very much to everyone who was sick until the last. Our fighter had only 12 days to prepare, the UFC is a serious organization and the fighters are all experienced .. Our tiger is a champion 🙏🏻💪🏻👊🏻🇺🇿🇨🇿🇹🇯🇰🇬🇹🇲🇰🇿 @makhmud_muradov
Posted by Makhmud Muradov.MMA Fighter (@makhmud_muradov_fans) Sep 28, 2019 at 11:51 am PDT
No Russian fighters were represented at the UFC Fight Night 160, but a native of Chechnya, Ismail Naurdiev, who left for Austria at the age of eight and is now flying the flag of that country, entered the octagon. To the delight of both domestic and Austrian MMA fans, the 23-year-old athlete returned to the victory trail after losing to Chancey Renaccountry in July.
The Chechen man managed to deal with Siyar Bahadurzade without any particular problems. Even though the native of Afghanistan held out until the end of the battle, he lost by unanimous decision. Naurdiev won his 17th victory in mixed martial arts and the second in the UFC.
It turned out to be a good evening not only for Muradov, but also for two other representatives of the post-Soviet space. Giga Chikadze, who made his debut in the main fighting promotion of the world, proved to be stronger than Brandon Davis in a heavy fight. At first, the ring announcer announced a draw, but later the judges explained that a mistake had been made in the announcement of the result, and Chikadze still won.
In turn, Moldovan Ion Kutselaba “closed” the defeat from Glover Teixeira with a brutal knockout in a duel with Halil Rountry. The 25-year-old fighter did not leave a single chance to the opponent and forced the judge to stop the fight in the first round.
Hermansson's defeat and Madsen's superb lightweight debut
In the main fight of the evening, two athletes came together who wanted to compete in the middleweight belt in the very near future, Jack Hermansson and Jared Kannonir. The Swede approached the tournament in Copenhagen, having an asset in a series of four victories, and planned with the support of almost home stands to eliminate a dangerous competitor in order to fight for the title in the spring. But the American, who, after changing the weight category, embarked on the victorious track, was not going to concede either.
Hermansson started the fight more actively, who obviously relied on a quick knockout. But Kannonir was ready for this and quite successfully repelled all the attacks of the opponent. A little later, Jack managed to make a takedown, but the opponent was not taken aback in this situation.
The start of the second round turned out to be simply disastrous for Hermansson. He tried to hold another takedown, but literally came across a knockout counter strike. Kannonir immediately rushed to finish the opponent, the judge was forced to intervene and stop the fight. So Jared won the third victory in a row in middleweight and took the next step towards the title. In addition, the American received a bonus for the performance of the evening. Hermansson suffered a third defeat in the UFC.
However, for local fans, the main event of the evening was a successful debut in the strongest promotion of the world of the silver medalist of the 2016 Olympics in the Greco-Roman wrestling Marc Madsen. He did not leave the slightest chance to Danilo Belluardo and knocked out a minute later and 12 seconds after the start of the battle. Perhaps on this day Mark began his journey in pursuit of the lightweight title, which is owned by Khabib Nurmagomedov.
But the fastest of all, his match in Copenhagen was not finished by Madsen, but by John Phillips. Only 17 seconds was enough for him to knock out Alyona Amedovski. This is the third result in UFC average weight history.
The most experienced Ovins Saint-Prue went down in history. After two consecutive defeats, the American forced Michal Olekseychuk to surrender and caught up with John Jones and Glover Teixeira in terms of the number of early victories in modern UFC light heavyweight history. The assets of all three are ten such Victoria. In addition, Saint-Prue won the fifth time with a sambishen, that is, by surrendering an opponent and for the fourth time - through a strangulation.
Finally, in the welterweight, Gilbert Burns took the next step to the title. In a very difficult match, he turned out to be stronger than the Icelander Gunnar Nelson and won a fourth victory in a row, two of which were just after moving to a new category.