Masters of the choke: Nemkov crushed Cappelozza at the PFL and Bellator tournaments, and Sarnavsky won the first title in his career

Nemkov's victory and the defeat

of PFL

The tournament in Riyadh promised to be an important event in the history of mixed martial arts.

Over the past years, many fans have been eager to see fights between representatives of the two promotions, designed to determine which exactly the strongest athletes compete in.

And finally this opportunity arose, even though at this point the PFL and Bellator fighters actually represented one, united league.

One way or another, the sign was more than impressive, especially considering the presence of such MMA stars as Yoel Romero, Ryan Bader, Thiago Santos and Vadim Nemkov among the participants.

Of course, Russian fans were primarily expecting a fight with the participation of the ex-Bellator 93 kg champion, who voluntarily abandoned the trophy in order to move to the heavy category.

It was extremely interesting to find out whether Nemkov, who is not distinguished by his outstanding dimensions, is able to compete on equal terms with representatives of the most prestigious division and achieve success there.

True, it was extremely difficult to answer these questions unambiguously based on the duel with Bruno Cappelozza.

After all, the Brazilian himself was a former light heavyweight.

However, in 2021, this did not stop him from winning the PFL Grand Prix and winning not only the championship title, but also $1 million in prize money.

As a result, the day before the fight, Nemkov’s weight was 108 kg - almost 16 kg more than before his previous battle with Yoel Romero.

At the same time, Vadim turned out to be, albeit only 950 g, heavier than Cappelozza, who was five centimeters taller than him.

And because of this, he looked noticeably more massive than the Brazilian.

The first minutes of the duel turned out to be very tense.

Nemkov failed to get through to the legs, and in the standing position he began to gradually dominate Cappelozza only towards the middle of the round.

Twos began to pass, and high kicks posed a serious threat to the Brazilian, on whose face a cut appeared.

And over time, Bruno began to find the distance he needed less and less often.

Frequent failures followed, for which Vadim regularly punished him, not forgetting to follow the recommendations of Fedor Emelianenko, who was located in the corner.

He advised attacking serially, as they practiced on their paws.

It seemed that the athletes would fight in such a rhythm for all three segments; the more surprising was the outcome that came already in the second.

Cappelozza did a great job in the exchange and almost sent Nemkov to the floor.

However, he demonstrated not only resilience, but also the ability to think soberly in critical situations.

Vadim immediately remembered the fight, effectively put Bruno on the ground and performed a hand triangle from full mount.

The Brazilian acted bravely and did not knock, preferring to lose consciousness.

The Russian received a trophy specially made for this tournament from the hands of Mike Tyson himself and won his first heavyweight victory since 2015, celebrating it on the throne.

“This is a new step for me... I hope this fight will be the start of my heavyweight career... I would like a title fight.

Become a champion... The belt is very beautiful.

He impressed me the moment I saw him.

I will proudly bring it home to Russia.

I would like to dedicate this victory to Saint Belogorye,” Nemkov said.

If the preliminary program of the show was remembered for the successes of ex-world boxing champion Clarissa Shields and the grandson of Muhammad Ali, Biagio Ali Walsh, then the main program was remembered for the dominance of Bellator representatives.

AJ McKee needed only 70 seconds to defeat Clay Collard, whom he caught with an elbow lever from the triangle position.

And even though Yoel Romero was forced to spend all three rounds, he still managed to defeat Thiago Santos.

In the battle of veterans, the 46-year-old Cuban was more cunning and took the Brazilian to pieces.

With the help of crushing low kicks, he slowed him down as much as possible, and then outplayed him in the standing position.

And he prevailed by unanimous decision of the judges.

The score 4:0 in the confrontation between Bellator and PFL was set by Jason Jackson.

Initially, he was supposed to fight Magomed Magomedkerimov, but he was injured and was replaced by Ray Cooper - the third.

And he failed to provide adequate competition.

Even in the first round, he survived a real beating, and in the second he missed another blow to the leg and collapsed on the canvas.

The Jamaican attacked him and forced the referee to intervene.

Impa Kasanganay also failed to break the successful streak of Bellator fighters, although he was close to doing so.

In the second round, he almost knocked out Johnny Eblin, but he miraculously survived and, thanks to his trademark wrestling, regained the initiative.

And he developed his advantage in the final five minutes, winning over two of the three jury members to his side.

However, total defeat was still avoided.

Renan Ferreira rolled over Ryan Bader and crushed him in just 23 seconds.

Literally in the very first exchange, the American missed a right to the jaw and was unable to recover.

Triumph of Sarnavsky and defeat of Shtyrkov

In turn, two highly anticipated tournaments also took place in Russia.

So, on Friday, AMC Fight Nights held its first show in 2024, this time delighting its fans from the capital.

And although the program was not replete with big names, the main fight of the evening was worthy of attention.

After all, Magomed Sulumov and one of the main veterans of domestic MMA, Alexander Sarnavsky, fought for the lightweight title.

By this time, the 35-year-old athlete had fought 48 fights and won four dozen victories, but had never been a champion.

Although he was one step away from triumph in the Bellator Grand Prix 2013, and eight years later he almost won the ACA belt.

Then he worked all five rounds with Abdul-Aziz Abdulvakhabov, but lost by unanimous decision.

And although he subsequently won three more times in a row, he did not receive another chance to compete for the honorary title and moved to AMC Fight Nights.

And there he immediately had the opportunity to close the gestalt.

However, the meeting with Sulumov certainly did not promise to be an easy walk.

Even though he suffered two defeats at the start of his career, he subsequently achieved enormous progress.

At the time of the duel with Sarnavsky, his unbeaten streak was eight fights, and in the last of them he forced Akhmed Aliyev to surrender in just 44 seconds.

Another thing that spoke against Sarnavsky was that the last time he fought was in October 2022, and according to MMA rules even earlier - in May.

And it was difficult to predict how such a long downtime would affect an older athlete.

And at first things didn’t go very well for him.

Already in the middle of the first round, Sulumov carried out several tough combinations and almost knocked the challenger to the canvas.

But he miraculously survived.

It seemed that Alexander would again stumble at the most necessary moment, but already at the end of the segment he perked up and rushed to the attack, noticeably cooling the ardor of his young opponent.

And this was just a small preview of what happened in the middle of the second five minutes.

With a series of powerful hooks, Sarnavsky knocked Sulumov to the ground and broke his face, and spent the remaining time before the gong in a dominant position on the ground.

The referee had enough reasons to intervene and stop beating the champion, but he allowed him to wait until the break.

Magomed drew conclusions and tried to take advantage of Alexander’s gaps in the fight, as many others had done before him.

And at first he even succeeded.

A successful takedown gave him the opportunity to recover and take the initiative, but everything was spoiled by an unsuccessful decision to perform a guillotine.

Sarnavsky broke free and was on top again, and 32 seconds before the gong he snuck behind him and threw a choke himself.

Sulumov could only knock and watch as Alexander wildly celebrated winning the first title in his career.

A day later, the RCC 18 tournament took place in Tyumen, which was crowned by the confrontation between another AMC Fight Nights champion Vagab Vagabov and the star Ivan Shtyrkov.

True, they fought not according to the rules of mixed martial arts, but of kickboxing.

As the latter said in an interview with RT, the reason for this could be the opponent’s problems with his shoulders, which did not allow him to fully demonstrate his wrestling skills.

But he was still very dangerous in the standup.

However, in the first round, none of the opponents was able to demonstrate their skills.

Shtyrkov and Vagabov were overly cautious and scored accurate hits extremely rarely, even if they sometimes delighted the Tyumen fans with unexpected moves.

Shtyrkov performed a spinner in the last seconds, but this was clearly not enough.

The referee also thought so, calling on the athletes to work more actively, because the judges simply had nothing to evaluate.

Not to say that after this the fighters perked up and rushed to hit each other, but they began to throw punches at least a little, but more often.

And gradually Vagabov’s advantage became more and more tangible.

The tall and long-armed athlete competently controlled the distance and “fired” with combinations, regularly finding gaps in the enemy’s defense.

Shtyrkov could only act on counterattacks and try to surprise his opponent with non-standard solutions.

One of these was a sweeping high kick and a spinning backfist that sent Vagab to the net.

Nevertheless, Vagabov’s superiority was felt, and in the third round he began to look even a little better.

Shtyrkov tried to snap back and in one of the episodes he even landed a good straight right, but he failed to seize the initiative.

And he lost on the cards of all five judges, suffering his fourth defeat in his last five fights.

Vagab won the fourth bout in a row in total and the first since 2005 in kickboxing.