3:1 for MMA Spirit!
The weekend ends with a 3:1 wins conclusion for our MMA fighters- with Bruno having kicked off his first win for the Spirit at St. Petersburg´s Ice Palace on Friday night- check out what followed on Sunday.
There was still a lot of work that had to be done after the successful “Spirit” debut for our MMA instructor Bruno Carvalho at the M-1 Challenge 31 in St. Petersburg´s Ice Palace last Friday as Max, Amir and Rafal headed towards the “Vendetta 3” event in Vienna.
We would like to thank the owner of Vienna´s Ironfist gym who made sure that we all had a pleasent time and enjoyed a professional event with a lot of hospitality shown towards each and every fighter. Besides it was great having met the one and only Andreas Stockmann after quite some time- this man is all about the sport and this could be felt with every single gesture around the ring.
Speaking of the fights- it was Max who first entered the ring at a catchweight of -72kg, where he met the strong Chechen fighter Turpal Ali-Sadulajew. After having traded some punches, Max´opponent tried to get a takedown that was first stuffed and more punches and kicks followed standing up, when Max couldn´t keep the fight standing after the second takedown attempt.
Max ended on his back being sidecontrolled but could quite easily get to his knees where he was controlled and had to take some knees to the body. He finally could break free through the backdoor and got back to his feet only to reverse the position. Max decided to pass his opponent´s guard after having started with some ground and pound. He continued to pound away with the knee on stomach position, but his foe could regain full guard for a couple of seconds. Max decided to pass the guard standing up this time transitioned beautifully from side controll to full mount, from where he landed hard shots to his opponent´s head and left the referee with no other choice than to stop the fight (while his corner threw in the towel at the same time) due to a famous TKO victory for our Max.
The second fight saw another debutant for MMA Spirit entering the ring: Our heavyweight Amir faced unbeaten Ibragim Avzajev, who stormed at Amir just when the bell rang. He decided to shoot for a double leg takdown after a short exchange of punches and although Amir was able to reverse the situation and get on his knees, he was put back down to his own back. The fight had to be stopped as both were to close to the ropes and had to be restarted in the centre of the ring. Both fighters had non of the ground game and got back to their feet, where the more of the same could be witnessed- Amir got caught with a flying knee to body and although having rescued himself for a short moment into the clinch, he could not control his opponents punches and got caught with a right hook, that made him go down and left the referee no other choice than to end the fight in favour of Avzajev after slightly more than 2 minutes into the opening round.
The main MMA event of the evening was between two unbeaten fighters Rafal Lewon and Anton Samoilov in a middleweight battle. Rafal wanted to leave a big impression in his second outing abroad and decided to move into the clinch after some good movement. Rafal threw his opponent to the canvas and dropped hammerfists to the face of Samoilov, who was lucky to get back to fullguard and to attack with an armbar attempt, that made Rafal lift him and slamm him to mat, where Samoilov was left knocked out cold. He luckily didn´t suffer any further injuries, although he was unconscious for a couple of second.
Rafal has now recorded five first round wins in as many fights and will head into his battle with Maurice van Waeyenberghe (7-2-0) on the “Respect FC 7” event on the 21st of April in Essen, full of confidence.
