There have been some questionable matchups in MMA over the years, but few have raised eyebrows like a recent event put on by Russian promotion “Our Business.”
The controversial fight put 4-1 professional bantamweight fighter Darina Madzyuk against 529lb blogger Grigory Chistyakov. The intergender bout was clearly meant to be more of a spectacle than a legitimate fight, and as the video clip has spread across the internet and caught the attention of Russian media outlet RT, it’s certainly received the attention the promotion hoped it would.
The fight didn’t last long — Chistyakov started things off by trying to smother Madzyuk against the cage, but after they were reset, Madzyuk landed a punch to his head that sent her opponent to the ground. She then pummeled him with strikes until he tapped out, and the referee called the fight and awarded her the victory.
In addition to the obvious safety concerns raised by putting two opponents in the cage with a nearly 400lb weight difference between them, the legitimacy of the outcome has also been called into question. While it’s hardly unbelievable that an experienced MMA fighter could make an untrained person call it quits after getting punched in the face repeatedly, the fact that this fight was even allowed to happen has made some people suspect that the outcome was predetermined in order to increase the chatter surrounding the matchup.
MMA referee Mark Goddard called the fight “shameful” and lamented the impact it could have on the public’s impression of MMA as a whole.
You can watch the fight below:
