Not The Biggest Title Fight in African MMA History!

The historic BRAVE CF 82 event marked the fourth event on the African continent for the middle eastern MMA organization. Host nation Mauritius, was the latest country to host the promotion and became only the second African country to host a Brave CF MMA title fight – following Brave 31 held in South Africa almost 5 years ago.

Billed as “The Biggest Title Fight in African MMA History”, the event was historic for a number of reasons;

• It was the first-ever trilogy fight in the history of the BRAVE organisation,
• It was the first-ever trilogy in MMA history where each fight took place on a different “continent”,
• It was also the first-ever trilogy in MMA history where each fight took place in a different cage configuration; Brave 71 was in a hexagon, Brave 80 was in a circle and last night’s event took place in an octagon,
• It was also the first time that a Brave CF African champion defended his title on African soil, albeit, not on the actual African continent!

Marketed as a showcase of “the next generation of African MMA stars that could shake up the global MMA circuit”, the original 6 bout card lost 2 of its bouts – Biko vs Gavashelishvili in the build-up week and then the Kubanza vs Rabei bout on fight night. The remaining four bouts, which unfortunately were not shown on SABC Sport as advertised, were watched on Youtube in a broadcast that was fraught with technical issues. 

In the main event, Nkosi Ndebele successfully defended his BRAVE CF Bantamweight title by way of a UD victory over Jose ‘Shorty’ Torres after five exciting rounds of action. This writer had Ndebele winning three of the five rounds due to his crisp and composed striking – consisting of superb front and oblique kicks, pin-point punches and a myriad of elbows which were punctuated by regular flying knees. His takedown defense was also exceptional until the third and fourth rounds, where Torres was able to attempt submissions. In the end, the ‘never-retreating’ Torres was unable to impose his ground-game strategy as Ndebele closes this chapter, effectively beating the “best ever version” of Shorty Torres. What was bizarre is that despite the judges scores being read out in the co-main event, the UD scores in the main event were suspiciously not read out, even though it took an awful long time to eventually announce the decision from the judges! HMMMMM!!!!

In the co-main event, Nicholas Hwende surely punched his ticket as the number one Bantamweight contender when he secured a UD victory (29-28, 29-27, 29-27) over promotional debutant Khurshed Nazarov. Having watched all of Hwende’s fights in the EFC, including his three EFC Championship bouts – which are NOT South African title fights as the Brave commentator would have people believe – last night’s performance was the best yet for the ever-confident and ever-improving white belt!

Unfortunately, the two opening bouts let down the Brave marketing team and their “next generation African hype” by collectively lasting less than a round! In the opening bout, Prince Lolia was forced to “wipe sleep from his eyes” as Ramazan Gitinov tapped him at 1:35 of the first round while Ananias Mulumba also tapped out in the first round of his bout against Ylies Djiroun.

In summary, I feel that there are a few statements that do need to be addressed following the build-up to this event.

Firstly, Brave CF is NOT the only international MMA organisation in the world to have hosted events in Africa – The EFC has been been hosting international events in African cities for 15 years!

Secondly, just as Brace CF is giving African fighters opportunities, so too has the EFC been giving African fighters global exposure and has, in this writer’s opinion, done far more to elevate the growth of MMA in those respective countries than Brave CF ever has. Former EFC African Champions that have gone on to greater things include; Dalcha Lungiambula (DRC), Matunga Djikasa (DRC), Simon Biyong (Cam), Henry Fadipe (Nig), Gunter Kalunda (DRC), Themba Gorimbo (Zim), Igeu Kabesa (DRC), Nicholas Hwende (Zim), Demarte Pena (Ang) and Sylvester Chipfumbu (Zim) and I exclude the multitude of interim EFC African Champions.

Thirdly, it is disingenuous to say that Brave CF has changed the sport in South Africa. I for one, would love to see what this statement is based on because the reality is that the two events held here in South Africa were poorly attended and have not catapulted the careers of any of the participating SA fighters – with the exception of Nkosi Ndebele! The reality is that Africa does not need a “seagull” promotion – one that flies in occasionally and makes a mess – it needs more consistent, reliable events. Too many promotions talk about Africa, yet so few do anything sustainable!

Finally, the biggest title fights in African MMA history have already taken place and names like Francis Ngannou, Israel Adesanya, Kamaru Usman and Dricus du Plessis hold those distinctions. There will no doubt be other bigger title fights in African MMA history, but this was unfortunately not one of them!

I know its marketing. I know it’s promotional smack-talk. Just be be factual!

IMAGES: Courtesy Brave CF