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Allstars Fight Night: Here are 7 bouts you need to watch on this weekend’s AFN 4 card
Megic Mike, Liam Pitts and Sakhi Qambari are all fighting at Allstars Fight Night 4. Pics by Chris Önnerby
Allstars Fight Night ends the year with a bang as AFN 4 features several exciting matchups on Saturday. Here, I’ll rank the top seven bouts that I’m looking forward to the most, that I think you guys should tune in to as well.
First of all you might be wondering what AFN even is.
Here’s some quick background on how this became one of the hottest and fastest-growing MMA organizations in Scandinavia, and why you should pay attention.
A few months ago, the famous Allstars Training Center basically launched a new Swedish MMA promotion–Allstars Fight Night–to hold fight cards in front of a small audience at their state-of-the-art fight gym in Stockholm. They kicked off back in June with a typical local show that featured some of the gym’s up-and-comers, and quickly gained notoriety as they managed to secure some bigger names on the coming shows. They would keep putting on events in August and September that garnered more and more attention as word got around.
AFN has managed to get some of Sweden’s biggest influencers involved, either reporting at the events or even stepping into the cage themselves. The promotion has also done a good job of building pretty deep fight cards, delivering quality mixed martial arts as well as a few hyped up matchups for the mainstream audience, thus offering something for everyone.
Now, they are gearing up for AFN 4–their biggest show to date–with a stacked fight card that will be airing on Aftonbladet Plus this coming Saturday, one day before New Year’s Eve on December 30.
That being said, now let’s take a look at the card and rank this weekend’s must-see fights. I’m basing this entirety on my own interest level.
Click on ”Next” to check out the list!
Read more: Allstars Fight Night 4: Fight card, start times & info
Read more: MMA managers, promoters clash over rising star Bernardo Sopai
7. Hamid Tawana vs. Joao Pedro Dos Santos
Flyweight standout Hamid Tawana have gone undefeated 2-0-1 in his first three professional bouts. With two straight finishes he’s showed that he’s someone to watch, most recently securing a bloody TKO win inside the AFN cage as he took on Fabian Ufs in an all-out war.
Tawana was slated to take on fan-favorite Zoran Milic on Saturday, but unfortunately, Milic had to withdraw and has instead been replaced by Brazilian pro debutant Joao Pedro Dos Santos. While the new opponent is kind of a wild card, this should still be a good one.
6. Irman Smajic vs. Jose Jimenez
Irman ”The People’s Champ” Smajic is returning to action for the first time in over two years. Coming off his first professional loss in a grudge match against Nermin Hajdarpasic, I’m intrigued to watch his comeback and see how he’ll perform after the layoff.
Smajic, a multiple-time IMMAF champion, his 3-1 as a pro. Now, he’ll take on Jose Jimenez from Spain who mightn’t have the sexiest record (9-14), but these are big boys colliding at super heavyweight where anything can happen.
5. Bilal Tipsaev vs. Italo Lima
Wolfpack prospect Bilal ”Borz” Tipsaev is back after headlining the inaugural AFN show, where he defeated Brazil’s Lucas Pereira by unanimous decision. Having been a close friend and training partner to UFC star Khamzat Chimaev for a long time, Tipsaev has always been someone to keep an eye on and he looked very promising in his first couple of pro fights which he won by stoppage.
However, I do feel like he hasn’t fully lived up to his potential since, going the distance in his last five fights. Now, the 5-2-1 bantamweight takes on 4-2 Brazilian Italo Lima who’s coming off a submission win. Let’s see if Tipsaev can make something happen here.
4. Sakhi Qambari vs. Hama Dara
At featherweight, Sakhi ”Machete” Qambari–one of the most exciting prospects in Sweden at the moment–will be fighting for the title as he takes on Hama ”Mawili” Dara from Finland.
Qambari has a 3-1 record and is riding a three-fight win streak. With two submission victories in AFN, many fans where clamoring for him to get a title shot and he definitely deserves it.
The knock on this bout is obviously that Dara, a 3-7 bantamweight who’s coming off a loss, is fighting for a featherweight championship. However, he recently choked out Allstars standout Abdurakhman Nasrutdinov, and submitted another opponent at AFN 2 before that, so there’s that.
I’ll be tuning in to watch Qambari who I expect to add another finish to the highlight reel, but it would be a bit weird if Dara ended up scoring the upset and becoming AFN champ on the way.
3. Megic Mike vs. Jaffa Kundo
Alright, keep in mind that I’m basing this on my own level of interest and not necessarily ranking the quality of the actual matchup. This is a B class bout, which basically is a more limited form of amateur MMA with eight counts and no ground and pound, rather than the regular A class ruleset which is what you would see being used in the IMMAF championships and most of the amateur bouts featured on these kind of cards in Sweden.
This is also a super heavyweight contest between a TikTok star and a Swedish ’Love Island’ contestant. Megic Mike is the A side here with over a million social media followers, and he’s actually fought a couple of times against local rival Ralle Ralz, first in a unsanctioned bout in Malmö that ended in a DQ win, and later in a legit B class bout in the AFN cage that he won by standing TKO in round two after getting dropped in the first.
Megic Mike claims that he’s serious in pursuing MMA and he’s been training s with a solid team at Öresund MMA undder Malik Arash Mawlayi, a well-known coach in Sweden, for quite some time.
On the flipside, Jaffa Kundo is a complete wild card who’s never fought before, so we’ll see what happens here. Whether you like it or not, Megic Mike is one of the most talked-about names in Swedish MMA at the moment so as a the level of interest among mainstream viewers makes my pickle tickle as a media guy.
2. Bernardo Sopai vs. Geovane Vargas
Former FCR bantamweight champion Bernardo Sopai is definitely the best fighter on this card if we’re talking pure talent.
”The Lion King” is 10-2 at just 23 years of age and realistically, he would probably do good against some of the UFC’s 135ers judging by his impressive performances. Sopai is coming off a 20 second KO that was nominated for ’Knockout of the Year’ by UFC Fight Pass and needles to say, he’s the main event at for a reason as he’s looking to add the AFN championship to his name.
11-4 Brazilian Geovane Vargas should be a a solid challenger. He’s coming off a decision victory and has won eight of his nine last bouts, although his most recent wins has come against less experienced opponents.
1. Liam Pitts vs. Rasmus Vauhkonen
For me, the bout I’m looking forward to the most is Liam Pitts’s amateur bantamweight title bout against Finnish champ and IMMAF junior world bronze medalist Rasmus Vauhkonen, that will be opening the main card on Saturday.
So why am I, and many others with me, so high on an amateur fight? Well, that’s because Liam Pitts is one of the absolute hottest prospects in Sweden at the moment with massive star potential.
Pitts basically grew up with cameras following him around as a reality TV personality and thus, has big following already. That doesn’t mean that he’s some sort of influencer boxer though. Pitts has been taking martial arts seriously for several years, winning a Swedish junior wrestling championship and training with some of the best guys in Sweden and Europe at Allstars Training Center.
Now, Pitts has won his first four amateur A class bouts, most recently scoring a TKO win at the IMMAF worlds before unfortunately being eliminated from the championship tournament bracket due to missing weight ahead of the next bout.
Before that, Pitts choked his opponent unconscious in the AFN cage. Now, he has a tough opponent in front of him in Rasmus Vauhkonen who should put up a good fight. Even though this is amateur MMA, there are high expectations on the undefeated Pitts and a massive level of interest around his fights among Swedish viewers, which makes it feel like a big deal every time he steps into the cage.
Allstars Fight Night 4: Full fight card
That being said, there are a few other bouts to look out for as well so I recommend tuning in as the prelims starts at 5 p.m. (17.00) CET on Aftonbladet Plus, with the main card starting two hours later at 7 p.m, (19.00) CET.
Click here to find out more information about the event and check out the full fight card down below!
