Ashraf AboArafe
Tomorrow, Riyadh will host the Professional Fighters League finals, with the participation of an elite group of international players in mixed martial arts, which the Kingdom is hosting for the first time, organized by the Saudi Federation for Mixed Martial Arts, in cooperation with the Professional Fighters League (PFL), and under the supervision of the Ministry of Sports, in the indoor hall of King Saud University.
The event, which joins a series of global events on the Kingdom’s soil, includes (6) main fights in a number of approved global weights, to obtain the title and financial prizes totaling (6) million dollars, at a rate of one million dollars for each winner in the expected official fights.
The event also features matches within the finals of the inaugural season of the Professional Fighters League in the Middle East and North Africa region, as the Saudi player Abdullah Al-Qahtani will face his Jordanian counterpart Abdulrahman Al-Hayasat for the featherweight title, while the Saudi player Hattan Al-Saif will face her Algerian counterpart Lilia Othmani, as this is the first presence of its kind for Saudi fighters on a card accompanying the World Mixed Martial Arts League card.
In terms of the main fights, the Russian Denis Goltsov will face his compatriot Oleg Popov for the heavyweight title, while the lightweight title match will bring together the Russian Gadshi Rabadanov against his American competitor Brent Primus, and the Russian Magomed Umalatov will face his compatriot Shamil Musayev for the welterweight title.
For the light heavyweight title, American Imba Kasanganay will face his Turkmen opponent Doviljan Yagshemuradov, while the featherweight title will witness another strong confrontation between Englishman Brendan Loughnane and his Russian opponent Timur Khizriev. In a women’s match within the main events in the capital, Riyadh, Englishwoman Dakota Decheva will meet Brazilian Tayla Santos for the bantamweight title.
In the remaining matches, in which elbows will be allowed to be used in the game for the first time in the history of the league, Kuwaiti Mohammed Al-Aqraa will face his Egyptian opponent Omar Al-Dafrawy in the middleweight category, while in the lightweight category, Lebanese George Eid will fight Iranian Mohsen Mohammed Saifi, and finally in the bantamweight category, Moroccan Rashid Al-Hazoumi will play his Iraqi opponent Ali Talib.
The Kingdom’s hosting of this sporting event embodies the global status it has enjoyed in recent years, which has made it a preferred destination for all continental and international sporting events in all games, which confirms the Ministry of Sports’ keenness to work sustainably to achieve the sports targets in the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, towards achieving sports excellence at all levels.
