This ludicrous spectacle put the “mixed” in Mixed Martial Arts.
A Russian fight promotion shocked the Mixed Martial Arts community after throwing a bizarre bout, in which a 75-year-old senior citizen and his grandson fought a female fighter — and got their butts handed to them. A clip of the bout is currently blowing up on YouTube and Twitter.
“It’s here and it’s beautiful,” reads the caption to the controversial clip, which was uploaded to Twitter Sunday by MMA fan account Matsyek.
The WWE-esque showdown, which was sponsored by Russia’s Epic Fighting Championship, saw Yulia Mishko, 28, better known as “the Tomboy,” square off against artist Vladimir Spartak and his grandson Big Igibob, the Mirror reported.
Naturally, pitting a woman against two men might seem unfair. However, Spartak claims that neither he nor his son had fought before despite the patriarch purportedly serving in the Vietnam War. Not to mention that Mishko tipped the scales at 286 pounds, nearly as much as the combined weight of her male opponents, per the clip.
The fight appeared to adhere to Mixed Martial Arts regulations with the combatants rocking MMA gloves while the referee allowed ground and pound. The match took place over six 3-minute rounds.
Despite Spartak and son’s numerical advantage, the scrap got off to a surprising start with the tattoo-covered senior taking all the risks while his grandson appeared to hesitate in the background.
The pace picked up in the second period the after Mishko dropped each of her opponents within the opening seconds, clearly undaunted by the double team. First, the plus-size pugilist floored Spartak with a one-two combo and then sent Igibob to the canvas via uppercut, after which she attempted to ground and pound him before grandpa sprang to the rescue. Mishko dropped the scrappy senior yet again in round three with a haymaker.
The spectacle was so ludicrous that one of the female brawler’s cornermen struggled to keep a straight face between rounds. Although her other coach tried to give some legit advice.
By the end of the ludicrous brawl, Mishko had dropped the intra-familial tag-team a staggering three times — and rocked them countless others — while seemingly sustaining no damage in return.
Despite the one-sided shellacking, the contest was bafflingly ruled a draw. Spartak even admitted during the post-fight interview that he had given up on winning, and was just trying to go the distance to demonstrate his resilience, per the Mirror. Igibob, meanwhile, called the cage match the best in Russia EFC history, and vowed to fight alongside his grandfather in the future.
This isn’t the first bizarro bout dreamt up by the promotion, which is notorious for throwing “freak show” fights reminiscent of the early days of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
In one of the stranger spectacles in 2019, a 23-year-old Russian body builder — known as “Popeye” due to his cartoonishly big biceps — faced off against a fighter and actor 20 years his senior. The musclehead was taken down and submitted three minutes into the first round.
The promotion made headlines again the following year when female MMA star Darina Mazdyuk destroyed 530-pound YouTuber Grigory Chistyakov in a mismatch for the ages.
