An Absolute Championship Berkut event in Moscow devolved into a brawl on Saturday night that required riot police to restore order, another reminder that yes indeed, “Sometimes these things happen in MMA.”
The violence stemmed from a FUBAR ending to a fight between former Bellator fighter Georgi Karakhanyan and Tumir Nagiban. Karakhanyan caught Nagiban in a choke and thought he’d put his opponent to sleep. He released the hold without waiting for ref Herb Dean to stop the fight, and after a moment’s confusion Nagiban decided to keep fighting and decked Karakhanyan. That was apparently the wrong move because Nagiban was eventually disqualified for the punch and Karakhanyan declared the winner.
Watch the end of the fight here (via RT), which was a great back and forth war until the strange end:
Now for the riot part. Karakhanyan supporters confronted Nagiban on his way backstage, sparking a brawl in the crowd that required a squad of riot police to quell.
A mass brawl breaks out after Karakhanyan fans attack Timur Nagibin, as he is being walked away from the cage following disqualification for punching his opponent after the gong #ACB90 pic.twitter.com/dLuDPhad0d
— Denis Geyko (@DenisGeykoRT) November 11, 2018
Fights also broke out in the stands after Karakhanyan v Nagibin bout was stopped due to the DQ of the latter #ACB90 pic.twitter.com/KZxjY3kNTO
— Denis Geyko (@DenisGeykoRT) November 11, 2018
Not quite the chaos we witnessed at UFC 229 after Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor fought, but pretty wild none the less.
As for Absolute Championship Berkut, they plan on running things back between Karakhanyan and Nagiban at a future event … we’d say hopefully with a bit more security, but when you’ve already got the riot police on hand, what more do you need?