UFC Baku: Fiziev vs Torres - Jun 27 🇦🇿

[wandshogun09]

Off to Azerbaijan again…

PARAMOUNT+ MAIN CARD
Rafael Fiziev vs Manuel Torres 

Shara Magomedov vs Michel Pereira 

Nazim Sadykhov vs Matheus Camilo 

Asu Almabayev vs Charles Johnson 

Brunno Ferreira vs Ikram Aliskerov 

Abus Magomedov vs Michal Oleksiejczuk 

PARAMOUNT+ PRELIMS
Farman Hasanov vs Eric Nolan 

Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev vs Julius Walker 

Nursulton Ruziboev vs Andrey Pulyaev 

Kaan Ofli vs Javier Reyes 

Daniil Donchenko vs Theodor Berggren

Bekzat Almakhan vs Jean Matsumoto 

Tahir Abdullayev vs Jefferson Nascimento 

 

Not a great card but it’ll do. I really like the main event and I quite like the co-main. Rest of the card is a bit hit and miss but it’s OK for a Fight Night. The plus for us is the start times. From what I can tell the prelims kick off at 2pm and the main card gets underway at 5pm. Always a bonus. Only a week to go but no doubt there’ll be a few last minute changes and pullouts. I’ll update this post as and when.

 

Rafael Fiziev vs Manuel Torres should be a cracking fight. There are never any guarantees in MMA but I’m fairly confident this is a) gonna be an entertaining fight to watch and b) most likely isn’t going five rounds. There’s no real stakes to it. Both are ranked but at the bottom end. Fiziev’s at #11, Torres at #15. It’s just a fun fight for the sake of a fun fight and I’m fine with that.

Home soil for Fiziev here. He was actually born in Kazakhstan but his family moved to Kyrgyzstan and he represented Kyrgyzstan in his fighting career until 2021. At that time he announced he’d no longer be repping them because of their religious discrimination against Shia Muslims. His dad is actually Azerbaijani so he’s flying that flag now. Fair enough. Anyway, he’s 33 years old now. According to his Wikipedia page he had a 47 fight Kickboxing career and he’s currently 13-5 in MMA with 9 of his wins not making it to the scorecards. I’ve enjoyed watching him in the UFC and he had some solid wins early on over the likes of Renato Moicano, Bobby Green, Brad Riddell and Rafael Dos Anjos. But he’s fallen into a rough patch recently. He’s coming into this fight having lost four of his last five fights. Granted, two of them were against current champ Justin Gaethje (it’s gonna take some getting used to, typing that) but a 1-4 recent record isn’t a good look is it? He got a points win over Ignacio Bahamondes on last years debut card in Azerbaijan but then he got stopped by Mauricio Ruffy on the Sydney card in January and that’s the last we’ve seen of him.

Torres is the lesser known half of this main event but I’m happy to see him getting an opportunity here and a bit of that main event spotlight. He’s Mexican, 31 years old and 17-3 with all but one of his wins coming inside the distance. Definitely a finisher. In the UFC he’s gone 5-1, stopped his first three opponents in the first round and got POTN bonuses for all three. He did get put away in a round by Ignacio Bahamondes on the Sphere card in 2024 but he’s rebounded nicely and returned to form with a couple of first round stoppages over Drew Dober and Grant Dawson. I really thought he might struggle with the grappling of Dawson last time out but he just chinned him early doors.

I like it. Would be nice to see Fiziev get back to winning ways here with it being a home game. But I don’t know. I’m still not sure exactly how good Torres is, and a lot of that’s because his fights usually don’t last long enough to get much of a read on him. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he clobbers Fiziev early here. Even with Fiziev’s recent iffy run of form though, I do feel like this is a step up for Torres from those Dober and Dawson wins. But style-wise, it’s one I think suits Torres because you know Fiziev’s probably not gonna be looking to grapple much. This is most likely gonna be a pure standup firefight and, on paper, that’s the kind of fight both prefer. Should be good.

 

Shara Magomedov vs Michel Pereira is gonna be ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** here. Although I wouldn’t say I’m confident it delivers based off Pereira’s recent performances. There’s something about this matchup I like. Both have their flaws but this feels like it has the potential to be a very entertaining striking battle. Shara is basically strictly a striker. If Pereira can’t have a watchable fight with him, it might be time to find something else to do. It’s mad really because it wasn’t that long ago when he moved up to 185 and was looking like a bit of a handful. I don’t think he’d have ever made a dent in the Top 10 or anything but he was looking good. Then he got schooled and finished by Fluffy Hernandez and then dropped two more fights. He finally snapped the losing streak in February but even then he looked really unconvincing in a split decision win over Zach Reese. If I remember right I think I had Reese winning. We haven’t seen Shara Bullet since last July, so nearly a year now, when he beat Marc-Andre Barriault by decision in what I remember being a proper scrap. Shara was coming off his first loss (a snoozer against MVP, shock horror) so it was a good bounce back for him. Hopefully these two match up well.

 

Nazim Sadykhov vs Matheus Camilo should be worth a look. Sadykhov’s usually decent anyway, can’t say I recall much of Camilo. Sadykhov’s Russian born but is now based in New York and fights out of Ray Longo’s team. He’s 11-2-1 with 10 finishes and is coming off a nasty TKO loss against Fares Ziam back in December. He was on a pretty strong win streak before that though with wins over Terrance McKinney, Ismael Bonfim and a KO win in an absolute stormer against Nikolas Motta on last year’s Baku show. Seriously, if you never saw Sadykhov vs Motta, get it watched. Legitimately one of the best fights of 2025 that hardly anyone talked about. Brazil’s Camilo is 25 years old and 10-3 with 6 finishes. He’s 1-1 in the UFC so far. Got subbed by Gabriel Green in his debut last May, then beat Slava Claus on points at MSG in November.

 

Asu Almabayev vs Charles Johnson I’m neither here nor there on really. I like watching Charles Johnson and I’d usually try to big up and recommend tuning in for his fights but I’ve been pretty bored by Almabayev a few times now so maybe not this time. In fairness to Almabayev, he did submit Alex Perez last time on the Qatar card in November. He’s not a bad fighter, he’s got skills, 23-3 overall, 6-1 in the UFC and the only loss was to Kape after a couple of eye pokes. But yeah, not generally the best to watch. Johnson’s coming off a questionable split decision over Bruno Silva in March. Think I had it for Silva myself but Johnson badly needed that win after a surprising stoppage loss against Alex Perez in his previous fight. Johnson’s one of those fighters who seems to lose the fights you think he’ll win but every now and then he’ll win the fights you think he’s gonna lose. The man’s got stoppage wins over current champ Josh Van and rising contender Lone’er Kavanagh, for fuck’s sake. Yet he’ll probably drop a bollock against DWCS debutant and unranked ham and egger Jobber McJobberface at the Apex later this year.

 

Brunno Ferreira vs Ikram Aliskerov. Don’t hate this. These two are probably just gonna bang it out until one of them hits the deck. Ferreira’s coming off getting ironed out by Gregory Rodrigues in their rematch back in March. So they’re 1-1 now, both with a first round KO over the other. Wouldn’t mind seeing Part 3 at some point. He was riding a 3 fight win streak going into that fight and was coming off a decision win over Marvin Vettori. Whatever that’s worth in 2026. Ferreira’s going nowhere but he’s heavy handed and he’s rarely boring. Aliskerov should be winning this one really though. He’s 17-2 with 12 inside the distance and the only losses coming against Khamzat Chimaev and Robert Whittaker. We last saw him in October, taking a points win off the ‘Iron Turtle’ Jun Yong Park. Not sure why he hasn’t fought since. He’s no world beater but I think he’s a decent mid-level 185er.

 

Abus Magomedov vs Michal Oleksiejczuk opens up the main card. No real opinion on this one way or the other but Oleksiejczuk usually comes to scrap so hopefully he turns this into a bit of a wild dogfight. I don’t rate Magomedov and I’ve never forgiven him for gassing early and getting battered by Strickland a few years ago, a loss which weirdly ended up catapulting Strickland into the title win over Adesanya. He’s 35 now, 28-7-1 and got neck cranked by Joe Pyfer last time out. So I guess he likes losing to cunts. I know who I’m rooting for…

Poland’s Oleksiejczuk’s 31 years old with a record of 22-9-0-1 with 17 finishes, 16 by KO/TKO. He’s never been great and he’s a bit one dimensional but he’s aggressive, heavy handed and usually quite watchable. He also bashed up Sedriques Dumas a couple of fights ago so he’s alright in my book. He’s won three in a row at this point. Stopped Dumas, got a first round TKO over Gerald Meerschaert and then took a decision off Marc-Andre Barriault in a FOTN at the Apex in February.

 

Farman Hasanov vs Eric Nolan. Not a clue. Hasanov is making his UFC debut here, 30 years old, only 4-0 with 3 finishes but he’s actually from Baku so I can see why the matchmakers thought he was worth a punt for this card. Nolan’s 28 years old, 8-4 with 6 finishes and made his UFC debut back in August, losing by submission against Baisangur Susurkaev. For context though, that fight was thrown together as a last minute thing and both guys took it on just a few days notice. And from what I remember, Nolan did give a decent account of himself in defeat so I’m glad to see he’s been given another chance.

 

Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev vs Julius Walker is just there. Pure undercard filler. Yakhyaev’s Turkish, 25 years old and undefeated at 9-0 with 8 not needing the judges. He won a quick 30 second fight on DWCS last August to get in the door and he’s gone 2-0 with two first round finishes so far in the UFC. All looks good on paper but he’s yet to be given a live opponent for me. His first two UFC fights were against Rafael Cerqueira and Brendson Ribeiro. Now he’s up against Walker (7-2, coming off a TKO loss to Dustin Jacoby) who’s probably about the same level as those two. Yakhyaev’s still fairly young so I don’t have a huge problem with the cautious matchmaking. But if he wins this one, I would like to see him given a tougher fight next.

 

Nursulton Ruziboev vs Andrey Pulyaev is doing nothing for me. I’ll go through the motions. Ruziboev is from Uzbekistan, 32 years old and has quite an extensive record of 36-9-2-2 with 33 finishes. Don’t know a lot of his pre-UFC opposition though and he hasn’t fought in over a year now. Lost a decision against Joaquin Buckley in 2024 then beat Eric McConico and Dustin Stoltzfus, hasn’t been active since May 2025. Yeah, nothing to sink your teeth into here. Russia’s Pulyaev is 28 with a 10-4 record. Hasn’t beat anyone notable but he did manage to take Ateba Gautier the distance in defeat in January. Kind of a moral victory in itself but a loss all the same. Not expecting much from this.

 

Kaan Ofli vs Javier Reyes might be one to keep an eye on from the prelims. Ofli’s Australian, 33 years old and 13-4-1 with 8 finishes. He got off to a shaky start in the UFC, losing his first couple of fights, but he got back on track with a first round submission over Ricardo Ramos on the Rio card in October. He then followed up with a points win over Yi Zha at UFC 325 in Sydney in January. It’s Reyes I’m interested in here though. He’s Colombian, 32 years old, trains out of Xtreme Couture and he’s 23-5 with 19 of his wins ending before the final buzzer. He got a first round TKO win on DWCS back in September, then made his Octagon debut on the Mexico City card in February and stopped veteran Douglas Silva De Andrade in a round.

 

Daniil Donchenko vs Theodor Berggren. I’ve liked the limited stuff I’ve seen of Donchenko so far. He’s Ukrainian, 24 years old, 13-2 with 10 finishes. Too early to say where his ceiling is but my early impressions are that I don’t see him going too far but he’ll be a fun fighter to follow. Think I said it before on here but I get a bit of a smaller Jiri Prochazka vibe off him. He’s fought twice in the UFC so far, going 2-0. He got a first round TKO over Rodrigo Sezinando in his debut in September. That was the TUF final apparently, so he’s a TUF winner as well. Whatever that means anymore. He then beat Alex Morono by decision in February. Never heard of this Berggren fella but looking him up, he’s Swedish, 26 years old and 8-3 with a 100% finish rate.

 

Bekzat Almakhan vs Jean Matsumoto could be a real sleeper on this card actually. Bit of a shame they’re buried so far down the card where a lot of people might miss their fight. I say it all the time but the depth of the Bantamweight division is insane. These guys aren’t even ranked. Kazakhstan’s Almakhan is 28 with a 12-3 record and 11 finishes. Made his UFC debut in early 2024 and the matchmakers did him no favours, throwing him in with Umar Nurmagomedov his first night in. He lost of course, but he did go the distance and I vaguely recall him wobbling Umar briefly with a knee or something? He had some injuries after that but came back last year with a quick knockout over Brad Katona, but then dropped a decision to Aleksandre Topuria last time out on the Qatar show in November. Recall that being a good fight though. I don’t think Almakhan’s some future champ or anything but I think he’s probably a bit better than his win/loss record suggests. Brazilian Matsumoto is 26 and has a record of 17-2 and 9 finishes. He’s also coming off a points loss in a really fun fight against Farid Basharat back in February. Close one as well from what I remember.

 

Tahir Abdullayev vs Jefferson Nascimento. Not a Scooby Doo on this. Both are making their UFC debuts and the fight got chucked on the card out of nowhere about a week before show time. Sherdog it is. Abdullayev is Azerbaijani, 29 years old and 19-3 with 17 finishes. Nascimento is Brazilian, unbeaten at 13-0 with 8 finishes and doesn’t even have his age listed on either Sherdog or Tapology. If nothing else, the crowd should at least be into it with Abdullayev being the home fighter.

 

 

Another week, another Fight Night…

Edited June 20 by wandshogun09

[wandshogun09]

Only just realised there wasn’t one reply to this 🤣 Anyone watch this in the end? Thought it was a really fun show myself. Bunch of finishes and a couple of really cool ones. I watched the main card live with it being on early but only just caught up on the prelims.

It was nice to see Fiziev get back to winning ways in the main event. Especially with it being in Azerbaijan. Would’ve been proper shite if Fiziev lost on home soil here. I actually ended up picking Torres in the poll on here. Just had a gut feeling he might catch Fiziev early. And he kind of did. Fiziev said after the fight that the jab Torres caught him with at the end of the first round hit him perfectly and he couldn’t see properly from then on. He even said he got lucky with the spinning kick at the start of the second round, which led to the finish. Said he couldn’t see and just threw the kick anyway and, although Torres did get his hand up, Fiziev caught enough of it to drop Torres and that was all the opening he needed. So if he didn’t get the finish when he did, this probably would’ve got bad for him quick. 

A lot was made going in about Torres insane finishing instincts. He’d only gone past the first round once in his previous 20 fights. Kind of funny that as soon as this fight went past that, he got stopped literally only seconds into the second round. Bit of a Mexican Terrance McKinney vibe off him where it’s just kill or be killed. That’s a fight I’d like to see at some point actually. Torres vs McKinney - the ultimate battle of finishers. Sod’s law that would probably be the one time they’d go to a boring decision. What next for Fiziev? Nothing mega obvious is jumping out but Dan Hooker’s a couple of spots above him in the rankings. Why not?

Shara Bullet vs Michel Pereira was arse. Not a lot to even say about it. I had my reservations due to them both being a bit inconsistent but I gave them the benefit of the doubt and highlighted it as my ‘one to watch’. I won’t do that again. It did feel like it had potential to be a lot of fun but, no, bag of wank. Feels like the matchmakers are trying their best to make Shara a thing and they’re always giving him these matchups that, on paper, seem to suit his style. And he still manages to routinely underwhelm. And Pereira just seems to have fully unraveled. He had that winning streak a couple of years ago but then everything since that loss to Fluffy has been pretty dire from him. This looked like a fight that was up both guys street in terms of style. You’d have thought both would be happy to be in with an opponent they could let loose against. If they’re stinking it up in these types of fights then there’s no hope.

Matheus Camilo got the first round TKO over Nazim Sadykhov but I felt like the stoppage was early myself.

I’ve used the gif showing it in real time at normal speed rather than the replays because you get a better idea of just how little of a chance the ref gave Sadykhov to fight out of it. Oddly, both Felder and Bisping were quick to defend the stoppage. Saying “but look how he fell” and “he’s just turtling up”. One of them made the point that if he was going for a sub then fair enough but he was just covering up so the stoppage was good. A lot of times I’d agree with that but we’re literally talking like 2-3 seconds he was covering up. He didn’t have much chance to even try to go for a sub or get out of there. He hit the deck, covered his head for 2 seconds and the ref called it. I’d usually rather a ref errs on the side of caution and, while I didn’t like this call, this was still better than a stoppage that’s too late. But yeah, I thought it was harsh on Sadykhov. Easy to say he should just accept it but he got half his potential money as a result of that decision by the ref. And even weirder is that Felder and Bisping were moaning about a stoppage earlier in the night (Abdullayev vs Nascimento) and outright calling it a bad stoppage but I thought it wasn’t as bad as this one, which they were fine with.

Asu Almabayev pulling off the old Suloev Stretch on Charles Johnson wasn’t something I saw coming. There was me saying Almabayev was a bit boring in the opening post, then he busts this shit out…

This just a week after we got a Scottish Twister finish on the Kape vs Horiguchi undercard. I like it. Beats the endless Rear Naked Chokes we usually get. Yeah, credit where it’s due. Almabayev looked good here. Thought he was well in control the first couple of rounds before the finish as well. I like Charles but that hairdo is out of control. The old skullet. Absolutely ridiculous. Bloke looks like Pennywise.

Nothing really to say about the other two main card fights. Ikram Aliskerov beat Ferreira comfortably but it didn’t knock my socks off. And Abus Magomedov subbed grapplephobe Oleksiejczuk. Cool.

Prelims had a couple of highlights though. Probably most notably being Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev scoring an 8 second KO over Julius Walker.

Think they said he was a second off breaking the record for fastest KO in Light Heavyweight history. Ryan Jimmo (RIP) still has the record for his 7 second knockout over Anthony Perosh way back. I looked on the UFC’s website at the stats and they’ve got this KO by Yakhyaev listed as joint seventh fastest in UFC history overall (with three others) regardless of weight class.

I touched on it in the opening post but they’ve gotta step this guy up. We’re learning nothing about him against this level of opposition and, while the finishes are good for his highlight reel, he’s not really gaining much from wins like this. Progression-wise or experience building.

Speaking of crazy finishes, Nursulton Ruziboev choked the soul out of Andrey Pulyaev.

Jesus. Fight was short, not much else to say about it beyond the finish. But yeah, poor prick looked like he was seeing the pearly gates.

Kaan Ofli looked good derailing Javier Reyes. I was looking forward to seeing Reyes again and thought he looked quite promising. Ofli wasn’t having it though. Dropped him and arm triangled him inside a round. This after Reyes danced his way to the cage on his walkout as well. I’m all for a bit of showmanship but those entrances only really hit the spot when you’re winning. You look a bit of a plum if you lose after all that. Gotta be Akihiro Gono levels of cool to style it out in defeat.

I’m telling you I really like this Donchenko fella. Not saying he’s gonna shake up the rankings or go on a run at the belt or anything but he’s been fun to watch so far.

Smashed up Berggren for the second round finish. I didn’t know who Berggren was going in though so can’t really get much of a read from a win like this. But if nothing else Donchenko seems like a good addition to the Welterweight division. I compared him to Jiri Prochazka before and he does remind me of him. Not sure how far he can go but he’ll be worth tuning in for regardless.

Good stuff. 

[Dai]

I watched it. Surely this is the end of any Shara hype train? Man has lost all his hype in the last few fights. Wasn't that long ago he was looked at as the next big thing.

How strange was that Peirera performance too? Nearly win the fight in R1, then just completely shut down for the next two rounds and lose a crappy decision. Completely emptying the gas tank to get the stoppage in R1 should just be his gameplay, and then do a Bob Sapp quitting deal in R2 if he doesn't get it. Would be better than whay he always does.

 

With that potential early stoppage, it probably was, but on the other hand you cant complain about it if you've shelled up and are not actively defending yourself.

 

Was a fun card though. Fiziev completely outclassed Torres, who did absolutely nothing of note.

[wandshogun09]

1 hour ago, Dai said:

With that potential early stoppage, it probably was, but on the other hand you cant complain about it if you've shelled up and are not actively defending yourself.

I’d agree he wasn’t intelligently defending himself if it was like 10 seconds of him just turtling up and covering his head with his arms. At that point you’re clearly too fuzzy to mount a comeback or you would’ve made some attempt to improve position or go for a submission from the bottom or something. In cases like this though, we’re literally talking a couple of seconds. Yeah Sadykhov was just covering up but it was 2-3 seconds and none of Camilo’s four punches were really even getting through, they were landing on the arms. I get the ‘a fighter has to intelligently defend themselves’ thing but there’s got to be some kind of grace period of more than 2-3 seconds to at least allow the guy to show he’s OK and be given a chance. It’d be totally different if Sadykhov had hit the deck and wasn’t getting his hands up at all but you could clearly see he had the wherewithal to know he had to cover up. How was he supposed to show he was intelligently defending in that minuscule amount of time? You’re not gonna hit the floor and immediately sweep or roll for a leg lock or whatever in 2 seconds. There has to be a period where you’re just covering up so you can catch your bearings and go for your next move. I just feel like Sadykhov wasn’t given that opportunity.

In contrast, this is the Abdullayev vs Nascimento finish from earlier in the night that I mentioned in my post.

This was what the commentators were calling a bad stoppage, with Bisping flat out saying “that’s a premature stoppage” and that Nascimento “wasn’t hurt” and Felder claiming he was “intelligently defending himself”. I’m not even saying it wasn’t an early stoppage but I can certainly see the case for stopping this fight more than I can for Camilo vs Sadykhov. The argument that he was “intelligently defending himself” seemed to be because he was moving and grabbed Abdullayev’s head at the end. But he’d already taken a bunch of shots by that point, wasn’t getting his arms up he was just eating them, and by the time he grabbed Abdullayev’s neck the ref had already put his hands on them to stop it. And at the moment the ref stepped in, Nascimento looked like he was turning away. I can definitely see why he stopped that fight, even if I do think Nascimento could’ve been given a few seconds longer. And even then he was given more of a chance than Sadykhov, who wasn’t eating clean shots and was only given 3 seconds max after he hit the canvas. 

I know I’ve rambled but this shit bugs me. There’s no consistency. I honestly think most of the commentators crying about the Abdullayev-Nascimento stoppage being early/harsh was also because the fight was nearly over and it got stopped with less than a minute left in the last round. You see that argument all the time when a fight is waved off in the dying seconds. ‘There was only ___ seconds left, they should’ve let him go the distance’ and all that. It’s not the ref’s job to clock watch though. They shouldn’t be having one eye on the clock when they’re meant to be fully focused on fighter safety. 

 

[Dai]

All valid points for sure. One point that you didnt bring up in the questioning of the early stoppage is the manner of how he got dropped, which looked very bad from some angles. Had the ground sequence just been in the middle of a fairly uneventful ground and pound attempt then its not getting stopped I don't think. I think the manner in which he gets dropped, combined with the shelling up, means its not a disastrous stoppage for me. Youre right though, in 3 seconds he couldn't have really done much to prevent the stop, barring flopping around like a fish. Just a bad visual I guess after being dropped.

I agree with the other one too, as hes clearly out at certain points during that ground and pound too.