FLASH, bang, wallop! A Russian MMA star was KO’d in the dark as the lights sparked out at PFC Gladiator VI. Khavazhi Mandiev faced not only a pounding from 135lbs rival Nauruz Dzamikov, but also the lighting flickering on and off like a hazard warning for his plight. Mandiev’s hopes looked murky enough without the […]
FLASH, bang, wallop! A Russian MMA star was KO’d in the dark as the lights sparked out at PFC Gladiator VI.
Khavazhi Mandiev faced not only a pounding from 135lbs rival Nauruz Dzamikov, but also the lighting flickering on and off like a hazard warning for his plight.
Mandiev’s hopes looked murky enough without the elusive illumination of the arena in Nalchik, a city in the mountainous Caucasus region.
Just a minute was left in the opening round when Dzamikov dropped Mandiev with a shuddering right hand.
The electrics then took a dim view on Mandiev’s miserable situation.
It looked more like a scene from a Quentin Tarantino movie than a mixed martial arts bout as dynamo Dzamikov turned on his own power as the arena’s almost went off, with a rat-a-tat battery of two-fist punching.
Trapped Mandiev briefly managed to scramble away on all fours.
But he was soon defenceless again, forcing the referee to intervene and stop the fight.
Fight fans compared the dingy denouement to sequences from Batman film The Dark Knight and violent action movie John Wick.
And one MMA follower joked: “Shoulda covered rave training in his camp.”
But another claimed Mandiev’s stressful, strobe-style demise was unfair.
He tweeted: “That should be a no contest. Absolutely ridiculous.”
