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Once again we have to hand it to our Russian friends to come up with another brutal sport that is highly entertaining. Loosely based on the Battle of Thermopylae where 300 Spartans defended a narrow mountain gorge from 1000's of Persians. The ring depicts nowhere to hide and holding on is disallowed. This is all action and fight nights make the other stuff we are used to look rather lame.
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Nowhere to hide.
How this combat sport works is there are 4 fighters on each team who gather at either end of a narrow ring. The first fighter in each team then fights for 5 minutes and the winner stays in the ring. The winning team is the team that is still standing so a strong lead out fighter is advised.
The standard kick boxing rules apply with no wrestling allowed. This is brutal as you will see in the final. I won't give the result away but the one teams starting fighter takes out the first three fighters on his own.On the night he accounts for 6 fighters on his own and is one tough bastard.
What I think is appealing about this sport is that there is no holding on and nowhere to hide. The only chance you have is that your opponent tires as some of the fighters are literally fighting for 15 minutes with no breaks.Because it is a team sport you don't want to let your mates down so the guys dig really deep.
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The guys are tough and must be as crazy as hell.
Nikolai Krudryashov and Daniel Litvinsky came up with the idea in 2012 as they wanted a sport that was purely action packed. The aim of the sport which is a massive hit in Russia right now is world team tournaments. They envisage world championships with the likes of a team USA,Russia,England,Ireland,France and whoever else wants to try their hand.
There is interest already of hosting this even in Las Vegas. After seeing this event how many of the UFC or MMA fighters could last this event. The likes of Connor McGregor would get nailed at this even though they may need him for publicity.
This is a sport that is not just a gimmick as it really does have something to offer. I can see this becoming really big and being the most popular combat tournament around. the fighters are super fit and tough and each team has a support base following them. An event could easily be held in one evening. The tournament held in January saw 8 teams fighting with the loser being eliminated and the winners were crowned the same evening.If you are the lead out fighter you aren't expected to take on everyone as you have 3 fighters waiting behind you.
If you don't like fighting and aggression I suggest you don't watch this.