Rising Finnish organisation StandUpWar held its third event this Saturday in Tampere, Finland. The fight card was built up to showcase the up and coming hometown stars and featured amateur and pro fights. MMA Viking was there to witness the evenings pro fights and here’s the report of the night with a couple of pictures. The full picture gallery will be up soon, so stay tuned.
First pro fight was contested between Kai Karar and Olli Tuomi. Perhaps one of the slowest fights of the night and we do not mean this in any negative way, the evening just was filled with fast paced fights. Both guys made their pro debuts and both fighters seemed to have good set of skills.
Karar won the fight via judges decision.
On the second fight the current MMA amateur Finnish champion Teemu Packalen made his pro debut against Grzegorz Szulakowski from Poland. Szulakowski used all sorts of spinning attacks against Packalen who stayed composed throughout the fight. At the mid point of the fight Packalen landed an huge knee on Szulakowski’s head and it formed a nasty cut which started bleeding a lot immediately. Packalen almost finished the fight at the end of the round as he rained down punches from the mount. Between the first and second round the doctor had a look at the cut and after a conversation with Szulakowski’s corner and the fighter himself, they agreed to not continue the fight.
Packalen won his pro debut via doctor stoppage.
Action continued quickly with the third round as Lasse Äijö and Mikael Nyyssönen entered the cage. The fight hit the mat pretty quickly as Nyyssönen took Äijö down. Rest of the round was spent mainly on the ground with Nyyssönen controlling most of the fight from the top. In the beginning of the second round Äijö answered with a takedown of his own, but Nyyssönen countered quickly and started controlling the fight again and eventually sank in a rear naked choke, Äijö was defending the choke well but was forced to tap into the choke.
Winner by RNC Mikael Nyyssönen
The crowd turned the volume up a notch when hometown fighter Janne Rantanen stepped into the arena to face Lithuanian fighter Sergei Drob. Drob slammed Rantanen on his head quickly on the first round, but Rantanen was able to counter and lock in an armbar/triangle, Drob showed excellent defense and got out of the submission, but he wasn’t able to get out of the bad spot for long as Rantanen attacked with multiple submission attempts. The first round was one of the evenings best rounds for sure. The guys started the second round with the same ferocity as they had in the first round. Rantanen started controlling the fight more and Drob began to fade slightly towards the end. Drob didn’t give up and kept fighting until the match was over.
All three judges gave the fight to Janne Rantanen.
Another hometown star Kennet Mattsson faced Aleksejs Povulans from Latvia. Mattsson had a huge reach advantage, Povulans attacked furiously immediately but Mattsson ducked under and took the fight to the mat. Povulans got up eventually, but Mattsson got him in a weird looking hold and took the fight to the ground again where he used his long limbs and secured an inverted triangle from the top and Povulans had to tap.
Winner by submission Kennet Mattsson
Then it was time for a show as Semen Tyrlya from Belarus faced the rising star Makwan Amirkhani. As Amirkhani entered the cage he had the cage girls throwing rose pedals onto the ramp and he was wearing a crown and a cape. Amirkhani didn’t wait long to start showcasing his skills as he closed the distance and took a hold of Tyrlya and slammed him to the ground hard. Tyrlya was able to counter beautifully and got on top and threatened Amirkhani with a guillotine. Amirkhani was able to shake off Tyrlya and get up. Once again it was Amirkhani who closed the distance and this time he lifted Tyrlya over his head in the middle of the cage and slammed the Belarusian onto the mat. Again Tyrlya countered with a guillotine, but Amirkhani was able to get off from the choke and begin to deliver nasty ground and pound, kneeing the body of Tyrlya and when the opportunity came he jumped on a choke and Tyrlya was forced to tap.
Winner by RNC Makwan Amirkhani.
Stay tuned for a full picture gallery, which will be posted with a day or two.
