Opponent KO's former middleweight champion in Russian Ice Fighting league

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Cooper Godin
July 17, 2024 (8:18)

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A crazy knockout of a middleweight champion occurred during a recent match in the Russian Ice Fighting league that has left fans stunned.

Here in North America, not much is known about this Ice Fighting league in Russia, but it's provided some incredible moments that can be seen on their YouTube channel - IceFights_Russia, which began posting videos in late 2021.

Last week, IceFights_Russia posted a four-hour long video from one of their recent events and it featured a fighter, who only had one loss coming into the match, getting KO'd by his opponent.

According to the Instagram account for IceFights_Russia, Marat Karliev (wearing green jersey) set a new record for the fastest KO in league history at 28 seconds of the second round when he took down the middleweight champion - Mark «Knockout» Kovalevsky, the latter of whom had a record of 11-1 heading into the match.

IceFights_Russia added that this was the outcome of this fight between Karliev, who was 4-3 before the match, and Kovalevsky was unexpected in the tournament.

Note: the following was translated from Russian.

"Epic knockout in a fight against the Champion

Semifinal of the OLIMPBET Russian Cup Icefights Tournament.

The author of the fastest knockout in the history of Ice martial arts, Marat Karliev vs. Icefights middleweight champion Mark «Knockout» Kovalevsky.

The promising confrontation did not last long and ended at 28 seconds of the second round. Marat Karliev won by knockout.

The outcome of the battle was one of the most unpredictable in the semi-finals of the Tournament."

Based on their YouTube uploads, it appears that this the first full-length event/tournament that they've posted in over a year, however for anyone interested, they have been sharing 10-to-15 minutes videos of individual fights and can be found via the link below.

Source: IceFights_Russia/YouTube:
Прямая трансляция Турнира OLIMPBET Кубок России Icefights полуфинал (Fight referenced in this story begins at 3:00:00)