A local fighter in Spain recently competed in a fight against a man who was literally twice his size at a regional MMA event, and miraculously still managed to submit his opponent. While it’s common to see these kinds of size mismatches in grappling competition thanks to the prevalence of absolute divisions, it’s incredibly rare to see it ever happen in MMA. A large part of the reason behind that is the addition of strikes. It makes sense really, because there are potentially disastrous consequences to any combat sport that involves striking to begin with. Adding in an extreme difference in size just means that those potential consequences are magnified.
This particular fight saw Raymison Formiga take on Roger Dalet, with the former weighing 130lbs compared to his opponent’s 265lbs. In reality, these men would normally compete at two opposite ends of the scale, as Formiga would likely be able to make the flyweight limit of 125lbs and his opponent is exactly at the heavyweight limit. This fight was labelled as an exhibition match, likely in order to work around the reservations that local commissions might have had about the size difference at play.
This isn’t the first time that an MMA promotion has put together a match between a smaller fighter and someone who is around twice his size in an exhibition fight though, as Shinya Aoki and Fedor Emelianenko fought at an M-1 Challenge event that also ended with one man managing to submit the other. At that event, the bigger athlete ended up emerging victorious as their technical levels were pretty similar and size became the determining factor. The result of the fight between Formiga and Dalet at Dogfight Wild Tournament went the other way however, likely because it became clear pretty quickly that the flyweight Formiga was significantly more skilled than his opponent.
DAVID SUBS GOLIATH
Raymison Formiga (5'4, 130lb) defeats Roger Dalet (6'6, 265lb) in R1 pic.twitter.com/5SiyDBTpnn
— caposa (@Grabaka_Hitman) February 17, 2023
