IBJJF world champion Mahamed Aly just made his professional MMA debut against John Ott at PCS 4: Bud Light Fight Night on January 20th, 2024 and he landed a devastating knockout to win the fight. Although Aly has been a grappler for the vast majority of his combat sports career, he has spent over two years away from competition preparing to make the transition to MMA and that time appears to have been very well spent. He previously revealed that he hadn’t just been working on his striking in the gym, and he’d actually taken several amateur boxing matches over that time as well.
He was originally planning on making a slower transition to the world of MMA by taking amateur fights at first as well, but after having several opponents pull out against him he had a change of heart. Instead he chose to turn professional immediately by taking a fight on the regional MMA circuit against an opponent who would have more experience than him in the sport. It appears as though even turning professional didn’t solve his problem though, as he was originally supposed to face 17-11 veteran Wesley Martins at PCS 4: Bud Light Fight Night.
Although Martins withdrew from the fight, the advantage of being on a professional event is that short-notice replacements can usually be found. That’s what happened here, as 9-8 fighter John Ott was announced as Aly’s debut opponent just a month before the fight was scheduled. It took place in a ring and Aly looked very calm and collected when the bell sounded, choosing to stay on his feet and pick his shots instead of attempting to grapple with Ott. That approach paid off as Aly landed a series of heavy shots that stunned Ott, before firing off the huge headkick that won him the fight after less than a minute of action in the first round.
The footage of Mahamed Aly winning his professional MMA debut by knockout at PCS 4: Bud Light Fight Night was posted to the official Instagram account of Paradigm Combat Sports:
