There was controversy surrounding the main event of Alash Pride 87, when one particular MMA fighter decided that he wasn’t releasing a submission he caught his opponent in. What made it worse was the fact that the incident happened in the main event, which was supposed to be an exciting fight between Ilmiyamin Dzhavatov and Ruslan Sariev. Up until that point, everything was going pretty much exactly as can be expected with several fun fights and some great battles between local talent.
The first round of the fight between Dzhavatov and Sariev got started and both men were active in the first round, without much controversy at all. Dzhavatov got caught with an unintentional eye-poke at one point and dropped his opponent right at the end of the round, but other than that it was fairly uneventful. Then at around the 2-minute mark of the second round was when Sariev caught his opponent well and started to pour on the pressure with relentless strikes against the cage. There was multiple points at which the fight could have been stopped and Dzhavatov was given brief moments to recover on two occasions when he lost his gumshield.
After about two whole minutes of receiving what seemed like endless punches and knees, Dzhavatov had one of the luckiest breaks when Sariev slipped while trying to throw a kick. Sariev was clearly tired from the increased output and couldn’t get up quick enough before Dzhavatov leapt onto a guillotine choke. It only took a second or two for Sariev to start tapping, but things went from bad to worse for the MMA fighter when his opponent showed no signs of releasing the submission. Dzhavatov held onto the choke for about 7 seconds after his opponent tapped, and obviously he was disqualified from the fight as a result of his actions.
While the regional MMA circuit is known for some crazy things from time to time, displays of poor sportsmanship like this really shouldn’t be happening in a professional sport. Unfortunately this kind of behavior isn’t restricted to the lower levels of the sport either, as Rousimar Palhares actually became known for refusing to release submissions. Doing so is what actually led to Palhares eventually being released from both the UFC and PFL, as major promotions can’t afford to allow fighters to commit serious infractions like this.
The full Alash Pride 87 event replay, including popular MMA fighter Ilmiyamin Dzhavatov getting disqualified for not releasing a submission after a huge comeback, was uploaded to the promotion’s official YouTube channel: