Everyone always says that ‘anything can happen’ in the wild and wonderful world of MMA, especially in Russian promotions, but not many people could have imagined that they’d ever see a fighter manage to apply a heelhook to himself. But that’s exactly what happened on the Russian regional circuit, where a local fighter caused a catastrophic injury to himself in a similar fashion to a heelhook and could not continue the fight.
Muyusar Abutrov was making his professional MMA debut in a fight against Magomed Gadzhiev, who only held a 1-0 record himself prior to the fight. Abutrobov seemed to be too much for Gadzhiev to handle and he was confidently and convincingly winning the fight as the first round went on. Late in the round however, Abutrobov made a glaring tactical error when he decided to attempt to roll through to attack his opponent’s legs from standing. Although it wasn’t entirely clear, it appears as though Abutrobov was attempting to set up a calf-slicer on his opponent at the time.
As he rolled through for the attack, his one leg got caught on his opponent and the position of his body combined with the momentum of the roll applied a tremendous amount of torque to his knee, just like a heelhook would. Although Abutrobov didn’t actually tap, the damage was immediately clear and the referee called off the fight. It appeared to be the correct decision by the Russian referee as Abutrobov was not able to stand and had to be assisted out of the ring after applying the devastating heelhook pressure to himself. While his opponent Gadzhiev has managed to remain undefeated, he’ll certainly have a lot to work on when he returns to training after the fight.
Did this man just submitted himself? #popMMA pic.twitter.com/OCuByZcQ4q
— Matysek (@Matysek88) June 7, 2022
The full event replay, including the moment that Muyasar Abutrobov above accidentally applied a heelhook to himself, was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Russian MMA promotion Arena:
