Yuri Simoes is about to have his second professional MMA fight in an attempt to right the ship after losing a unanimous decision in his debut to Fan Rong at ONE FC: Inside The Matrix 3. Simoes has a better grappling pedigree than most MMA fighters could ever dream of having, one that includes two ADCC world championships and two IBJJF no gi world championships. Regardless of his undoubtedly elite talent, he showed that everyone is capable of biting off a little more than they can chew when he made his ONE FC debut.
Most debuting fighters will start out on regional promotions regardless of the prior combat sports experience that they have. Even if they do choose to start with a bigger promotion, not many of them would have taken a fight against someone like Rong who was a 13-2 Light-Heavyweight with ferocious knockout power. Simoes was not one to shy away from the challenge however, and it seems as though nothing has actually changed in the time since he made his MMA debut.
Yuri Simoes will be taking on Daniyal Zainalov for his second professional MMA fight at ONE Championship: Full Circle, an undefeated Russian prospect with a 7-0 professional record and a wealth of amateur experience prior to that. Although it has been some time since Simoes put his gloves on, he’s still kept busy in the grappling world and recently fought off three top-tier grapplers in one night at Raw Grappling Championship 1. He won’t spend any time on the sidelines moving forward regardless of what happens in this next fight either as he’s already been invited to the 99kg division of the 2022 ADCC world championships.
The full ONE Championship: Full Circle event, including Yuri Simoes having his second MMA fight against Daniyul Zainalov,will be streamed live on the ONE FC YouTube Channel on February 25th, click here to watch.
