KSW 17 took place this afternoon in Lodz, Poland, and it was certainly interesting. Whenever a fighter wins a decision on home turf, the “hometown decision” cliche gets thrown around a bit. In terms of this card it certainly seemed that the Polish fighters benefited from that type of thing, because there were a few questionable decisions to say the least.
In the main event, Mamed Khalidov defended his KSW middleweight title rather handily by submitting Jesse Taylor with a kneebar in the first round. Taylor spent most of the fight on top of Khalidov, who threatened again and again from the bottom with submission attempts. Taylor fought off a couple of armbars valiantly, but ended up tapping to the kneebar late in the first.
The co-main event was documented in an earlier post. Mariusz Pudzianowski was taken down repeatedly in the first round and James Thompson was in control for most of the five minutes. The second round saw a whole lot of sloppy grappling, but Pudzianowski did land some big shots on Thompson and had him wobbled. The round ended with Pudzian landing bombs on a downed Thompson. Most expected an overtime round, but instead Pudzianowski was awarded a strange majority decision win, which caused Thompson to go off on the mic.
Jan Blachowicz picked up probably the only legitimate decision win of the night, and the KSW light heavyweight title, by outlasting Sokoudjou in a war of attrition. After a close first round, Blachowicz had Sokoudjou in trouble in both the second and third rounds, cutting him open and dropping him a couple of times. Sokoudjou persevered, but both fighters were badly gassed by the time the judges awarded Blachowicz the victory.
The rest of the card featured one amazing knockout and two disputed decisions. Artur Sowinski landed a nasty uppercut that put former UFC and WEC fighter Maciej Jewtuszko out in the first round. Matt Horwich seemed to definitely win both rounds against Michal Materla, but it inexplicably went to an overtime round that Materla controlled. Materla took the unanimous decision. And James Zikic suffered the same fate in his bout against Antoni Chmielewski, seemingly winning the fight but dropping a split decision. Full results are below:
Mamed Khalidov defeated Jesse Taylor via submission (kneebar) in round 1
Mariusz Pudzianowski defeated James Thompson via majority decision
Jan Błachowicz defeated Sokoudjou via unanimous decision
Michal Materla defeated Matt Horwich via unanimous decision in an overtime round
Artur Sowiński defeated Maciej Jewtuszko via KO (punches) in round 1
Antoni Chmielewski defeated James Zikic via split decision in an overtime round
Aslambek Saidov defeated Rafal Moks via majority decision
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