Russia’s International Breakthrough, MMA Series Recap & Games of the Future 2025

Hello everyone! You are watching the weekly discussion of the main news from the world of martial arts on the MMA-TV.com portal. My name is Julia Mirei, and joining us are the director of the MMA Series, Fedor Ryzhov, and the chief editor of the portal, Mikhail Shinkaryov. Hello!

Hello and a very warm welcome to everyone!

Hi!

Today we have our last video discussion of the year. We'll sum up the results and take a look at what's ahead for us. And, by the way, speaking of the future. Fedor, you just returned from Abu Dhabi, where the 2025 Games of the Future were held. Please share your personal impressions and thoughts of the whole event, and your views of the Figital martial arts.

For the first time, I took a closer look, if before I usually came just for the martial arts themselves, this time I had the chance to walk around, look around, and see something different. There were robot battles there. It was a very interesting event, though perhaps just a bit drawn out in some parts. Overall, it's fun, highly entertaining, and lively to watch. There were also many guys participating in matches of Counter-Strike, and then they competed in LaserTag. There were also various types of football competitions, plus some other contests—I honestly didn't quite understand what they were. Basically, the young guys participating were playing in goggles, running around the field quite aimlessly as if they were just running, but in reality, on the large digital screens nearby, people could see them throwing balls at each other. Well, naturally, all of this was just a lead-up to what interested me the most, namely mixed martial arts in the phygital format. Furthermore, there were four distinct competing teams represented that I was personally connected to. Of course, I was involved in the world of professional MMA. We were all involved with these teams to one degree or another over many years. The guys consistently performed quite well and displayed impressive talent during their matches. First, second, fourth, and sixth place. Last year, we successfully took first, second, and third place, but this year the opposing teams were exceptionally and meticulously well prepared for the technical computer part of the competition, so to speak. and performed exceptionally well during the competition. If before, this was typically seen as our own exclusive prerogative, now many other teams have performed quite well in recent times too. Plus, there were a few unfortunate results that really didn't go our way in the end. A fighter from Uzbekistan lost by chokehold in 10 seconds to a fighter from Arabian Phantoms. And perhaps, if that incident had not occurred, the final results of the overall standings might have turned out quite differently for everyone. For instance, Rubik Virobyan forgot to activate the essential Smart mode during his match and consequently lost what should have been a shutout game while playing on his PlayStation console. Naturally, after that he crushed his opponent in the game. So the final game score actually ended up being 7 to 6 instead of, say, 13 to 4. And there were also these little moments that quite simply didn't let everyone show their full individual potential. Some people ended up with really strong opponents. Like Shamil Ismailov, and Emil Kuzmich. So, it's not exactly underestimating, but maybe there was even some underestimation, because Shamil took a really hard hit when he went for a takedown. He took a powerful knee strike, and really, it was only thanks to his incredible will to win that he managed to come out on top. Emil Kuzmich, who is known for being excellent in the gym, can usually stand up to the wrestling of the same Shamil Ismailov and Bogdan Guskov, and all the other guys, and Walter too, but here in this specific moment, he simply couldn't get out from under the wrestling of, well, seemingly not the strongest opponent. Well, maybe something psychological happened during the heat of the match. Several individuals who represented the Mexican teams turned out to be just like solid rocks. Denis Zhukov from the 'Kuznya' team and Ivan Solovyov from 'Armfighting' likely battered their own knees and hands, and repeatedly struck their elbows against their opponents' heads, yet they still could not secure a knockout. Even though their tough opponents took a massive amount of heavy hits, they somehow managed to hold on until the end. As a direct result of this display, for Solovyov, it was actually an excellent and highly impressive fight. A real dogfight, a brutal showdown. In which he really successfully advanced through multiple different levels of training all at once, because he realized that there are certain people who simply refuse to break or give up under ordinary pressure, who don't break from regular punches, but just keep pushing forward no matter what happens, and even threaten you with a constant barrage of highly unpredictable and tricky shots, those complex strikes. And of course, our winners, the 'Kuznya' team, they trained for at least two hours every single day, specifically practicing the game itself. But as for their physical training, obviously, they did that constantly and consistently, which resulted in them scoring almost the maximum possible points and completely surpassing every other competitor in the field by a truly huge margin. Congratulations to the Krasnodar team on yet another victory. Congratulations to Oleg Perevertunov. It's really great that when I first tried to convince him to take part in these games, he eventually decided to participate, even though at first he didn't want to. Well, actually, the same goes for Gor Azizyan and his teams—just like everyone else, at first, no one wanted to take part. Now it's wonderful for them and for their athletes.

So, does that mean the scale of the event is growing compared to previous years? Every time...

First of all, we've actually made it abroad now. That is an incredibly interesting point to consider. Secondly, yes, it is absolutely growing at a rapid pace. I think, in general, it is actually a really fascinating and remarkable thing when you begin to seamlessly combine the virtual and real worlds into one cohesive experience that captures our collective imagination. It's truly a remarkably fascinating idea, a deeply intriguing and compelling concept. And from my perspective, it seems to me that it's only going to continue to expand and flourish as time goes on.

And now, let's take a closer look at the year-end results for our series and our portal. We officially launched it on the thirteenth day of December of this year. And this time, it will be dedicated to the entire world of mixed martial arts. Misha spent about a full year preparing for it, and now, after two weeks, the portal has finally launched.

Misha dedicated approximately one full year to the preparations, and before that, he spent a year and a half mentally getting ready for the challenges of this work. Right, Misha? Yes. You underwent highly specialized and rigorous training, you prepared yourself deeply within the walls of Shaolin, you prepared extensively amidst the mountains of Tibet, and you trained specifically to become an exceptionally calm, precise, and confident portal manager, one who is immune to any provocations and is striving with every effort only for absolute professional perfection.

And that's exactly how the portal was launched and is now operating. Misha, really, tell us how it all happened—this entire preparation process—and what are the plans for the upcoming year?

"It's quite tough and demanding during training, but then it's significantly easier in battle. So yes, there was extensive preparation. As always, when launching projects, various specific issues and challenges come up. Some of these things work out, while some things don't. But overall, considering all the nuances, everything is great. And we have big plans for 2026. I am going to give you a short and helpful preview of them. We plan to create a predictions section, where we'll have an exceptionally strong team of experts who, first and foremost, thoroughly know what they're talking about and deeply understand the fights. Accordingly, this particular section should appear for us in twenty twenty six. We'll also keep moving forward—whenever you launch brand new websites, there's always something small you might overlook somewhere

Mikhail, is that extra RAM hanging there in a bag to your right, specifically to enhance our technical capabilities significantly? Yes, yes. Hidden in a bag.

A budget for speakers and guests.

That is absolutely excellent and consistently remarkable.

Fedor, let's move on to the league then. In twenty twenty five, we held six tournaments, awarded two championship belts, and re-awarded one belt. Are you satisfied with the results of the year?

We all certainly would have liked to have had more tournaments. Especially since we really do have a lot of truly outstanding guys, and we can clearly see from our fighters' impressive performances in the biggest and strongest leagues in the world that we have people who can continue to shine brightly. The UFC is currently far ahead, the PFL is positioned somewhere just above all the other leagues, and then come all the rest—I personally see it that way. Oleg Popov recently became the PFL champion and the grand winner of the PFL Heavyweight Grand Prix, a man who fought a very considerable number of professional bouts in our league. He became one of the very first holders of the highly prestigious bronze, silver, and gold championship belts for the total number of wins in the league. Now, he is currently the proud holder of the highly coveted PFL Heavyweight Grand Prix title. Walter Walker and Bogdan Guskov also had a truly excellent and successful year. Valter successfully brought the total number of his signature heel hook submissions up to four, truly becoming a legendary figure in the process, and consequently gained an incredible amount of popularity within the competitive world of sports blogging. Meanwhile, Bogdan Guskov was practically just one small step away from making it into the prestigious top five rankings, but ultimately ended up fighting to a hard-fought draw against the formidable Jan Błachowicz. Let us sincerely hope that during the next year he will be able to fully make up for it and achieve his goals. let's say, he'll do what he wasn't able to accomplish this year. I won't say he'll make up for it, just that he'll do some new things that will bring him closer to fighting for the championship belt. Regarding the overall Series competition, like I previously mentioned, we unfortunately did not manage to host as many tournaments as we would have ideally liked, but we did successfully crown a new lightweight champion. That is certainly nice. Dmitry Mikhailidi was for a very long time a dedicated fighter who consistently took on extremely tough bouts on very short notice while competing in various different fighting leagues as well. I'm glad that he's settled down, you could say, that he's found his footing and calmed down. And in our league, with proper preparation time, he fought his matches and managed to become champion. He won by split decision and became the organization's lightweight champion. Well, obviously, it was a close fight. Let's see what happens next year. Again, there are a lot of ideas. There's also Nikita Barkhatov, who in turn became our champion. In May 2025, he became champion by defeating Figueira, he wants to move up to lightweight and try to become champion in 2 weight classes at once. We have Dimitry Andryushko. We asked Sergey Dyakonov to come back to defend his belt. But it turned out that he has now relinquished the belt. So we'll see if he wants to attempt one more time to have a proper final farewell match. So there are definitely some very positives to consider. The esteemed Vyacheslav Evgenievich specifically said that there will be at least fifteen competitive tournaments organized for next year. Great, we're looking forward to these 15 tournaments. I truly think you'll enjoy all of them, because we'll bring together our entire super pool of talented fighters and add exciting new stars, whom I've managed to constantly discover somewhere around the world, and if they don't compete for a while, other rival organizations try to snatch them up immediately. This always happens with professional fighters from the MMA Series League. Apparently, they really trust our expert scouting and talent identification. On the one hand, it's nice, but on the other hand, not so much. But it's nothing to worry about. Once again, with fifteen tournaments a year, we'll definitely manage everything, get everything done, everyone will fight, and everyone will get their share of appearances.

Since we are now discussing the entire MMA world, let us also take a moment to sum up the various results from other major leagues and list the impressive achievements of our athletes on the grand world stage. Well, naturally, we must start with the incredible Islam Makhachev, who became the undisputed champion in two different weight classes almost simultaneously. Right now in the UFC, you can't hold both belts at the same time.

In the welterweight division, he defeated Jack Maddalena in a dominant fashion and became the welterweight champion. So yes, he is now the champion in two different weight divisions simultaneously. Right now, he is probably contemplating his next steps, because Ilia Topuria, who was the lightweight champion—and who, in turn, moved up from welterweight to lightweight and became the lightweight champion—he is currently having some personal family-related issues, maybe even quite serious family issues, although I am not entirely sure how to put it correctly. So the situation there is going to be a bit unstable. We'll see how it all turns out.

Nevertheless, heartfelt congratulations to Islam. This is the first and, so far, the only historic championship victory by a Russian athlete who has successfully held two UFC belts at the same time. And the second remarkable athlete I want to mention is Petr Yan, who recently secured a decisive victory over Merab Dvalishvili and has now officially become Russia's newest reigning champion in the highly competitive bantamweight division.

Petr Yan made excellent use of his opportunity. Congratulations to him. I have a great deal of profound respect for this particular fighter. Back in, I think it was around twenty thirteen, Vlad Yuryev—a man who has done an incredible amount to develop professional sports in the city of Omsk—called me up and said he had a very talented young boxer who was also a truly great wrestler, competing in the sixty one kilogram weight class—his name is Petr Yan. I told him, 'Vlad, unfortunately, I can't take him.' Yes, his record was 2 to 0, but I said, 'Unfortunately, I can't take him because we simply don't have that weight class in PRO FC.' That's why I didn't get a chance to meet Petr Yan back then, but now, just watching him on TV, so to speak, and following his success in the UFC, I'm really glad that Russia has such a talented and original athlete. Someone who truly, you could say, made himself on his own. The victory over Merab Dvalishvili is all the more valuable because it was achieved after, what, about three years ago, I think, or maybe four, I can't remember, they fought each other, and Dvalishvili defeated Petr quite convincingly. Now, Petr also defeated Merab quite convincingly. And as for Dvalishvili, it is fascinating to watch him nonetheless. Of course, if this rivalry eventually turns into a full trilogy, it will be compelling to watch. After a good amount of time has passed, maybe in half a year or so, we will eventually see whether such a trilogy will actually happen or not. Because, of course, there is also Umar Nurmagomedov in this highly competitive division, who might also be potentially looking to fight Petr Yan much sooner than we might expect. We'll see how it all turns out. It is truly a great experience to watch another fight and to be happy for an athlete proudly representing the Russia, who has now become champion in this division for the second time. That is, he managed to come back after a series of setbacks. He had several unsuccessful fights in the past. He came back and demonstrated to everyone that absolutely anything is possible.

Alright, let's move on to the achievements of our athletes. Magomed Ankalaev won the UFC light heavyweight title in March, but unfortunately lost it in October. But we believe in Magomed and wish him new victories. Absolutely.

The big question currently being discussed is whether the UFC organization will help Magomed Ankalaev earn another opportunity to compete for the light heavyweight title in the near future or not. As for how that situation unfolds, I believe that we are definitely going to find out the final answer soon enough. It will depend on what the card for the tournament at the White House will look like. Dana White said that in February he will be preparing this fight card. And I think after that it will be clear who will be fighting for the light heavyweight title.

Vadim Nemkov has recently become the PFL heavyweight champion. Congratulations to Vadim as well. Especially since he trains at the same gym as Oleg Popov, whom Fedor already mentioned today.

Actually, it might be much more accurate to say that Oleg Popov comes to their intensive training camps, after all. Yes, yes. Oleg Popov consistently trains at the Kuznya gym, and he specifically comes to these camps because there are a lot of high-level heavyweights there to work with. That includes Moldavsky, Nemkov, or rather, the Nemkov brothers. There is also a new fighter, whose name escapes me right now, but you get the idea. Vadim Nemkov truly managed to defeat Bruno Ferreira and now, basically, he has solidified his position at the top of the division. a fight with Francis Ngannou seems inevitable. But if Nemkov beats Ngannou, that would be really awesome. That would be really awesome. Especially since, as I see it, I don't really see many viable ways for Nemkov to win by decision, but I think he could maybe submit him or do something exactly like that. So if it's an exceptionally early finish, that would be even more fantastic. Well, of course, the question is whether this fight will even happen at all.

Yes, we touched on this fight a bit in our previous video discussion with Ruslan Gumilyov, so if you haven't had a chance to watch it yet, be sure to go back and check it out. And another athlete, Usman Nurmagomedov, successfully won his bout against Paul Hughes and officially claimed the PFL lightweight title.

Well, what can I say, Usman is a star in the PFL, and right now he feels absolutely confident in the 70 kilogram division there. I think that the organization is interested in him, and he himself is currently interested in staying there, rather than, for example, moving to the UFC. So for now, everything is good, everything is fine there. And for now, I think that's how things will stay, probably.

Misha, well, Fedor has commented on each of these fights. Perhaps you would like to emphasize or highlight any particular one from what we have just discussed?

I just want to take a moment to highlight the fact that during this current outgoing year, Alexander Volkov successfully managed to find his way back onto the winning track and moved himself much closer toward earning a potential title shot. That would also be an interesting development to see. We wish him success. Also, Sergey Pavlovich won two fights, if I'm not mistaken, and did so convincingly. So, as a result, we will also be very happy to closely follow his upcoming bouts. And in general, we wish nothing but success to all the fighters representing Russia on the international stage. This year has truly been a successful one. Many titles. Of course, once again, we can't help but mention Oleg Popov's victory, the former MMA Series fighter, in the PFL Heavyweight Grand Prix. We would be more than happy to continue following him as well.

Well, friends, the New Year is coming soon. Let's congratulate all of our wonderful viewers and loyal fans on the holiday.

I wish everyone a very happy upcoming New Year. And of course, I wish everyone health, happiness, and for all your wishes to come true. Stay with us—on MMA Series, MMA-TV.COM, and our new portal—because here it will always be interesting, intense, and real. We will dedicate our absolute best efforts and resources to make sure it always stays remarkably honest, consistently exciting, and truly transparent for all our valued users as we continue to move forward together into the future. That's how it is.

I join in the congratulations. In 2026, I wish everyone, first and foremost, strong health. Without it, nothing else matters. We wish success to all the fighters representing Russia. May all the bad things be left somewhere behind. And may the good things always be here, now, and ahead of us. Visit our portal at www.MMA-TV.com. There will be many interesting and engaging things to see. We will be very happy to see you there.

For my own part, I’d like to further add that a great many professional fighters often state they courageously step into the octagon to leave a meaningful and lasting legacy behind. This legacy usually means inspiring others to achieve greatness in sports and in their everyday lives. I wish our viewers to be inspired, to stay motivated, and to achieve great victories both in the gym and in their own lives. And we will continue to motivate you, to showcase beautiful fights, beautiful MMA, and to talk about it. Happy upcoming New Year to you. This video discussion is coming to a close. See you next year. Thank you.