Iranians in MMA

[Rooyintan]

These are all the Iranian/Iranian-origin fighters who are ranked or previously ranked in fightmatrix.

fightmatrix rankings

#25 Heavyweight Amir Aliakbari (Iran)
Unrk Heavyweight Masoud Ranjbar (Iran)
Unrk Heavyweight Hassan Torabi (Denmark) [Retired/Inactive]

Unrk Light Heavyweight Farbod Fadami (Germany) [Retired/Inactive]


#4 Middleweight Gegard Mousasi (Netherlands)
#370 Middleweight Mehdi Bagheri (Iran)

#372 Welterweight Mohsen Bahari (Norway)
#382 Welterweight Mehrdad Janzemini (Iran)
#425 Welterweight Kamal Shalorus (USA)
#467 Welterweight Saeed Fatahfir (Australia)
#513 Welterweight Ali Arish (UK)

#359 Bantamweight Farbod Nezhad (India)
Unrk Bantamweight Sirwan Kakai (Sweden)

Unrk Flyweight Ashkan Mokhtarian (Australia)

#67 Featherweight Nad Narimani (UK)
#99 Featherweight Makwan Amirkhani (Finland)
#505 Featherweight Ali Motamed (Iran)
Unrk Featherweight Akira Corassani (Sweden) [Retired]
Unrk Featherweight Sabah Fadai (Canada) [Retired/Inactive]
Unrk Featherweight Danial Sharifi (Netherlands) [Retired/Inactive]
Unrk Featherweight Navid Yousefi (Sweden) [Retired/Inactive]

#21 Lightweight Beneil Dariush (USA)
#140 Lightweight Reza Madadi (Iran)

Unrk Women Bantamweight Pannie Kianzad (Sweden)

[Rooyintan]

Enjoy folks.

[Rooyintan]

FIGHT NIGHTS GLOBAL 85
VTB Ice Palace (Moscow)
30 March 2018, 18:00

Ali Yousefi from Persian Warriors Team will fight Nikolay Balkin (Russia)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BgdnGajH..._warriors_team

[Rooyintan]

So many Iranians in top promos now.

UFC
Flyweight Ashkan Mokhtarian (Australia)
Featherweight Nad Narimani (UK)
Featherweight Makwan Amirkhani (Finland)
Lightweight Beneil Dariush (USA)
Lightweight Reza Madadi (Iran)

Bellator
Middleweight Gegard Mousasi (Netherlands)
Women Bantamweight Pannie Kianzad (Sweden)

One Championship
Welterweight Kamal Shalorus (USA)

Cage Warriors
Welterweight Mohsen Bahari (Norway)
Welterweight Mehrdad Janzemini (Iran)
Welterweight Ali Arish (UK)

ACB
Heavyweight Amir Aliakbari (Iran)

Full Metal Dojo
Middleweight Mehdi Bagheri (Iran)
Featherweight Ali Motamed (Iran)

Also the minor promos which are becoming more popular.

Fight Nights Global
Light Heavyweight Hasan Yousefi (Iran)
Featherweight Ali Yousefi (Iran)

Phoenix Championship
Lightweight Mehdi Ramezani (Iran)
Welterweight Hossein Mollamahdi (Iran)
Bantamweight Sirwan Kakai (Sweden)

Final Fight Championship
Heavyweight Masoud Ranjbar (Iran)

German MMA Championship
Bantamweight Farbod Nezhad (Iran)

Golden Team Championship
Heavyweight Reza Torabi (Iran)

Unified MMA
Featherweight Behrang Yousefi (Canada)

any others?

[Karimi 8]

Dont include Makwan Amirkhani in your lists of Iranians

[Rooyintan]

Dont include Makwan Amirkhani in your lists of Iranians

If he is to be excluded then so should Sirwan Kakai and Gegard Mousasi who both prefer to fly flags of Sweden & Kurdistan or Netherlands & Armenia instead of Iranian flag.

[Omid177]

I think Reza Madadi is already retired? Wish he was younger, this guy had the abilities to be a top 10 lightweight.

[Farhad-7]

If he is to be excluded then so should Sirwan Kakai and Gegard Mousasi who both prefer to fly flags of Sweden & Kurdistan or Netherlands & Armenia instead of Iranian flag.

At least Mousasi waves the real flag of Armenia and talks about his times in Iran.

[Philosophy_King]

This is just one example of haghkhori and how the referee helps his countryman not to lose or get beaten up. Vaghean jaye khejalat keshvare fesgheliye hamsaye ke jamiyatesh andazeye Mashhad hast va zamani velayati az keshvare ma boodand haghe varzeshkarane ma ro mikhorand va hata aberooye oonha ro mibarand va vanemood mikonand ke keshvare ma ca mardomemoon ro doost darand. Faghat mishe goft jaye taasof o sharmandegi.

In this Tournoment all fights between Armenians and Iranains end with iranian lost.
We also lost every fight against Georgians their. Its just embarrassing for iran...

[Rooyintan]

In this Tournoment all fights between Armenians and Iranains end with iranian lost.
We also lost every fight against Georgians their. Its just embarrassing for iran...

In ArmFC Championship, there were Iranian wins but minimum.
Siamak Khorami vs Merozhan Esayan (ARM) back in 2011.
Hamid Shahhoseini vs Pogos Shalgaldyan (ARM) back in 2012.
Ashkan Dalirazar twice defeated Valen Alanyan (ARM) back in 2014 & 2015.
Seyedmilad Salimi vs Torgom Asatryan (ARM) back in 2017.

Ali Mahro Bakhtiari vs Teimuraz Kokosadze (GEO) back in 2015.

There might have been few more which I don't remember. But overall the referee ensures Armenian fighters don't get beaten up by Iranians and they ensure Armenian fighters beat the crap out of our fighters. As with Georgians, the referees make calls in favour of them.

[Philosophy_King]

In ArmFC Championship, there were Iranian wins but minimum.
Siamak Khorami vs Merozhan Esayan (ARM) back in 2011.
Hamid Shahhoseini vs Pogos Shalgaldyan (ARM) back in 2012.
Ashkan Dalirazar twice defeated Valen Alanyan (ARM) back in 2014 & 2015.
Seyedmilad Salimi vs Torgom Asatryan (ARM) back in 2017.
Ali Mahro Bakhtiari vs Teimuraz Kokosadze (GEO) back in 2015.
There might have been few more which I don't remember. But overall the referee ensures Armenian fighters don't get beaten up by Iranians and they ensure Armenian fighters beat the crap out of our fighters. As with Georgians, the referees make calls in favour of them.

I can see your point. It also maybe due to culture since the armenians had a very difficult history with turks
genocide them and the georgians are hard workers and by nature mountain warriors.
Iranians in comparison are more soft (not so barbaric) and good at classical martial arts like koshti, teak wondo, karate or
judo. Another reason could be that armenia and georgia are closer to europe and
therfore have more knowhow in MMA.
The issue with the refs could be that thei favore armenians cause its on their soil and
georgans because they view them as christian brothers.
Anyway hope to see some iranian victories over both countries. The Georgians are by nature
real beasts; they are also in koshti one of our classical final challanger.

[Rooyintan]

[Rooyintan]

I can see your point. It also maybe due to culture since the armenians had a very difficult history with turks
genocide them and the georgians are hard workers and by nature mountain warriors.
Iranians in comparison are more soft (not so barbaric) and good at classical martial arts like koshti, teak wondo, karate or
judo. Another reason could be that armenia and georgia are closer to europe and
therfore have more knowhow in MMA.
The issue with the refs could be that thei favore armenians cause its on their soil and
georgans because they view them as christian brothers.
Anyway hope to see some iranian victories over both countries. The Georgians are by nature
real beasts; they are also in koshti one of our classical final challanger.

Being good at MMA has nothing to do with proximity to Europe! For whatever reason it seems all former soviet union countries have great fighters. Although some have few top fighters like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Turkmenistan. Then others have more top or good fighters like Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Uzbekistan.

In 19th century British agents/travellers wrote that in Iran Kurds and Azeris from Western Iran and Kurds and several Turkic/Tatar-origin persian-speaking tribes from Khorasan were the bravest warriors in the entire Iran. They also wrote Esfehani and Yazdi were the most coward. They also wrote that Turkmens and Afghans(ie. Pashtun) have a strength in defeating Persians should they face eachother in Battle and they regarded Russians have great power and can easily defeat Turkmens or Afghans. Now currently top MMA fighters from Iran are from Kermanshah, Mazandaran, Lorestan, Gilan, East Azerbaijan, Alborz and Tehran. I am sure if they look for fighters in North Khorasan, Razavi Khorasan, Golestan, Kordestan, Ardabil, Khuzestan they will surely find some talented fighters that can be trained for MMA.

[Rooyintan]

Watch from minute 2:06:00 until 2:34:00 how Armenians done another haghkhori Farshid Gholami vs Vahe Tadevosyan.

[Philosophy_King]

Yeah the refs made some horrible decisions but anyway its just shocking to see how most
of the fights ends with iranain defeat. At some point i just wished that iranains
stop participating at this armenians tournement because its just emberassing for
iran. We are damn gifted at weightlifting and wrestling but mma is something that
has no "history" in our culture.
This has definite something todo with the hard conditions
that georgians, armenians, daghestani, tchechnians etc. faced durin soviet time.
They are much rougher and cruel than iranians. I think another big
factor his Hooliganism and Streetfights. In East Europe, Caucasus
you have much harder and often Streetfights which is something that is
alien to iranains. Do we even have something like "iranian Hooligans"?
Anyway hope that we compensate this defeats in Wrestling. ;D