Gadzhi Rabadanov Claims Victory in Lightweight Semifinal

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00:00Starting off with the headline of the lightweight semifinal

00:02between Ghazi Rabatinov versus Kevin Lee.

00:04We talked to Lee last week, jumping into this tournament in the semifinals.

00:0732-year-old from Michigan, a former UFC fighter with nine wins by submission,

00:11eight by decision coming into that fight,

00:13and replacing J.J. Wilson against Rabatinov, who was one of the favorites,

00:16a 31-year-old Russian, former Beltor and PFL fighter,

00:19who was on an 11-fight win streak and beat Mark Daxi by a first-round TKO

00:24in the first round of this.

00:25We thought Rabatinov would get the win.

00:27We said third round didn't take that long.

00:29First-round TKO, two minutes and 37 seconds into it.

00:33Rabatinov was doing a great job, caught Lee early, 40 seconds in.

00:37Lee was trying to get the leg to survive, as you see, getting away.

00:40Later on, he drops him again, a minute 20 into the fight.

00:43Lee scrambles again.

00:44Rabatinov just started picking him apart left and right on the feet,

00:47just finding out where he wanted to get in there and impose his will,

00:51and he did it again with the combo against the cage halfway through the fight.

00:55Lee goes down, covering up his face.

00:56Rabatinov jumps on him, but doesn't even have to throw too many more punches.

00:59Before the ref gets in there, Rabatinov wins the fight to move on to the finals.

01:0326-4-2 now in his career with 10 of those by KO-TKO, including this one.

01:08Lee now falls to 20-9 in his MMA career.

01:12Rabatinov talked about how happy he was for beating a known guy like Kevin Lee,

01:16but he's only focused on himself in the finals.

01:18It doesn't matter who his opponent is.

01:19He's going to do what he does, and he feels great going into it.

01:22Looking forward to seeing that finals.

01:23We'll talk about his opponent coming up later.

01:25Women's flyweight semifinal.

01:27That was between Liz Karmouche and Elora Dana.

01:29Dana, the 26-year-old from Brazil, who was unbeaten coming into that fight,

01:32but it was her first fight in a major promotion when she started in the PFL tournament,

01:36being Diana Asaravga by first-round submission, a neck crank.

01:41So that was a great performance by Dana against Asaragova.

01:44Going now against the gorilla, Karmouche, the 41-year-old from Cali, the wrestler, grappler,

01:49former Bellator title holder, former UFC Bellator, and PFL fighter,

01:52who had beat Alara Jorani by first-round TKO in the first-round matchup for her.

01:58We thought Karmouche would get the TKO by ground and pound.

02:00She beats Dana, but it goes a distance.

02:02A unanimous decision, 30-27 on all three cards.

02:05I agree with that decision.

02:06That's how I had it on my cards.

02:08I gave Karmouche every round.

02:10It was tight, some of them.

02:11I thought early on maybe you could have given it to Dana,

02:14but I thought Karmouche was doing her thing, beating her up on the feet,

02:18doing a good job keeping Dana from getting the takedowns that she wanted to take to the ground.

02:22I thought that she had some good takedowns herself at times and body control there,

02:26taking her to the mat, controlling her body, throwing the ground and pound.

02:29She did a good job throughout that fight, and she gets the 30-27 victory.

02:34She's now 24-8.

02:35Dana now 8-1 with her first loss being this fight.

02:39Karmouche gave respect to Dana after the fight, talked how tough she is.

02:41But she's the one moving on and in the finals of this tournament.

02:46We also had a lightweight showcase fight between Mansua, Bonoie, and Archie Colgan.

02:50This was a fight that was supposed to happen last month over there in France.

02:54That card got canceled.

02:55It got moved here, and these guys got informed that there was going to be a title eliminator

02:58for the chance to face Usman Mnogominov.

03:01It was supposed to be, like we said, headliner in France.

03:03Now we get it kind of in the middle of the card here, out there in Wichita.

03:06The Frenchman, a.k.a. Tarzan, 32 years old, 2-2 in Bellator, 1-1 in the PFL, had won back-to-back wins

03:13over Alfie Davis, who was in the tournament here, and Yaki.

03:17He lost to J.J. Wilson and Brett Primitz in 2023.

03:19So he's familiar with a lot of these names in this tournament that we saw in the lightweight division,

03:23going against King Colgan, 29-0 from Colorado, who was a wrestler and had eight wins in Bellator,

03:28but hadn't fought a lot of big names.

03:29So we weren't sure who was going to win this fight.

03:31It ends up being Colgan.

03:32He beats the Frenchman by unanimous decision, 30-27 on all three cards.

03:37I thought that was fair and accurate.

03:38I gave Colgan 10-9 every round.

03:40I thought he was doing a great job looking for his spots.

03:44He was stalking him in the first round there, starting to land some hard rights

03:48and doing his job to control.

03:50Barnoui was trying to take it to him in the second, third round,

03:53but Colgan, again, was controlling things, getting some takedowns, throwing some hammer fists,

03:57doing ground and pound throughout, did what he needed to do, got the points,

04:01and now he moves to 12-0.

04:02Barnoui is now 22-7.

04:04And Colgan talked about the undefeated opponent now he gets after this win,

04:09saying that, you know, he was at his chance.

04:12All respect to him, but now it's my turn.

04:14He's going to go fight the champ, and someone's always got to go.

04:17So we look forward to seeing that fight whenever it is announced.

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