Absolute Championship Akhmat returns to the capital of Russia with a whole scattering of championship bouts. ACA 160 will take place on July 21 in Moscow under the arches of the CSKA Arena. Four grand prix fights in several weight classes are planned at once.
ACA welterweight champion Vitaliy Slipenko (16-4) will hold his first ACA title defense in the main event of the evening. Slipenko is the winner in the nomination “Fighter of 2022” according to the results of the prestigious MMA award “ACA AWARDS.”
Simultaneously with the championship belt draw in this bout, the second semifinalist of the grand Prix in the welterweight division will be determined, who will face Albert Tumenov (23-4), who has already reached the semifinals after the victory.
MMA star and former UFC fighter Askar Askarov (14-1-1) – who was recently considered one of the contenders for the title of the organization, but left it in the fall of 2022 – returns to the ACA against the former ACA champion, undefeated Azamat Kerefov (16-0) in the flyweight grand prix. Askarov scored seven finishes in the organization, became the ACB champion (ACA before the merger) and left undefeated at the end of the contract. In the UFC, Askarov secured three victories and tasted just one defeat. In addition, the Russian had a draw with the former UFC flyweight champion, Brandon Moreno.
Askarov’s last fight took place last March at a UFC Fight Night event in Columbus, Ohio. Then the Russian lost by a unanimous decision to the New Zealander Kai Kara-France. Askarov is a two-time champion of Russia in freestyle wrestling among the hard of hearing and deaf. At the 2017 Deaflympic Games, the athlete won gold in this discipline in the weight category up to 61 kilograms.
Another championship fight will take place on July 21. The featherweight champion Alikhan Suleymanov (15-3) will hold the first defense against Islam Omarov (13-0). Fans have been waiting for the fight for a long time, it was postponed for six months due to Omarov’s the unsuccessful weight cut in December 2022.
And in another fight of the main card as part of the featherweight grand prix, Russian fighter Kurban Taygibov (13-3) will fight against Brazilian Luis Rafael (36-5).
