In 2020 the global pandemic sparked a turbulent year for Mixed Martial Arts, forcing cancelations of the sport’s marquee showcases, worldwide. Following the 2020 IMMAF Oceania Open Championships in Australia, the vast global projects that comprise amateur MMA’s elite competition platform faced cancellation of the remaining IMMAF 2020 competition circuit.
This year’s Oceania Open was the event’s most compelling instalment to date, taking place in Gold Coast with national teams of Australia and New Zealand joined by international rivals such as Bahrain, England, Sweden, Ireland, Finland and French Polynesia. The sizeable Aussie national team saw the host nation top the medal table with exciting prospects such as Colby Thicknesse who earned gold in the men’s featherweight tournament. Meanwhile, New Zealand’s world champion, Michelle Montague, continued her undefeated dominance with victory in the lightweight tournament final and against her toughest opponent to date, Jenni Kivioja, Finland’s perennial medal contender who stepped up from featherweight to take on the 155lb world champion. World champions Murtaza Talha Ali (light-heavyweight) and Ramazan Gitinov (welterweight) cruised to gold medal triumphs in addition to the Swedish duo of Bezhan Mahmudi (atomweight) and Bianca Antman (women’s flyweight) who also claimed titles while Poland’s promising young up-and-comer, Magdalena Czaban, claimed the atomweight silver medal.
The championship’s heavyweight title was snatched up by Ireland’s Ryan Spillane, the 2018 IMMAF world champion, who went on to announce his signing with Bellator MMA. Furthermore, the Oceania Open provided final feathers in the caps of Sweden’s Bianca Antman, Bahrain’s Murtaza Ali, and England’s world renown prodigy Muhammad Mokaev, with the trio progressing to make their professional MMA debuts with stunning performances under the banner of Brave.
Through some of the world’s leading professional MMA organisations, reducing the scale of operations and implementing cutting-edge health processes with innovations such as the UFC’s “Fight Island”, the sport bounced back to resume providing athletes with the opportunity to compete and continued to serve fans with a wealth of the most in-demand contests, from the UFC’s Petr Yan, a product of the Russian MMA Union’s regional amateur circuit, who reached the pinnacle of pro MMA in July as he stormed his way to the UFC bantamweight world title, to Muhammad Mokaev, the world’s most talked about young prospect who accelerated his way to 4-0 in as many months from August to November.
More of the year’s top professional standouts from IMMAF roots, plus veterans of the WMMAA platform (pre merge), include former Russian national amateur medallist turned Bellator world champion, Vadim Nemkov, former IMMAF world champion turned UFC star, Amanda Ribas, and Manon Fiorot, France’s former IMMAF championships gold medallist who claimed pro titles under EFC and UAE Warriors in 2020 to emerge as one of the sport’s most dominant new faces.
Scroll down to recap some more alumni who featured under some of the world’s most prominent MMA organisations in 2020, who advanced as experienced veterans of the premier amateur platform:
UFC
BRAZIL – Amanda Ribas
ITALY – Alessio Di Chirico
RUSSIA – Said Nurmagomedov
RUSSIA – Alexey Kunchenko
RUSSIA – Magomed Ankalaev
RUSSIA – Roman Bogatov
RUSSIA – Petr Yan
KAZAKHSTAN – Shavkat Rakhmonov
KAZAKHSTAN – Mariya Agapova
USA – Brendan Allen
WALES – Jack Shore
BRAVE
BELGIUM – Issa Isakov
USA – Jose Torres
SWEDEN – Bianca Antman
SWEDEN – Anton Turkalj
SWEDEN – Irman Smajic
SWEDEN – Jonny Touma
SWEDEN – Elin Oberg
SWEDEN – Tobias Harila
SWEDEN – Andreas Berg Gustafsson
RUSSIA – Murtaza Talha Ali
RUSSIA – Abdulmanap Magomedov
RUSSIA – Magomed Idrisov
WALES – Aiden James
IRELAND – Cian Cowley
ENGLAND – PK Zadeh
ENGLAND – Muhammad Mokaev
ENGLAND – Shoaib Yousaf
LUXEMBOURG – Yann Liasse
PAKISTAN – Abbas khan
ROMANIA – Ion Grigo
SOUTH AFRICA – Nkosi Ndebele
CAGE WARRIORS
ITALY – Dario Bellandi
ITALY – Michele Martignoni
ENGLAND – Christian Leroy Duncan
ENGLAND – Adam Amarasinghe
ENGLAND – Jake Bond
IRELAND – Jack Maguire
NORTHERN IRELAND – Ciaran Mulholland
BELLATOR
BULGARIA – Alexandra Toncheva
ITALY – Michele Martignoni
IRELAND – James Gallagher
IRELAND – Sinead Kavanagh
IRELAND – Danni Neilan
IRELAND – Frans Mlambo
IRELAND – Ciaran Clarke
IRELAND – Kiefer Crosbie
IRELAND – Ryan Spillane (signed)
IRELAND – Sam Slater
NORTHERN IRELAND – Leah McCourt
FRANCE – Lucie Bertaud
FRANCE – Asael Adjoudj
NEW ZEALAND – Jay-Jay Wilson
ENGLAND – Akonne Wanliss
RUSSIA – Valentin Moldavsky
RUSSIA – Vadim Nemkov
RUSSIA – Magomed Magomedov
UAE WARRIORS
FRANCE – Manon Fiorot
SWEDEN – Cornelia Holm
ONE CHAMPIONSHIP
RUSSIA – Murad Ramazanov
RUSSIA – Raimond Magomedaliev
EFC
RUSSIA – Gadzhi Rabadanov
