Kiamrian Abbasov’s quest to become a two-division ONE champion came up short Friday – well short.
In the ONE Championship: Full Circle main event, middleweight and light heavyweight champion Reinier de Ridder (15-0) retained his middleweight belt with a third-round submission of welterweight champ Abbasov (23-5), who had moved up to try to become a dual titleholder.
De Ridder took Abbasov down early in the first round. He omved to side control and unleashed ground and pound for much of the opening frame. In the second, it was more of the same. Late in the round, de Ridder worked for an arm-triangle choke and nearly got the finish, but Abbasov survived to see the third.
But in that round, after de Ridder again quickly got the fight to the canvas, his choke was not denied. Abbasov had to tap 57 seconds into the third. De Ridder got a $50,000 bonus to go along with his win.
Also on the card, former ONE middleweight champ Vitaly Bigdash picked up a unanimous decision over Aung La N Sang in their trilogy fight. La N Sang was strong on the feet, but Bigdash used takedowns throughout the fight to lead to submission attempts and won over the judges.
ONE Championship: Full Circle results included:
- Champ Reinier de Ridder def. Kiamrian Abbasov via submission (arm-triangle choke) – Round 3, 0:57 – to retain middleweight title
- Vitaly Bigdash def. Aung La N Sang via unanimous decision
- Fabricio Andrade def. Jeremy Pacatiw via knockout (punches) – Round 1, 1:37
- Zebaztian Kadestam def. Valmir da Silva via knockout (strikes) – Round 1, 1:26
- Daniyal Zainalov def. Yuri Simoes via split decision
- Drex Zamboanga def. Rahul Raju via knockout (punches) – Round 1, 1:05
