33-year-old Turkmen mixed-style fighter Dovletjan Yagshymyradov won in the light heavyweight division against Lithuanian Julius Englikas in the Bellator 292 tournament. The fight took place as part of a preliminary card at the SAC Centre in San Jose, California, USA.
«Yagshymyradov will not be easy. It will be difficult to get close to the opponent because of the difference in the range of the hands», observers noted before the start of the fight. After all, the Lithuanian athlete, with a height of 191 centimeters, was 11 cm taller than an opponent from Turkmenistan.
But Dovletjan confidently held a three-round fight due to his control in the fight and better work in the rack. Yagshymyradov also had three spectacular takedowns and won by unanimous decision.
Dovletjan Yagshymyradov is a native of Turkmenabat. The first sport he took up at the age of 6 was karate. At the age of 11, he won the championship of Turkmenistan in this sport among children of his age. Then he won first place in the national hanmudo tournament.
In the 7th grade, Dovletjan switched to kickboxing. After serving in the army, the future fighter entered the Kharkov National Economic University at the Faculty of Management and Marketing. In the same city, the athlete began his professional career in mixed martial arts. Having won the Oplot Challenge in the light heavyweight tournament, Yagshymyradov then became the first representative of Turkmenistan to win champion titles in Russian MMA organizations.
In May 2018, Dovletjan Yagshymyradov became the champion of the DIA (Absolute Championship Berkut) in light heavyweight (up to 93 kg), having won a landslide victory in Moscow at the «Olimpiyskiy» Sports Arena over the current holder of this title, Russian Batraz Agnayev. And in 2019 in Warsaw, he won the first belt of the unified league Absolute Championship Akhmat (ACA 92), defeating Pole Karol Selinski by technical knockout in the fourth round in the main fight. In the same year, Dovletjan defended the ACA 92 champion title in the same weight, taking the upper hand in St. Petersburg at the «Sibur Arena» over Russian Alexei Butorin.
In December 2020, Dovletjan Yagshymyradov signed a contract with the Bellator promotion, becoming the first fighter in this organization from Turkmenistan. The debut was unsuccessful: in 2021, in fights with the American Corey Anderson and the Swede Karl Albrektsson, he was defeated.
Last year, Dovletjan opened the scoring for his victories in Bellator, defeating the Brazilian Rafael Carvalho, the former champion of this organization, with three successful defenses, by technical knockout. And now he won the second fight in a row, taking over the representative of Lithuania. This victory was the 20th (16 by knockout) in the career of D. Yagshymyradov, who also had 7 losses and 1 draw in 28 fights.
