Muhammad Mokaev entered the Karate Combat pit for the first time Friday in Dubai and stopped fellow MMA fighter Bolat Zamanbekov.
Mokaev fired off a variety of kicks to open things up, alternating between calf kicks, body kicks and head kicks, and followed it up with a flying knee. Mokaev again fired a flying knee that landed in round two, but the finish came with a push kick to the solar plexus.
Mokaev stays undefeated and takes a superb win on his debut in The Pit! #KC54 powered by @hedera pic.twitter.com/A634ew0hwX
— $KARATE COMBAT (ALT/SZN) (@KarateCombat) May 2, 2025
Karate Combat 54 marked the third match for Mokaev since parting ways with the UFC in 2024. First, he lost a grappling match via split decision to Rogerio Bontorim in October of that year at ADXC, and then went back to MMA rules to choke out Joevincent So in under two minutes at Brave CF.
With another win on his combat sports record, Mokaev wants to continue evolving as an athlete.
“I wanna compete as much as possible,” Mokaev said after the match. “Ahmadullah, financially I’m doing good, but I just want get experience, get my goal to become the best in the world. There’s some bumps in my road but it happens. I made some mistakes, I’m still 24 years old, I’m still gonna make some mistakes more, but it made who I am today. I become more mentally stronger and physically.”
Mokaev, who went 7-0 in the UFC with key wins over Manel Kape and Alex Perez, but was let go of the promotion due to out-of-the-cage issues. He holds a professional MMA record of 13-0, plus 23-0 in amateur MMA bouts.
Zamanbekov came up short in both appearances under the ONE Championship banner for an overall MMA record of 8-3.
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