After an exciting back and forth first
round, Mohamad Said Maalem lands a beautiful counter follow up with
devastating GnP to finish Fakhreddine and become the BRAVE CF Light
Heavyweight World Championship pic.twitter.com/iUBK05hV0b— BRAVE Combat Federation (@bravemmaf)
August 1, 2021
Brave Combat Federation’s first foray into Italy wasn’t without
controversy.
In the Brave CF 52 headliner, Mohamed
Said Maalem locked horns with Mohammad
Fakhreddine with the vacant 205-pound championship on the line.
The clash ended after “L’Ambiance” stopped Fakhreddine with
ground-and-pound punches in the opening stanza. However, the
Algerian fighter landed multiple punches behind his Lebanese
opponent’s head, changing the fate of the fight. Considering that
referee Declan
Larkin didn’t warn Maalem nor interrupted the action,
Fakhreddine filed a formal complaint to the Italian Federation of
Grappling and Mixed Martial Arts (Federazione Italiana Grappling
Mixed Martial Arts).
After evaluating the footage of the clash, FIGMMA overturned the
result to a no contest. As a result, the organization’s light
heavyweight championship is vacant once again. Brave hasn’t
announced yet whether it intends to schedule a rematch between
Maalem and Fakhreddine, but it might be only a matter of time
considering
the bad blood between the two fighters.
“Following a thorough investigation and analysis, the Italian
Federation of Grappling and Mixed Martial Arts deemed that the
illegal strikes to the back of the head by Maalem in the final
sequence of the fight,contributed to the stoppage of the match,”
announced the Bahraini promotion in a statement.
The 37-year-old Fakhreddine (14-4 2 NC, 4-3 2 NC Brave) is
currently chasing the dream of becoming the first Brave
two-division champion ever after capturing the middleweight crown
from Daniel
Souza Pereira at Brave CF 41. Maalem (11-3 1NC, 2-0 1NC
Brave) earned a chance to fight for the title thanks to his
six-bout winning streak, which includes victories over Todd Stoute
and Zvonimir
Kralj under the Brave banner.
This is not the first time the Maalem-Fakhreddine matchup has been
surrounded by controversy. The pair should have collided in
the Brave CF 50 co-main event with the vacant light heavyweight
championship on the line, but Fakhreddine pulled out a few
hours before the match due to an illness.