Underdog Ramazan Esenbaev KOed Satoru Kitaoka

M-1 Global fighter Ramazan Esenbaev KOed renowned Japanese veteran Satoru Kitaoka in the second round on New Year's IGF - Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye.

This fight was the debut abroad for the Russian fighter and the first in the weight category up to 70 kg. Everything seemed to be stacked against him and on pre-match predictions at Taplogy.com chances of his victory was only 11% compared to 89% of the Japanese, who holds wins against Carlos Condit and Takanori Gomi. Esenbaev went against the hard veteran of Pancrase, Sengoku and Dream as a classic underdog.

However Esenbay did not get lost among the star names performing at this event. He surprised the Japanese public and clearly proved that guide and matchmaker M-1 made the right choice to send him for this fight and it also shown that he is now a serious contender for the M-1 Challenge LW championship belt.

Mixfight.ru

It was a good stoppage but I hate the fact that Kitaoka lost.

Not a real surprise. Kitaoka always does poorly against someone with solid grappling who has some pop to their punch.