Spectacular, but not the most pleasant videos of mass fights from wrestling tournaments now and then get on the Internet and collect millions of views. The same fate will surely await the footage from the competitions in Moscow.

On the very first day of the prestigious tournament, a real massacre took place on the wrestling mat. And with the participation of the audience.

Scuffle in the semi-finals

On May 19, the first tournament of the international wrestling league, named after the legendary Russian athlete Ivan Poddubny, started in Moscow. The league program put together by the Wrestling Federation of Russia looked solid. Prizes are awarded in five styles at once, including: Greco-Roman, freestyle and women’s wrestling, as well as grappling and pankration. The opening of the competition was supposed to be a great holiday for fans of classical martial arts, but everything ultimately turned into a loud scandal.

The organizers were let down by the participants of the pankration tournament. The atmosphere of a harsh but noble duel was broken by one of the tournament participants, after which the sports fight, by and large, turned into an ordinary scuffle.

Photo: © FSBI

The instigator of the riot turned out to be a certain Islam Isaev, a wrestler from the Tver region, who fought in the semifinals of the tournament with Radmir Khairullin from the Republic of Bashkortostan. According to eyewitnesses, the skirmish began with the fact that one of the athletes broke the rules. The wrestlers grappled, and later the fans joined in, rushing to the carpet to defend their own. In the end, it was possible to calm down the excited crowd only with the help of law enforcement officers.

Worse than disqualification

After the incident, the president of the Pankration Federation, Konstantin Klimov, admitted that recently mass fights have been happening at competitions less and less, but the organizers have not yet been able to rule out skirmishes. So now the task of the federation is to show, using the example of Isaev, what kind of responsibility for their actions unrestrained wrestlers will bear.

So, it became known that the Tver athlete had already been excluded from the tournament, so he would not be able to participate in the match for third place. But his opponent, it seems, automatically got into the final – this may even be more offensive to the unfortunate fighter. It is possible, however, that the whole region, which he presented in such an unsuccessful way at the tournament, will now have to suffer because of Isaev. Subsequently, not only the wrestler himself, but the entire team of the region can be disqualified for a long time!

It remains to be hoped that things will not come to mutual responsibility, and the head of the federation is only trying in this way to set the delinquent wrestler on the right path. Otherwise, Isaev in Tver in the near future will definitely not be remembered with a kind word.