The Sun
RUSSIAN MMA promotion Epic Fighting Championship put on a grotesque intergender bout between a THIRTY-SEVEN STONE man and a petite female fighter this week. Strawweight Aleksandra Stepakova was pitted against behemoth Grigory Chistyakov, who tipped the scales at a whopping 240KG. Epic FC are no strangers to putting on such mismatches, but MMA fans were left aghast when footage of Stepakova and Chistyakov’s clash started doing the rounds on social media. The intergender mismatch reminded fights fans of the PRIDE 3 clash between the late Emmanuel Yarbrough – who at his heaviest weighed a whopping 313KG – and Daiju Takase. Stepakova, understandably, struggled to deal with her hulking opponent – who kept her pressed against the cage for large portions of the early proceedings. But the 29-year-old eventually managed to break free from the shackles of Chistyakov and returned fire with a deluge of punches and kicks. However, it wasn’t long before Chistyakov closed the distance and used every inch of his huge frame to once again smother Stepakova against the fence.
