Rob Wilkinson TKO’s Omari Akhmedov, becomes first ever PFL champion from Australia at PFL 10

The Professional Fighters League returns to us tonight, November 25, 2022, for PFL 10: The Richest Night in Mixed Martial Arts.

Headlining the event is a women’s lightweight championship trilogy showcasing two-time PFL champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist Kayla Harrison (15-0), who faced Laressa Pacheco (18-4) in the main event of the evening.

Co-headlining is a featherweight championship bout between Brendan Loughnane (25-4) and Bubba Jenkins (19-5).

Opening up the main card tonight was a light-heavyweight championship bout between a pair of UFC veterans in Rob Wilkinson (16-2) and Omari Akhemdov (24-7-1).

One thing was for certain going into this bout, a former UFC fighter would walk away as champion. That’s always a cool thing. It was the Russian who had the more successful UFC tenure, going 9-5-1 within the promotion while Wilkinson went 0-2 prior to his release.

Continue reading to see how this 205 lb championship affair went down:

Official Result: Rob Wilkinson def. Omari Akhmedov via TKO (doctor stoppage) at 5:00 of round two

Wilkinson controls the center of the octagon once the bout begins, marching Akhmedov down with zero respect for the Russian’s striking. He’s able to stuff all of Akhmedov’s takedown attempts, and he’s winning the striking exchanges.

Wilkinson ends up dropping Akhmedov with a boxing combination toward the end of the round, and he also drops him once again with a flying knee just as the opening round came to a close.

Akhmedov shoots on a single leg to negate Wilkinson’s power in the second round, ending up on his back for a short period of time.

This fight turns into a straight up war in the second, with Wilkinson marching Akhmedov down throwing heavy leather and Akhmedov standing his ground, landing some strikes of his own.

Wilkinson begins to really beat Akhmedov down toward the latter stages of the second, bloodying him up pretty badly. He was getting beaten so badly in fact that the fight was stopped in between the second and third rounds.

Rob Wilkinson has now won six straight MMA fights since losing to Israel Adesanya, as he becomes the first ever PFL champion from Australia, and it is he who claims the first million dollar prize at PFL 10.

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Brady Ordway

I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!

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