Vadim Nemkov impresses with arm-triangle choke finish of Bruno Cappelozza in heavyweight return at PFL vs Bellator

We’ve got a big day of fights coming to us today, February 24, 2023, where PFL vs Bellator came to us live from the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, just before The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us for UFC Mexico City later in the evening.

Headlining PFL vs Bellator is a heavyweight affair between 2023 PFL heavyweight champion Renan Ferreira (12-3, 3 NC) and Bellator heavyweight champion Ryan Bader (31-7, 1 NC).

Co-headlining the bout is a middleweight showdown between 2023 PFL light-heavyweight champion Impa Kasanganay (15-3) and Bellator middleweight champion Johnny Eblen (14-0).

Our first feature fight of the evening came in the heavyweight division between 2021 PFL heavyweight champion Bruno Cappelozza (15-7, 1 NC) and former Bellator light-heavyweight champion Vadim Nemkov (17-2, 1 NC).

Cappelozza came into the bout off a win over Matheus Scheffel last year in 2023, avenging his 2022 defeat to him, though it’d later be overturned to a no contest as Cappelozza failed his post-fight drug test.

Nemkov on the other hand, following four title defenses down at 205 lbs from 2021 to 2023, had since vacated his title to join Bellator’s heavyweight division.

An interesting fact going into this fight – both men’s second-to-last defeats come to former Rizin and UFC light-heavyweight champion Jiri Prochazka.

Continue reading to see how this heavyweight encounter went down:

Official Result: Vadim Nemkov def. Bruno Cappelozza via technical submission (arm-triangle choke) at 2:13 of round two

Nemkov had a good opening round, securing an early takedown though Cappelozza got right back to his feet. Nemkov spends the remainder of round one landing a number of solid jabs, as well as a lot of counters while Cappelozza was coming in.

Nemkov’s striking continued to impress in round two, though he got caught with a right hand that backed him up. As Cappelozza was coming in he ducked under, turned the Brazilian around into the fence and secured a double leg takedown.

Nemkov passes to mount and sinks in an arm-triangle choke, passing to side control as he finishes the fight with it midway through round two.

Click here to view finish.

Following victory in his first heavyweight fight since 2016, Vadim Nemkov is now unbeaten in his last 13-straight fights.

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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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