Organizations continue to empower grassroots MMA worldwide after one year of their formal partnership
A year ago to the day, BRAVE Combat Federation and the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation announced a partnership that would formalize their joint work towards the growth of grassroots of MMA, something both organizations have been diligently working on together for the past seven years.
It was the culmination of a valuable relationship between two giants of the sport focused on the development of mixed martial arts worldwide from the grassroots all the way to the global level.
In 2017, BRAVE CF and IMMAF took the Amateur World Championships outside of the United States for the first time and transformed the tournament into the premier proving ground for amateur athletes worldwide. The event became an integral part of the BRAVE International Combat Week, the largest combat sports festival on the planet.
BRAVE CF and IMMAF have also worked together in other two editions of the BICW, and in 2022, they created the MMA Super Cup, a nation vs nation, knockout tournament that awarded US$ 225,000 to the top three national federations so they could reinvest that money into the development of the sport on their own countries on a grassroots level.
While the partnership was only made official last year, it is no secret that BRAVE Combat Federation has provided a direct path to superstardom for athletes from around the world coming from the IMMAF system. Over the years, more than 50 fighters from over 20 nations have fought in both IMMAF and BRAVE CF.
From BRAVE CF 1, when 2015 amateur world champion Frans Mlambo represented the IMMAF, to BRAVE CF 80 when African IMMAF champion Nkosi Ndebele and two-time amateur world champion Jose Torres faced off in the main event, there’s no other promotion that has provided more opportunities to IMMAF alum.
World champions Sabrina de Sousa, Muhammad Mokaev, Ramazan Gitinov, Irman Smajic, Abdul Hussein, Murtaza Talha, Benjamin Bennett, Rasul Magomedov, Bianca Antman, and Gamzat Magomedov are just some of the names that have benefitted from the pathway provided by IMMAF and BRAVE CF. Other standout figures in the amateur world that have called BRAVE CF home include Cian Cowley, Axel Sola, Shamil Gaziev, Anton Turkalj, Micol Di Segni, and Eliezer Kubanza.
In 2023, BRAVE CF and IMMAF took the BICW on the road, with the first editions of the combat sports festival taking place outside of the Kingdom of Bahrain, in Serbia and Colombia, with the World Championships and Pan-American Championships. Last December, the BICW went back home to Bahrain for a series of three BRAVE CF shows as well as the IMMAF Asian Championships.