Australian Fighting Championship 13 will take place on Sunday afternoon at the Melbourne Pavilion which is becoming a renowned combat sports venue in Melbourne. The card is headlined by two title fights with the heavyweight and featherweight titles both up for grabs.
In the headliner, the AFC heavyweight title is up for grabs with Brandon Sosoli fighting out of Shellharbour, New South Wales taking on an experienced kickboxer in Andre Meunier, who is representing Victoria in the inter-state battle.
Despite being just 22, Sosoli comes in as the more experienced MMA fighter and is coming off a first round stoppage over Simon Osborne back in November. Meunier has limited MMA experience to date, however holds an advantage in overall combat sports competition, sporting an illustrious career in kickboxing and boxing that has seen him face the likes of Paul Slowinski and Peter Graham.
In the co-main event, late replacement James Bishop will fly across the ditch via the Strikeforce Gym in New Zealand to fight the highly touted Alex Volkanovski. In addition, Volkanovski is also fighting out of Freestyle Fight Gym, like his teammate in the main event, Brandon Sosoli, but has also spent time recently training at the Tiger Muay Thai gym in Thailand. Bishop is coming off an impressive first-round upset submission win over Peter Davenport at AFC 12, while Volkanovski has been undefeated in his last six fights. The fighters will be battling for the promotions vacant featherweight title.
Also on the card is a match between Judo Olympian Ivo Dos Santos and Darwin Saqurit while local fellow Judo practioner Kitt Campbell competes against South Australian Shane Mitchell.
Of note, Isaac Hardman and Jamie Mullarkey are both contestants on Richie Vaculik’s The Crew reality show titled ‘Generation 2’, with the two youngsters also set to meet on the AFC 13 card.
World champion wrestler, and AKA Thailand product, Amir Aliakbari, was expected to make his highly anticipated MMA debut on the show against Benjamin Sosoli, however the fight was scrapped due to Aliakbari experiencing Visa delays.
If you can’t make it down to the Melbourne Pavilion, you can catch the live stream on the Fight News Australia live Fights Page for US$16.99. The event will have a start time of 1pm AEDT.
- Brandon Sosoli vs Andre Meunier – AFC heavyweight title
- Alex Volkanovski vs James Bishop – AFC featherweight title
- Kitt Campbell vs Shane Mitchell
- Peter Davenport vs Mikey Vaotuua
- John Beirouti vs Brandon Drillich
- Ivo Dos Santos vs Darwin Sagurit
- Regan Neoh vs Luke Catubig
- Amin Yaqubi vs Harlie Del-Toro
- Issac Hardman vs Jamie Mullarkey
- Mitch O’Dowd vs Issey Francis Buangala
- Muhammad Abdou vs Jason Petropoulos
- Daniel Schuardt vs Luke Howard
- Maseiga Tuala vs Sam Hayward
- Nikos Trepca vs Tyler Petee
