Two title fights in the featherweight and middleweight divisions headline Australian Fighting Championships 15 with the first-round match-ups of an eight-man lightweight tournament also scheduled to begin.
The event will be held at local fight venue the Melbourne Pavilion in Victoria, Australia this Saturday night.
In the main event, a highly touted match-up between undefeated fighters Jamie Abdallah and Rob Wilkinson will take place in a battle for the middleweight strap. Wilkinson hails from Tasmania and is trained by well renowned grappler and MMA fighter Priscus Fogagnolo at Hybrid Training Centre. Wilkinson holds an impressive 9-0 record and won the Brace middleweight tournament championship in 2014.
Local Victorian Jamie Abdallah will have the hometown support in his corner, training out of the XFC Australian Top Team in Melbourne. In his last outing, Abdallah defended his AFC light-heavyweight title at AFC 14 last September, the fight was voted the FNA Domestic Fight of the Year. He now moves down in weight for the first time in his attempt to be a two-weight division champion.
Another highly anticipated and hyped title fight will be held in the co-main event between recently crowned Pacific Xtreme Combat Champion (fight video) Alex Volkanovski who faces 2014 and 2015 Brace featherweight tournament champion Jamie Mullarkey. Training out of the Freestyle Fighting Gym in Windang and Tiger Muay Thai, Volkanovski is the current AFC featherweight champion while title challenger Mullarkey fights out of Magnus Martial Arts on the Central Coast in New South Wales. Both fighters aim to get on the UFC radar and with a win this Saturday, it will surely put the victor in standing for a UFC call-up.
The first round of the promotions lightweight tournament begins. In the pairings, former UFC fighter Ben Wall meets Kiwi Matiu Thoms, while veterans Gokhan Turkyilmaz and Rob Hill come up against Mikey Vaotuua and Steven Maxwell respectively. In the last match-up, James Bishop meets James McGlashan.
The second round of match-ups in the tournament will take place later this year.
Fight Card:
- Jamie Abdallah vs Rob Wilkinson – AFC middleweight title
- Alex Volkanovski vs Jamie Mullarkey – AFC featherweight title
- Kaan Ofli vs Nikos Trepca
- Tony Dib v Chad Price
- Ivo Dos Santos v Chris Wase
- Jason Petropoulos v Joshua Riley
Lightweight tournament:
- Ben Wall vs Matiu Thoms
- Mikey Vaotuua vs Gokhan Turkyilmaz
- Rob Hill vs Steven Maxwell
- James McGlashan v James Bishop
