Photo courtesy of Absolute Championship Akhmat

In general, the perceived strength of the field outside the UFC has rested on how much UFC talent has migrated there; Bellator has only gained prominence with their inclusion of fighters like Gegard Mousasi and Rory MacDonald (and they have generally accepted any former UFC talent, no matter how old or irrelevant), and promotions like ONE Championship and RIZIN have also gained repute with their additions of well-known talent such as Eddie Alvarez, Demetrious Johnson, and Kyoji Horiguchi.

The MMA community’s orientation toward the UFC explains why Absolute Championship Berkut (ACB) went under the radar for so many years; despite creating talents such as Petr Yan and Zabit Magomedsharipov, the talent pool in Russia’s strongest promotion is massively undervalued to this day.

In late November of 2018, the promotion went from unknown to something of a public enemy in the MMA sphere due to its merger with World Fighting Championship Akhmat; ACB’s transformation into ACA justifiably drew the ire of the media due to their new affiliation with the dictator of Chechnya, Ramazan Kadyrov (who can lightly be described as not being particularly appreciative of the concept of human rights).

Regardless of the newfound and odious politics of the situation, the Russian pool has long been a staple of strong fighting talent, and ACA has remained no exception; the Dagestani fighter-market has been introduced to the UFC largely through lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, but the entire country’s strongest talent is featured prominently by the Grozny-based promotion.

While the platform is far from optimal, the fighters deserve the attention of the MMA world, and nowhere is this truer than 155. Widely acknowledged as the best division in MMA, ACA’s talent more than pulls the weight. If we take non-UFC fighters into account in rankings, ACA has at the very least two of the world’s top five Lightweights in Ali Bagov and Abdul-Aziz Abdulvakhabov. If we permit ourselves to judge more on performance than record, Eduard Vartanyan’s performance in a clear robbery loss to Abdulvakhabov, as well as his elite wins over Alexandr Shabliy and “Frodo” Khasbulaev make it difficult to deny him a spot as well.

Along with their three foremost fighters who are clearly operating at a championship level, ACA’s Lightweight division has talent in the lower rungs. Khusein Khaliev and Yusuf Raisov are both excellent fighters who would be more than competitive with top 10 fighters in the UFC and stand a good chance of breaking into that next level. Alexander Sarnavskiy provides the kind of solid if unspectacular veteran talent necessary to test up-and-comers without exposing them to too much danger too early, and Denis Kanakov is the division’s premiere prospect, poised to step up and face a test like Sarnavskiy soon.

The fights between the top lightweights of ACA are not lacking in quality one bit compared to the elite-level fights of the UFC (and far exceed the talent of a promotion like Bellator). A look through their rankings supports this position nicely.

Lightweight champion Ali Bagov has recently announced a move to Welterweight which is unsurprising given his struggles with making 155. However, we’re treating him as a Lightweight in this article as the title is still vacant, he hasn’t yet made his debut at Welterweight, and coverage of Bagov is necessary to understand the division’s history and talent.

Note: The top fighters in ACA’s Lightweight division will be the subject of more in-depth articles over the course of this month.