The PFL debut in London will take place on August 20th at the Copperbox Arena. The fight card will feature a matchup between the UAE Warriors bantamweight champion Ali Taleb and Kenji Bortoluzzi.
Fighters’ profiles
The Iraqi fighter is undefeated as he won all of his 7 fights. He’s also undefeated inside the UAE Warriors cage, where he became the bantamweight title holder. On his way to becoming the champion, he defeated such individuals as Nawras Abzakh, Mohamed El Masbahi, Victor Nunes, Mahmoud Mando, and Vinicius de Oliveira. After winning the championship gold he was signed by the Professional Fighters League.
The Swiss sports an 11 – 4 – 1 professional record. He was on a four-fight winning streak which was put to an end by Luca Iovine at EMC 4. Bortoluzzi made his way back to the winning column by beating the Polish fighter Bartosz Wojckiewicz at Superior Challenge 23. The European MMA circuit veteran also will be making his PFL debut.
Fight breakdown
When it comes to Taleb, he has four TKO wins secured with his striking offense or doctor stoppage. Two of them came in the second round. During his most recent fight, the TKO came in the last, third outing. He only has two submission wins secured with a triangle and guillotine choke, but both of them came in the very first round. Only once he was rendered a winner by the judges’ decision.
Bortoluzzi has five submission wins with most of them coming in the first two rounds. Similar to his opponent, he prefers a guillotine choke as a finishing move, but instead of a traditional triangle choke, he chose to submit his previous rival with an arm triangle choke. He was able to TKO his opponent on two different occasions and was awarded a win by judges’ decisions four different times.
It’s safe to assume that Taleb will be looking to end the fight as quickly as possible by using his striking offense, while Bortolluzzi will want to utilize his grappling skillset to take him to the grown and force him into submission.
