An epic Superior Challenge bout between the legendary Joachim "Hellboy" Hansen and Sami "Uzi" Aziz at Superior Challenge 6 - Lion's Den on October 29th, 2010 at Hovet arena in Stockholm.
When Pride FC was bought by Zuffa LLC during 2007 Hansen was one of many fighters the new owner wanted to move to UFC. But Hansen didn't accept the new terms set by Zuffa. He is a man with principles, so he decided to not participate at UFC and managed to terminate the Zuffa contract. Soon after he started to fight for Dream and re-established his position as one of the world’s top fighters in the weight division.
Babak Ashti, founder of Superior Group International, managed to sign Hansen to Superior Challenge, and this was his first fight on Nordic soil after the beginning of his career. During this period Hansen was a super star in Japan and in other parts of the world. But since MMA was quite new in the Nordics only the hard-core MMA fans knew about him. Superior Challenge was way ahead of its time.
The opponent and home fighter was the Swedish Olympic wrestler Sami "Uzi" Aziz who was at the peak of his MMA career and one of Superior Challenge’s main characters since the start of the promotion. He always wanted to fight elite fighters and consequently he really looked forward to this fight. Aziz was recognized as one of the foremost athletes in Sweden. He was and still is one of the most experienced Martial Artists in Sweden. At that time, he had 30 boxing fights in the Swedish National team, over1500 Wrestling matches, was two times Olympic Wrestler, and had also fought experienced MMA fighters.
Superior Challenge had only existed for two years back then and scaled up its promotion significantly for this event. This was the first time an MMA event was produced in a large Hockey arena in Sweden. The promotion also changed its Olympic size Boxing ring to an MMA Cage, which was a big step both for the promotion’s staff and fighters. The show broke record attendance with over 6.500 spectators, which was the first time ever a Swedish MMA promotion gathered such a large crowd. A true historical moment for Superior Challenge and Swedish MMA in general. This was the start of the sport’s growth in Sweden and the Nordics.
The commentators were Omar Bouiche, a Swedish MMA legend and the no1 coach in the region, together with Musse Hasselvall, a TV personality who had previously fought for the organisation. But for this fight Alexander “The Mauler” Gustafsson jumped in instead of Hasselvall who was in Aziz’s corner.
The bout was a Featherweight qualification fight. A few years later at Superior Challenge 11 Joachim “Hellboy” Hansen fought Diego “The Gun” Nunes in a spectacular title fight.
Watch previous Superior Challenge events on Viaplay: [ Ссылка ]
[ Ссылка ]
