Игорь Вовчанчин: Украинский боец и легенда ММА

Ukrainian kickboxer and mixed martial arts fighter

Igor Yaroslavovych Vovchanchyn (vovCHUNchin, Ігор Ярославович Вовчанчин; born August 6, 1973) is a retired Ukrainian mixed martial artist and kickboxer, who competed in early no holds barred MMA contests. After making his professional MMA debut in 1995, he won nine openweight mixed martial arts tournaments (back when tournament format required 3 to 4 consecutive bare knuckle fights during the same night), 3 superfights, holds the second longest unbeaten streak in MMA (at 37 fights,) and is the second most successful MMA fighter ever by number of wins achieved by way of knockout. Vovchanchyn has an MMA tournament named after him, the Igor Vovchanchyn Cup.

The son of Kladiya (née Michaylovna) and Yaroslav Iosifovich Vovchanchyn, Igor Yaroslavovych Vovchanchyn was born in the settlement of Fesky, in the Zolochivsky district of Soviet Ukraine. Vovchanchyn said that growing up, he caused trouble and got into street fights and different kinds of mischief. Due to his antics, there was a popular story in circulation that whenever Vovchanchyn became upset the villagers would ring a bell in the center of town which would alarm everyone to stay in their houses until he had calmed down. Vovchanchyn later stated that this story was just a joke, although there was a bell in the center of town. At age 17, he moved to Kharkiv and began competing in Track and Field, running the 100m dash and throwing the discus. Due to his love for fighting, he later moved to Boxing under trainer Oleg Ermakov. In 1993, he met Eugenia Borschevskaya, general secretary of the All Eurasian Kickboxing Federation. After taking up Kickboxing, he later went to Denmark to compete at the World Kickboxing Amateur Championships with the Ukrainian national team, where he became the world champion that same year. Vovchanchyn also won the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) kickboxing championship in 1994.

In late 1995, Vovchanchyn transitioned from a successful kickboxing career to MMA after being invited to participate at Honour of the Warrior in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In this 8 man tournament, Vovchanchyn knocked out his first two opponents before losing via submission to Ukrainian Sambist/Kickboxer Andrey Besedin in the final.

He then fought a month later in a 32 man tournament held at Moscow's Luzhniki Palace of Sports, performing impressively at the inaugural International Absolute Fighting Council event, where he TKO'd Sergei Akinen before defeating Adilson Lima, a Gracie Jiu Jitsu black belt who trained with Ryan Gracie. Vovchanchyn won by knockout via soccer kick 56 seconds into the fight, but Lima's cornerman Renzo Gracie argued to the tournament organisers, complaining that kicks to a downed opponent were unfair and demanded an instant rematch. Unusually, an immediate rematch was granted, and the fight began again only to be stopped a second time after Lima's nose was broken by a punch, giving Vovchanchyn the win by TKO. Vovchanchyn advanced to the quarterfinal, in which he was submitted by Russian sambo champion Mikhail Ilyukhin.

With his dominant kickboxing style, Vovchanchyn became famed for being one of the few strictly stand up fighters to overcome grappling based opponents, exemplified in his victory in the 8 man Mr. Strongman Sekai tournament in Minsk, Belarus on January 23, 1996, where he knocked out three opponents.

Vovchanchyn was invited to fight at UFC 11 in September 1996, but could not participate due to visa issues as well as dissatisfaction with the offer.

Having achieved much success competing in the former Soviet Union, Vovchanchyn then won the 1st Absolute Fighting World Cup Pankration tournament in Tel Aviv, Israel on 12 November 1997. In the tournament final, Vovchanchyn faced Nick Nutter, an NCAA All American Wrestler from Ohio State and a protégé of Mark Coleman. Nutter dominated the fight for approximately 25 minutes, until he was stunned by a head butt from Vovchanchyn. Bleeding heavily, Nutter submitted.

As a seven time winner of various tournaments, Vovchanchyn was invited to compete in the fifth edition of the World Vale Tudo Championship (WVC), organised by Brazilian promoter Frederico Lapenda and hosted by the Fun House Night Club in Recife, northeast Brazil on 3 February 1998. The event featured an elimination tournament of eight fighters – three Americans, four Brazilians, and Vovchanchyn as the sole Ukrainian representative – without gloves and with 10 minute rounds. After forcing Chinese boxing stylist Tulio Palhares to submit to strikes in the quarterfinals, Vovchanchyn was scheduled to face Patrick Smith at the semifinal stage. Smith withdrew, however, after breaking his hand against Marco Selva, and he was replaced by local fighter Elias Rodrigues, also known as Demonio Negro ("Black Devil"). In a back and forth encounter that lasted over ten minutes, Vovchanchyn and Rodrigues traded strikes, although the Ukrainian was able to score four takedowns. In one of these opportunities, Vovchanchyn mounted Rodrigues and forced his Brazilian opponent to submit to a barrage of punches. Advancing to the final, he faced the American wrestler Nick Nutter in a rematch and scored a brutal 14 second knockout when he countered a takedown attempt with a well timed knee strike. He returned to the WVC the following year, knocking out Edson Carvalho, a member of the Brazilian national judo team and a Carlson Gracie black belt. Carvalho was a disciple of Sebastião "Master of Death" Lacerda, a wealthy man from the north of Brazil who appeared in Rio de Janeiro in 1996 claiming to have spent a long period of time in Japan learning "the deadly art of yawara." Despite his dubious credentials, Lacerda was able to recruit some established competitors into his sect, including Carvalho and Marco Ruas. While Ruas ultimately parted ways with Lacerda, Carvalho continued to challenge other fighting styles on behalf of Lacerda and his "deadly technique" of yawara. The decision was given to Vovchanchyn, which was met with a certain controversy.

In his next fight, Vovchanchyn fought Brazilian jiu jitsu master Francisco Bueno. Vovchanchyn knocked Bueno out with a vicious combination, Bueno literally falling face first as he was being punched in the face. This knockout is still to this day considered one of the most brutal knockouts in the history of MMA – it even prompted the promoters of K 1 to give him $1,000 cash in the locker room and propose that he fought K 1 Champion Ernesto Hoost.

Facing Japanese gatekeeper Daijiro Matsui at PRIDE 9, Vovchanchyn controlled the bout by sprawling and performing ground and pound on him, until the fight was stopped by eye damage on Matsui. Vovchanchyn then fought Enson Inoue at PRIDE 10 in what was one of the most one sided fights in MMA history, which resulted in a doctor stoppage after the end of the 1st round. Inoue later recounted of the fight, "I sustained a broken jaw, fractured finger, perforated eardrum, swollen brain, a liver count 2000x the normal person and spent 2 days in intensive care." Vovchanchyn then faced off against Nobuhiko Takada at PRIDE 11, who was the trainer of Sakuraba and Matsui. Vovchanchyn was taken down and met leg kicks and some resistance, but he finished him on the second round via ground and pound. After three straight victories, Vovchanchyn received a rematch with Mark Kerr at PRIDE 12. Vovchanchyn's advantage in the stand up fighting was countered by Kerr's superior grappling and takedowns, and the fight was ruled a draw after two rounds. After an extra, third round, Vovchanchyn was awarded the victory via unanimous decision. Igor cited both of his fights against Mark Kerr as the most difficult wins of his career.

Although he was scheduled to face Ken Shamrock at Pride 13, Vovchancyn faced Tra Telligman, as Shamrock had sustained a neck injury 2 weeks prior to the fight. Despite Igor being able to counterstrike, Telligman surprised him with a left straight which knocked Vovchanchyn down, allowing Tra control the rest of the fight and win the decision. This was the first time Vovchanchyn had been out struck. He later faced another feared striker, former RINGS Openweight champion Gilbert Yvel at PRIDE 14. However, sensing Gilbert was weaker than him on the ground, Vovchanchyn took him down, putting his sambo skills to use and choking Yvel out. Vovchanchyn would go to defeat another striker, beating world karate champion Masaaki Satake by decision at PRIDE 15. In PRIDE 17, Vovchanchyn suffered another upset when was submitted in under three minutes by Brazilian Top Team trainer Mario Sperry. After this bout, he was invited to fight at the RINGS promotion, in Lithuania. Vovchanchyn's original opponent pulled out of the event with an injury, and was replaced by a fighter who "hadn't fought for quite a while". This fighter requested that no punches be allowed in the fight, which Igor said was difficult to avoid, but won via leg kicks in the second round. He ended the year on a high note; showing great grappling expertise against Valentijn Overeem at PRIDE 18, escaping from heel hook attempts and slipping his own heel hook for the tap out, ending 2001 with a mixed record in PRIDE – going 3–2.

At the start of 2002, Vovchanchyn considered moving down to the Middleweight (205lb) division, and stated he thought he had a good chance to become a champion in that weight class. After healing, Vovchanchyn went on to fight Katsuhisa Fujii and Sergey Terezimov, Winning against the former by knock out and the latter via Heel hook submission.

In 2005, Vovchanchyn moved down a weight division beating former Pancrase Heavyweight champion Yoshiki Takahashi. Takahashi said after the fight, "I've never been knocked out by a single punch until today, I'm still dizzy and have [a] headache." After this victory, he entered PRIDE's 2005 Middleweight Grand Prix. PRIDE commentator Bas Rutten believed that Vovchanchyn was a favorite to win the tournament.

Vovchanchyn was matched against Yuki Kondo the reigning Pancrase Light Heavyweight champion and former two time Pancrase Openweight champion – in PRIDE Total Elimination 2005. Vovchanchyn controlled the fight, winning a unanimous decision. He then fought Alistair Overeem in the quarter finals and lost via submission. Vovchanchyn received a second chance to progress when offered a fight against Kazuhiro Nakamura in PRIDE Final Conflict 2005, with the winner earning the right to be an alternate in the finals of the tournament. After 15 minutes, Vovchanchyn lost a unanimous judges' decision in what would be his last competitive MMA fight. On his move down to the Middlweight division, Vovchanchyn said, "It's all about training. I was 93 kg only for the last two years in PRIDE when they introduced weight divisions. But actually my natural weight is around 103 104 kg. Losing weight I didn't feel myself as strong as before. But 104 kg is the best weight for me and I am really comfortable about it. I felt strong, powerful, full of energy. Due to losing weight I felt lack of self confidence. By the way the same goes for Fedor (Emelianenko), when he lost the weight, he felt out of his comfort zone. It's not about the shape and visual muscular performance but it was not his style." Some experts say that Vovchanchyn ideally should have fought at the Welterweight (183) division that PRIDE had, and that he was an undersized heavyweight. It has been speculated that due to this injury, his last few performances in his career were passive. He finished his career in PRIDE with a record of 18–8 with 1 no contest, having the second most bouts in PRIDE history (27), second most wins in PRIDE history, and third most wins via KO/TKO (10). Vovchanchyn is considered one of MMA's hardest punchers, one of the best fighters in history to have never competed in the UFC, one of the greatest European mixed martial artists ever, and one of the best mixed martial artists of the 1990s. He was a top 10 heavyweight from April 1996 to January 2001 according to FightMatrix. In 2011 and in 2017, Vovchanchyn received several votes on Sherdog's 'MMA's All Time Heavyweights' list.

In July 2009, Vovchanchyn was linked to making his return in MMA at the Fighting Mixed Combative event in South Korea, which was scheduled for September 29, 2009. Although Jan Nortje was rumored to be his opponent, Vovchanchyn had just stated one year prior that he had no interest in fighting due to his injuries. The event took place and Igor did not appear on the card. In September 2016, Rizin Fighting Federation CEO Nobuyuki Sakakibara posted several photos on his Instagram account, showing Vovchanchyn training in his gym back in Ukraine – even hinting that he may invite Igor back to fight in Japan.

Primarily a striker, Vovchanchyn based his MMA game around his punching power, which made him to be considered one of the most devastating strikers of his time. His Kickboxing utilized an ample pattern of looping punches, among them the casting punch, and he specialized in an aggressive counterpunching style in order to make up for his short reach. Vovchanchyn also displayed significant grappling skills, utilizing his Sambo background, and would work a vicious ground and pound offense with short and hard strikes from the top. He was able to surprise many with his defensive guard and dexterity on the ground despite being known primarily as a striker, and displayed this ability against submission fighters such as Carlos Barreto, Mark Kerr and Valentijn Overeem among others. Vovchanchyn would later state that his punching power and fighting skills came naturally, not because of the martial arts, even though martial arts helped him along the way. He also never invited any famous fighters to spar and train with him as he did not see the point in copying their styles. He is close friends with Fedor Emelianenko. In a 2008 interview, Vovchanchyn stated that since retiring from competition he runs a local café bar called 'Champion'. In the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vovchanchyn setup a charity to help support Ukrainians. He opposes the Russian invasion of Ukraine and supports the Ukrainian Armed Forces.