Well, Ottman Azaitar is no longer the lightweight king of Brave Combat Federation.
Mohammed Shahid, the President of Brave CF confirmed the news on Wednesday.
The (now former) lightweight champion is undoubtedly a tremendous talent of the sport. Possessing a record of 11-0, the “Bulldozer” had not defended the championship since November of 2017, after winning the title at Brave 9. He did, however, return to the ring at Brave 14 last month in Morocco. But the champion faced Danijel Kokora in a welterweight non-title bout, picking up a 31-second KO.
“Ottoman Azaitar has had a great career with Brave Combat Federation, fighting a really good fight in Morocco which was not for the title. If you look at the lightweight division today, we have not had a title defense for nearly a year at this point. Of course, this is very unfair to the division as a whole, and we have to make a decision on that,” said Mohammad Shahid.
Since Azaitar’s title win, the lightweight division has witnessed staggering growth over the past year. With multiple global, elite-level athletes signing to compete in the division. The welterweight title will be on the line at Brave 16 when champion Carlston Harris faces Jarrah Al Selawe. This means the lightweight title is the only title currently not actively being defended.
Brave Combat Federation was recently informed that Azaitar will not be competing again in 2018, which has led to taking this big step regarding the title. As all this is happening, the interim champion Lucas Martins is set to move down to his original weight class of featherweight, meaning even the interim lightweight title will be vacated.
“We are confirming right now; November in Bahrain, we will have a lightweight title fight. And we’ve been working to make that fight happen for a while now. If we don’t have that caliber of fighters, the one is willing to fight against the best in the world, that fighter doesn’t have a place here at Brave,” added the resident of Brave CF.
Recently major stars in the lightweight division had called out Azaitar for their turn to contest for the lightweight strap. This long list of fighters includes Abul Kareem Al Selwady, Eldar Eldarov, Luan Santiago, Cleiton Silva, Erick da Silva, and Godofredo Pepey. However, Ottman Azaitar never responded to any of these challenges.
Mohammad Shahid made one final statement regarding the situation.
“To make it official; we have stripped Ottman Azaitar of the lightweight title. We will have a match for the vacant title during the Brave International fight Weel in November. The most important thing here, the message, is to make sure that we have athletes who actively want to fight the best in the world – especially as champion.”
