MMA STAR Grigoriy Ponomarev suffered a brutal broken leg during Friday night’s ACA 161 event in Moscow.
Ponomarev’s heavyweight bout with Mukhamad Vakhaev served as the evening’s co-main event.
ACA 161Grigoriy Ponomarev suffered a horrifying injury on Friday night[/caption]
ACA 161The Russian’s leg buckled beneath him[/caption]
ACA 161Ponomarev, 28, appeared to break his leg at ACA 161[/caption]
ACA 161Mukhamad Vakhaev appeared to land two further blows before the referee could step in[/caption]
The fight lasted just 40 seconds, being cut short by a devastating injury.
Ponomarev, 28, began proceedings by pinning his opponent up against the cage.
He then shot for a takedown, only for disaster to strike.
After being denied the takedown Ponomarev stumbled to the side, with his leg buckling under his weight and twisting at a gruesome angle.
The Russian’s horror moment caused his leg to snap, with the referee rushing in to halt the fight.
Vakhaev subsequently celebrated moving into the tournament semi-finals by performing a backflip.
Ponomarev, meanwhile, was left writhing in agony on the canvas.
MMA fans online were left horrified by the incident.
One wrote: “That’s brutal, I can’t imagine the pain he’s in!”
While a second tweeted: “oh my god that’s the worst mma injury I’ve ever seen at least when it comes to broken limbs.”
A third posted: “I’m warning you now. This is a horrible, potential career ending injury.
“Grigoriy Ponomarev destroys his leg/knee/everything at ACA 161. Wait for the replay.”
Another pointed to Anderson Silva’s awful injury suffered against Chris Weidman, writing: “This is worse than the Silva one however I cringed more at the Silva one.”
Others were furious that Vakhaev struck two more blows after Ponomarev had broken his leg.
One tweeted: “Am i the only one who thinks the other guy was aware of the ref and the injury but purposely kept hitting him.”
And a second opined: “2 hits while the ref was on him, thats poor.”
Another added: “The last two blows were superfluous, the referee pulled with both hands already. This is unsportsmanlike behaviour.”
A further social media user commented: “Good lord… That made me really uncomfortable.”
Vakhaev’s win saw him move up to a 12-6-1 professional record.
While Ponomarev fell to 6-3.