The Professional Fighters League held its first event in Morocco on Saturday, staging PFL Africa: Casablanca at the Mohammed V Sports Complex. Senegalese heavyweight Abdoulaye Kane topped the bill and beat Morocco’s Badr Medkouri by first-round TKO. Home fighters appeared in five of the bouts, against opponents from Senegal, Algeria, Tunisia and Nigeria as well as in one all-Moroccan contest.
Kane had the better of the early exchanges on the feet, using kicks to keep Medkouri at range, before taking him down and finishing the fight on the ground. Afterwards he described the main event win as “a moment I will never forget”. Kane said Morocco was his home, the country that had welcomed and supported him and given him the strength to keep chasing his ambitions, and that the victory meant more to him than having his hand raised in the cage.
The card combined tournament semi-final bouts with showcase fights for athletes from across the continent. In the featherweight co-main event, Algeria’s Yanis Ghemmouri won a unanimous decision over Morocco’s Taha Bendaoud. Their contest opened with kicks and takedown attempts from both men before Ghemmouri took control with counter-striking and his work on the ground. On the preliminary card, Moroccan bantamweight Reda Abdellaoui dominated the grappling exchanges against Tunisia’s Salim Mhamdi and forced him to tap out.
An all-Moroccan lightweight bout went to Abderrahman Errachidy, who beat Oussama El Idrissi on points after setting the pace across three rounds with sharper striking combinations and better positional control. At a 132-pound catchweight, Nigeria’s Jane Osigwe took a decision over Morocco’s Sanaa Mandar. Osigwe kept her distance with combinations, stopped Mandar’s attempts to take the fight to the mat and won on every judge’s scorecard.
The evening closed with the announcement of upcoming tournament finals in the welterweight, lightweight and bantamweight divisions. Casablanca was the promotion’s first show in North Africa and forms part of its inaugural continental season, which brought fighters from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal and Nigeria together on a single card in the Moroccan city. Moroccan fighters came away with mixed results. Abdellaoui and Errachidy won their bouts, while Medkouri, Bendaoud and Mandar were beaten by opponents from Senegal, Algeria and Nigeria. Kane, who fights for Senegal, has made Morocco his home and said the win there meant more to him than the result itself. The finals will decide the first PFL Africa tournament champions in three weight classes.
