Igor Vovchanchyn

Igor Yaroslavovych Vovchanchyn (, 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.

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.

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 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.

In March 1996, Vovchanchyn fought in and won 3 different tournaments: the

DNRF: Ukrainian Octagon, the UCMAL: Ukrainian No Rules Championship, and the first ever IFC event: IFC 1: Kombat in Kyiv.

Across these three tournaments, he won 9 fights (7 KO/TKO's and 2 submissions) with none of them going past the first round.

At the IFC tournament, all three men he faced in the same night (Fred Floyd, Paul Varelans and John Dixon) weighed over 300 pounds/136 kilograms.

The fight against Paul Varelans was considered one of the greatest fights in European MMA history.

In attendance at this event, was former heavyweight boxing champion Leon Spinks, who was a 'guest of honor'.

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.

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."

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.

Vovchanchyn won eight MMA tournaments during this stage of his career, and was considered arguably the best heavyweight in the world for several years to come.

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.