With a
tremendous knockout
of the local Mickael Lebout,
the Argentine Laureano Staropoli became interim welterweight champion
of the French mixed martial arts league ARES Fighting Championship in a fight that took place on Friday at the Dôme in Paris.
After his victory,
Pepi
took the opportunity to remind the public, who had constantly harassed him, the victory of the Argentine national team against France in the World Cup final that was held in Qatar.
For Staropoli, two unanimous decision wins at the ARES Fighting Championship had been enough to put him in the running for an interim title (the division's regular champion is Russia's Abdoul Abdouraguimov, who has already announced his joining the Ultimate Fighting Championship ).
And he did not miss it.
After an even first round and an intense exchange of blows, the 30-year-old from La Plata settled the contest in the second:
a powerful right hook to the jaw sent Lebout to the canvas
with only 40 seconds to go.
With his opponent lying on him, Staropoli continued the attack with three blows to the face until the referee, with great skill, put an end to the beating.
After receiving the belt that accredits him as the interim 170-pound champion, Staropoli was interviewed inside the Octagon and not only celebrated his victory, but also reminded the hostile Parisian public of the consecration of the team led by Lionel Scaloni in the last World Cup. Soccer world.
“Hold on Argentina, the shell of his mother.
Come on, fuck.
Three-time world champion dad”
, he yelled, his eyes fixed on one of the stands and in a fairly plain and understandable language, even capable of crossing language barriers.
Then he apologized.
The reference to soccer was not new, since during the days before the fight Lebout had tried to provoke his future adversary.
To do this, he had resorted to posting memes on his Instagram account in which he alluded to that sport.
“The rivalry we have is only through social networks.
He is quite hurt because we won the World Cup and he uses memes to get my attention or want to blur me, ”
Pepi
had told
Clarín.
Although this triumph, in what he had defined as the most important fight of his career, earned him a title, Staropoli aims to join the Professional Fighters League (PFL), the fastest growing circuit in recent years, or to rejoin the the UFC, in which he already had an experience between 2017 and 2021.
In the main mixed martial arts league on the planet, he had a very auspicious debut in November 2018, with a victory against the Mexican Hector Aldana in Buenos Aires, which was chosen as the best fight of that evening at the Mary Terán de Weiss de Villa stadium. Soldati.
He then added another victory, in May 2019, against the Brazilian Thiago Alves in Rio de Janeiro.
However, those two joys were followed by four defeats in a row: against the Russian Muslim Salikhov, the Georgian Roman Dolidze and the Americans Tim Means and Jamie Pickett (October 2021), all defeats by unanimous decision of the judges.
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