Bahrain was the home of the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation’s world championships for three years. From 2017 to 2019, the kingdom brought together more than 60 countries and crowning the champions of the world in amateur MMA.
Thus, Bahrain was the natural choice when the next step into developing amateur MMA was taken. The country is set to host the first ever World MMA Teams Championship, which is regarded as the World Cup of MMA.
With a unique concept, the 2020 World Teams Championship will pit 16 best ranked nations in the world against each other in a knockout-system tournament. It will be the conclusion of IMMAF’s yearly calendar that aims to decide what is the best national team around the globe.
The event was announced in a press conference held at Bahrain National Stadium in Isa Town, Bahrain on February 29, 2020 in the presence of IMMAF president Kerrith Brown, BRAVE Combat Federation president Mohammed Shahid and Bahrain Mixed Martial Arts Federation president Mohammed Qamber. Mohammed Janahi moderated the press conference.
“During the last three years, we had during BRAVE International Combat Week the IMMAF World Championships,” Shahid stated. “It was every country in the world that can register so we had 60+ countries, coming and having the maximum amount of athletes and trying to get different medals in different categories.”
“This time, it is different,” Shahid continued. “This time, the World Teams Championship will bring the best teams so the World Championship and the other calendar events are more like qualifiers and once we have the top-16 world ranking these teams will come to Bahrain and compete to see which team is the number one.”
As it is already a tradition in Bahrain, the new MMA World Cup tournament will take place during the 2020 edition of BRAVE International Combat Week. The competitions of IMMAF World Championship will take place throughout the week, which will be headlined by a stacked BRAVE CF fight card.
CONAN Daily 