Many people live a rather short, but at the same time quite bright life, leaving behind a worthy legacy. This article will talk about a man who was destined to live only 28 years, but even during this time he managed to achieve a lot and enter himself into the history of mixed martial arts. The name of this athlete is Guram Gugenishvili.
Birth and beginning of a sports career
The future bright representative of the world of MMA was born on July 23, 1986. The place of birth of the fighter was the capital of Georgia - Tbilisi.
At the age of seventeen, Guram Gugenishvili began his career in freestyle wrestling and began to train under the watchful supervision of his coach Gia Galdava (this person today holds the post of deputy head of the Department of Youth and Sports in the Georgian government). A little later, the young man passed under the wing of another famous Georgian athlete, Luka Kurtanidze, who, in turn, is a two-time winner of the Olympics and a multiple world and European champion. For three years, Guram Gugenishvili managed to become the champion of his country and get the title of master of sports in freestyle wrestling. However, a series of rather serious injuries forced the guy to forget about sports in general and the wrestling career in particular for a while.
Transition to MMA
A forced break in his sports career forced the young Georgian guy to look for himself in other martial arts. Largely thanks to this, he managed to become the winner of the world championship in universal battles and to get into the winners of the world tournament in combat sambo. The fighter came into mixed fights in 2007.
In 2009, Guram Gugenishvili holds a series of successful fights that he won at the M-1 Global promotion tournaments then held in Ukraine. The athlete convincingly won every duel.
Winning a title
The fighter Guram Gugenishvili, whose biography, unfortunately, was interrupted several years ago due to death, received the right in October 2010 to compete in the title fight for the champion belt, which was then played for the first time in the M-1 Challenge promotion in heavyweight. The second contender for the title and, accordingly, the opponent of the Georgian, was the American Kenny Garner, who won a similar selection in the United States.
The first round of their fight took place in a fairly equal fight: Kenny beat, and Guram passed at the feet. However, already in the second five-minute Gugenishvili held a successful reception for himself - he managed to capture the American’s neck and literally strangle him, since Garner lost consciousness. Thus, the champion’s belt was in the hands of the Georgian, and he fully confirmed his role as the so-called strangler, because he won the vast majority of his fights that way.
Title defense
In the spring of 2011, Guram successfully defended his belt from the claims of Russian Maxim Grishin. And just like in the battle with Garner, the applicant was strangled. The second defense of the Georgian was postponed due to injury. During the absence of Guram, Garner became the champion, who was able to defeat the same Grishin.
In June 2012, Guram again came face to face with the American for the undisputed champion title and lost by technical knockout after stopping the fight by a doctor. At the end of the year, the rivals met again in the ring and again Garner celebrated his victory, sending Gugenishvili knocked out by a series of blows.
Death
Guram Gugenishvili, whose cause of death was a car accident while following a hunt in the Gori municipality, was an educated person and graduated in 2007 from the faculty of economics and the faculty of jurisprudence at Tbilisi State University.