Ulrich Francis Mozou, an Ivorian combat athlete, won the 12th African Fighting Championship, which took place over the weekend at the Labadi beach.

Francis, who has fought 65 times, winning 63 and losing two, won the 70kg lightweight championship dubbed “AFC12 Sea Lion” and overcame fellow Ivorian and gold medalist at the just concluded African Games, Aka Meizan Prince Francis .

After seeing the bouts, Jeff Taylor, President of the Mixed Martial Arts Association of Ghana, stated that the country is still improving gradually in the sport.

“Ghana has been basically doing a lot of fighting upstanding. We are getting some grappling skills we are working on. At the end of the day it’s about Africa as a whole. We want to see Africa grow in this sport. This is one of the fastest growing combat sports and it’s professional.

So we can get a lot of fighters to make money for their families, that’s my whole goal.”

According to Dennis Awuakye, the organization’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer, his goal is to establish the African Fighting Championship as the largest fighting sport on the continent.

“The world is getting smaller with social media. So any time we post on social media, there’s an overwhelming amount of interest, because people want to be fighters, officials or want to know when the next event is. With all the fights going on , we would want to be the biggest in Africa and that’s our intention.”

The next edition of the African Fighting Championship will be between August and September.