A new sport called ‘Batyr Ball’ combines MMA and Basketball and it is actually real and actually insane.
A viral moment was produced within two minutes of the sport's first-ever game, indicating that this sport might just be a stayer.
After a shot from deep in the octagon went awry, a teammate grabbed the ball off the floor while defending himself from a wrestling match. He then broke free and dunked the ball so ferociously that the rim bounced back, shattering the backboard. Originally posted to Twitter, the clip was reposted on ESPN, SportsCentre, and a bunch of other media outlets.
Who would have thought something would have gone wrong so quickly?
The game stopped for around twenty minutes after that, and they actually had to change the hoop to a much smaller one (as seen in the clip below).
Batyr Ball teams are made up of wrestlers, boxers, and rugby players. Nikolai Belkin, the first person ever to score a point in Batyr Ball and a member of the Aktau team that ended up winning the tournament (who’s your G.O.A.T), said that the sport is breakneck, and you always have to be paying attention.
“It so happened that I was the captain of our rugball team, and I have something to compare,” Belkin said, as reported by Lada.kz.
“Batyr ball is a very dynamic and fast look. The small area of the octagon simply does not allow you to relax. Emotions, as a player, just go wild. It is simply impossible for the audience to be distracted from the site.”
As it turns out, Batyr Ball was created because Samson Arakelyan and Nurbek Karabala, the founders of the sport, believed another hybrid sport ‘Rugball’ (rugby and basketball) wasn’t quite cutting it.
“As for rugball, which takes place on the basketball court, the attention of the spectators is lost because of the space on which the athletes compete,” Arakelyan said. “There are more power moves and wrestling in Batyr Ball, so all this should take place in a more limited space.”
He also said he plans to make a fully functional Batyr Ball league in Kazakhstan.
As for now, the games are broadcast on the Naiza TV YouTube channel, with four hours of gameplay from yesterday available for your viewing pleasure.
Can't believe no one thought of this before.
