Fighter Profile: Mansur Malachiev

Background

Russian strawweight competing in ONE Championship, with a professional record of 14-2 — both defeats coming against champion Joshua Pacio.

Career timeline

• Built an undefeated professional record before joining ONE Championship.
• Suffered the first loss of his career to Joshua Pacio at ONE Fight Night 15 in October 2023, a hard-fought unanimous decision in a ONE strawweight world title fight.
• Challenged Pacio again at ONE: The Inner Circle 21 on 10 July 2026 and was submitted by rear-naked choke at 4:23 of round one at Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok.

Fight craft

Malachiev is a grappling-led strawweight in the Dagestani mould, working takedown entries and positional control, and his record before meeting Pacio was built largely on that. Against the champion twice he has been unable to make it the deciding factor — the first fight went the distance without him imposing his game, and in the rematch he was caught and finished inside a round. Public reporting on his career outside those two fights is thin, so we have kept the assessment to what those bouts showed.

In the modern MMA landscape

Our wider MMA analysis mentions Malachiev only as the fighter Pacio submitted. The context that makes the result meaningful is that he entered as a legitimate threat: his only prior loss in fourteen professional fights had come against the same champion, on the cards.

Return to What the Modern MMA Game Demands.

Sources

• ONE Championship — Pacio sleeps Malachiev to retain the strawweight world title
• ONE Championship — Pacio vs Malachiev: 4 keys to victory in the rematch
• MyMMANews — Pacio chokes Malachiev unconscious to retain the title

Record and competitive status checked 1 August 2026.