MMA star suffers HORRIFIC broken leg with bone left popping out as fans say ‘that’s the worst injury I’ve ever seen’

MMA STAR Grigoriy Ponomarev suffered a brutal broken leg during Friday night’s ACA 161 event in Moscow.

Ponomarev’s heavyweight bout with Mukhamad Vakhaev served as the evening’s co-main event.

ACA 161Grigoriy Ponomarev suffered a horrifying injury on Friday night[/caption]

ACA 161The Russian’s leg buckled beneath him[/caption]

ACA 161Ponomarev, 28, appeared to break his leg at ACA 161[/caption]

ACA 161Mukhamad Vakhaev appeared to land two further blows before the referee could step in[/caption]

The fight lasted just 40 seconds, being cut short by a devastating injury.

Ponomarev, 28, began proceedings by pinning his opponent up against the cage.

He then shot for a takedown, only for disaster to strike.

After being denied the takedown Ponomarev stumbled to the side, with his leg buckling under his weight and twisting at a gruesome angle.

The Russian’s horror moment caused his leg to snap, with the referee rushing in to halt the fight.

Vakhaev subsequently celebrated moving into the tournament semi-finals by performing a backflip.

Ponomarev, meanwhile, was left writhing in agony on the canvas.

MMA fans online were left horrified by the incident.

One wrote: “That’s brutal, I can’t imagine the pain he’s in!”

While a second tweeted: “oh my god that’s the worst mma injury I’ve ever seen at least when it comes to broken limbs.”

A third posted: “I’m warning you now. This is a horrible, potential career ending injury.

“Grigoriy Ponomarev destroys his leg/knee/everything at ACA 161. Wait for the replay.”

Another pointed to Anderson Silva’s awful injury suffered against Chris Weidman, writing: “This is worse than the Silva one however I cringed more at the Silva one.”

Others were furious that Vakhaev struck two more blows after Ponomarev had broken his leg.

One tweeted: “Am i the only one who thinks the other guy was aware of the ref and the injury but purposely kept hitting him.”

And a second opined: “2 hits while the ref was on him, thats poor.”

Another added: “The last two blows were superfluous, the referee pulled with both hands already. This is unsportsmanlike behaviour.”

A further social media user commented: “Good lord… That made me really uncomfortable.”

Vakhaev’s win saw him move up to a 12-6-1 professional record.

While Ponomarev fell to 6-3.