The 3rd place play off in the 9th World Championship was a very interesting set up. Both fighters with significant wins during the tournament, both strong profiles winning their top tournament of their region in front. Dimitrov with his EC victory against Eduard Janoashvili in Lithuania, as Nesterenko became the champion of the Russian Open-weight,defeating top fighter Denis Grigoriev the year before.

Before this fight, both had several great wins. Dimitrov had among others defeated Jimmie Collin / Sweden, Zsolt Balogh / Hungary, Darius Gudauskas / Lithuania. Nesterenko defeated among others Kou Tanigawa / Japan, Alexei Leonov / Kazakhstan, Norichika Tsukamoto / Japan.