Editorial: UFC fighters visited a Russian warlord, now they're headlining UFC 286
Editorial: UFC fighters visited a Russian warlord, now they're headlining UFC 286
Former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and former interim lightweight champ Justin Gaethje will be prominently featured at UFC 286 despite potentially violating sanctions.
Editorial: UFC fighters visited a Russian warlord, now they're headlining UFC 286
Several months ago, a trio of former UFC champions visited Chechnya at the behest of the republic’s strongman leader, Ramzan Kadyrov.
Former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman, former flyweight champion Henry Cejudo, and former interim lightweight champion Justin Gaethje were pictured at the Russian Special Forces University in Chechnya, which is used to train Russia’s special forces units preparing to take part in the country’s war on Ukraine.
Footage later posted on the dictator’s social media accounts showed the former champions testing out assault rifles and other weapons of war at the facility. In one shot, Gaethje fired an RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher at a distant target before turning to the camera to flex his muscles with a smile etched across his face.
“The [fighters] really got a lot of positive emotions from visiting Russia,” Kadyrov said in a caption accompanying the video. “Now they want to invite other UFC fighters to join us so that athletes can watch how real men and defenders of the Fatherland learn to fight.”
Usman, Gaethje and Cejudo later attended a birthday party for Kadyrov’s teenage son Adam, whom weeks earlier had been sent to Mariupol, the occupied Ukrainian port city destroyed by Russian forces, to take part in propaganda photo-ops with his brothers while dressed as soldiers. He later returned to Chechnya with Ukrainian prisoners of war that they handed to Kadyrov as a “gift.”
While the controversial footage drew the attention of mainstream outlets and the U.S State Department and raised questions about whether the fighters violated international sanctions, two of the three champions are scheduled to headline Saturday’s UFC 286 event in London, England.
Usman is set to face welterweight champion Leon Edwards in the UFC 286 main event while Gaethje will meet fellow knockout specialist Rafael Fiziev in the co-main event slot. Their involvement in the event cements the notion that neither competitor will face any repercussions for their actions. Instead, they’ve been rewarded with marquee match-ups.
And while the strange trip marked the first time that Cejudo and Gaethje visited Chechnya, it was Usman’s third trip to the semi-autonomous republic in Russia, and his second since the U.S. Treasury Department issued sanctions targeting Kadyrov’s mixed martial arts empire.
In November 2020, Usman—then welterweight champion—visited Chechnya for the first time to attend Adam Kadyrov’s birthday party and to spar with him and his brothers in a private training session. Footage showed Usman joking around with Kadyrov’s sons in the dictator’s private gym and chanting the phrase “Akhmat Sila”—a battlecry which translates to “Akhmat Power” and which is popular among Kadyrov loyalists.
The welterweight champion returned to Chechnya in November 2021—nearly a year after the Treasury Department cracked down on Kadyrov’s fight club— to once again attend Adam’s birthday party. Despite his repeated visits, Usman has refused to answer questions about his apparent ties to Kadyrov and his family.
Gaethje, on the other hand, admitted to attending Adam’s birthday party in November 2022. He also acknowledged that he visited the Russian Special Forces University, adding that he likes to “shoot guns.”
It is worth noting that UFC 286 will also feature flyweight prospect Muhammad Mokaev, who recently trained alongside Kadyrov’s 16-year-old son Ali at the renowned Tiger Muay Thai facility in Thailand. Mokaev went on to defend his decision to train with the dictator’s son while also tweeting at me to shut my “dirty mouth.”
Kadyrov, 46, has long been accused of widespread human rights abuses during his 16 years in power. His alleged crimes include well-documented purges of sexual minorities, extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, forced conscription, and appalling acts of violence to quell all forms of dissent.
Despite his continued human rights abuses, Kadyrov remains a prominent figure within combat sports, which he uses as a pretence to rub shoulders with fighters and present himself as a benevolent, sports-loving leader—a soft power strategy known as sportswashing. In the past, Kadyrov attended the UFC’s debut event in Moscow, Russia in 2018 and was also present at UFC 242 in Abu Dhabi the following year. He currently has five Akhmat MMA fighters representing him in the UFC, including rising star Khamzat Chimaev and former light-heavyweight title challenger Magomed Ankalaev.
However, despite the fact that several fighters from Kadyrov’s Akhmat MMA fight club currently compete in the UFC, the organization argued in a statement to The New York Times that its fighters were independent contractors and that it entered into contracts with them directly, without intermediaries. The organization also said it had no affiliation with Akhmat MMA and that it was in compliance with all laws and regulations.
The UFC’s practiced indifference regarding Kadyrov’s influence is partially why Usman, Gaethje and others have not faced any consequences for associating with the dictator. Meanwhile, the U.S. government is yet to take any action against the fighters for potential sanctions violations.
In the meantime, Kadyrov continues to make headlines for his involvement in the sport, including an alleged role in the mysterious death of former UFC fighter turned deputy prime minister of Chechnya Abdul-Kerim Edilov.
Edilov’s death was first reported by Chechen dissidents on Dec. 29, 2022. And though the circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear, my recent Guardian investigation revealed that Edilov had fallen out of favor with Kadyrov and had been exiled from his inner circle. Several sources that I spoke to later confirmed that Edilov had been killed on Kadyrov’s orders.
Then in January 2022, Georgiy Gagloev, a Russian MMA fighter who appealed to Kadyrov to help find his missing aunt in Chechnya, was found dead on a train travelling from Moscow. Gagloev believed that his aunt may have been kidnapped because of her controversial career as a fortune teller, which is prohibited in Islam and is therefore banned throughout the Muslim-dominant North Caucasus, including in Chechnya.
While Kadyrov has not been formally accused of any involvement in Gagloev’s death, it should be noted that the dictator has led a decade-long campaign to persecute fortune-tellers, psychics, and others who are believed to be practicing magic or the occult.
When fighters like Usman and Gaethje visit Chechnya at Kadyrov’s behest, they become useful puppets that help facilitate the dictator’s propaganda and cement his oppressive rule. Yet instead of facing consequences for their poor choices, both Usman and Gaethje will feature prominently on one of the UFC’s biggest shows of the year.
About the author: Karim Zidan is an investigative reporter for Bloody Elbow focusing on the intersection of sports and politics. His is also a contributor to The New York Times and The Guardian. (full bio)
Great article, Karim. This sort of journalism is why Bloody Elbow is critical in this space.
It shows for me that the UFC (MMA in general) is still far from mainstream here in the UK. Russian athletes are banned from Wimbledon (at behest of mainstream media / Government), but UFC fighters who help glorify that Chetchyn nutter go under the radar. Personally, I'm glad they're here to fight but their actions are pretty shameful.