The FF-Files: From Russia with Love

“From Russia with love, I fly to you, much wiser since my goodbye to you. I’ve traveled the world to learn, I must return from Russia with love.”
—Matt Monro, “From Russia With Love”

The sport of MMA has existed for a few decades now, and many of the kinks have been ironed out over the years. Rulesets have evolved significantly, but there is still no universal standard. Much of the Western Hemisphere follows the Unified Rules of MMA enacted in 2001, while the same cannot be said about the East. This is not necessarily a problem, as variety is the spice of life.

It can be a treat for bread-and-butter Ultimate Fighting Championship fans to take in a New Year’s Eve Rizin Fighting Federation show that adds and subtracts various rules and even replaces the standard chain-link fighting enclosure with a boxing-style ring. One Championship maintains its own “Global Rule Set” that differs from both previously mentioned systems. Those changes are a double-edged sword, as a competitor could bounce around the world fighting under differing regulations, hoping to keep things straight in their heads. It was a brief issue when Rizin introduced a series of events held in a cage instead of their standard ring, as multiple competitors grabbed the fence, having forgotten the enclosure in which they were competing.

While those rules in those major organizations differ, they are widely discussed, and fighters and observers should be well aware of the differences. It is not the fault of the promoter if an American goes over to One and gets punished for hanging on the ropes, or if an Asian competitor fires off a soccer kick stateside and gets similarly flagged. Where the issues come up is when a promoter goes rogue and starts to make up their own rules, sometimes even on the fly. In Russia – and the Commonwealth of Independent States to a lesser degree – there are individuals that seize power and twist the sport to their own desires. Understandably, this can cause problems amid the international landscape of mixed martial arts.

Leagues called “Pop MMA” are running rampant in Russia while spreading to nearby nations like Poland. Those fledgling organizations tend to have two things in common: the participants are either untrained or very loosely schooled in MMA, and the rules vary from company to company. Fight fans have likely encountered such varietals as a synthol-infused oaf vs. an older man, a mammoth “blogger” fighting a much smaller semi-pro competitor or even team combat. Believe it or not, Sherdog staff members have been asked to include any and all of these events in the Fight Finder database, including three-on-three fights. They come and go, while attempting and failing to reach the Fight Finder team, with any number of madcap rules ranging from banning grappling altogether to brawling in jeans on concrete surrounded by hay bales. MMA comes in many shapes and sizes, but these organizers push the boundaries and often stray too far.

This wild hair recently took root in the mind of AMC Fight Nights chief Kamil Gadzhiev, who has taken what was long considered to be one of Russia’s marquee leagues into strange territory. AMC was once known as Fight Nights Global, with the name change coming after its sale in 2020. Back in March 2022, Gadzhiev flippantly decided to limit all grappling in AMC matches to exactly 60 seconds. Even if a fighter had locked up an armbar, the referee would be required to stand the fighters up at the conclusion of that arbitrary time window. Sherdog Fight Finder staff discussed this rule change at great length, ultimately determining that this shifted the combat from MMA into something MMA-adjacent, and the matches were set as exhibitions. To not allow the full extent of grappling would be to remove the “mixed” from these martial arts, and that was a bridge too far. This limit stayed in place from AMC Fight Nights 111 that May to 114 in September. Upon realizing that Sherdog would not list the matches as professional MMA contests, AMC finally repealed the rule.

Several months passed, tensions cooled down and the angry, profanity-laced emails stopped bombarding the Sherdog Fight Finder inbox. AMC kept running events every month or so, with 115, 116 and 117 passing without incident. At AMC Fight Nights 118 on Feb. 23, however, Gadzhiev tinkered again, in a way few would have expected. He might have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids.

On the main card of AMC Fight Nights 118 at the Red Arena in Sochi, Russia, Russian featherweight Tumer Ondar faced off against Afghanistan native Ismail Haidari. The fight otherwise continued without anything special until Ondar maneuvered and snared Haidari in a kneebar. With one swift move, Haidari tapped out on Ondar’s knee, and then pulled his hand back. The referee appropriately recognized the single tap and called a halt to the fight, and Haidari was livid. Shouting at the referee and anyone within earshot, Haidari claimed that it was not a tap and just him repositioning himself. Upon video review, it appeared to be a clear tapout, and the win was awarded to Ondar as Haidari bleated and hollered up a storm.

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A post shared by Камил Гаджиев (@kamilgadzhiev)

Gadzhiev was not as convinced, or perhaps he took pity on the 30-year-old from Kabul, as he entered the cage to do something about it. The official result would remain – this simple fact is why the outcome will stay listed on Sherdog Fight Finder unaltered – but there was more. As if he had watched a few of the recent Fight Circus shows, Gadzhiev wanted an encore. He wanted them to run it back. As the promoter, and the person that ultimately controls the purse strings, what he says goes. The fighters agreed, the referee agreed, Gadzhiev dragged in an official from the MMA Union of Russia to briefly speak on what was happening, and it was time for a new fight.

The fighters even received a new set of introductions. They did not, of course, walk out again, but everyone cleared out of the cage and this fight was set to go for a second time. The same referee of the first match oversaw the rematch, who kept a keen eye on the proceedings this time as well. There was no funny business this time around. In fact, other than causing some blood to flow, Ondar took a clear-cut unanimous decision to go two-up on his opponent that night. Again, these results stand, but they stand with a caveat: this type of ruling is dangerous.

Imagine a promoter that decided that they did not like the result of a match, so they ordered it run back then and there. Some nationalistic organizations prefer local or regional fighters win over foreign adversaries, and have been even known to obfuscate fight results that could harm certain individuals they favor. Consider if a crazed UFC head Dana White disagreed with a decision or stoppage, and he wanted that fight to happen once more the same day. In the U.S. or any responsible jurisdiction with an overseeing federation or commission, that would rightfully be stopped in its tracks as soon as it left his mouth. In other areas, fighters are not as protected. In this specific case, what if Ondar’s kneebar had damaged a ligament in Haidari’s knee, and in Haidari’s adrenaline-fueled rush, he did not realize the extent of his injury? What then if he fought again over the course of 15 minutes and caused further harm?

The questions practically write themselves. Could this type of call extend to referee stoppages for strikes, like those considered premature? How about contentious decisions? While Ondar prepared to face Haidari that night, he certainly did not expect to battle that same man a second time – this was not a tournament event, after all. In the world of hypotheticals, what if Haidari had performed a submission in the rematch and Ondar protested the tap? Just how far could this go?

The ramifications of an unchecked promoter could run far and wide, and potentially contrary to the best interests of the fighters. A grave concern of this happening on a large stage like AMC is that others are watching. A less scrupulous organizer could decide to take things a step further and erase the past result to say it was invalid. It might get stricken from the record altogether. Rightful victors could get burned.

There is little precedent in this happening elsewhere, but one could point to UFC Japan in 1997 as a historical example of something slightly similar. In the heavyweight tournament that night, Kazushi Sakuraba dove down in pursuit of a takedown after eating strikes from Marcus Silveira – one of the future leaders of American Top Team, also known as “Conan” – and referee John McCarthy thought at the time Sakuraba had gone out. McCarthy reviewed the tape, in an ultra-early example of the use of instant replay in MMA, and reversed the outcome to a no contest. Due to the other finalist “Tank” David Abbott unable to compete, Sakuraba and Silveira squared off again later that night, and this time Sakuraba performed an armbar to take home the trophy. The circumstances do differ and the facts are not aligned well, which illustrates how unusual Gadzhiev’s decision was to do this. We only hope that this was a one-off never to be heard from again, and not the shape of things to come in that region.

If you have seen this kind of potential malpractice take place in MMA organizations around the world, feel free to send the details as well as any other Fight-Finder-related requests to fightfinder@sherdog.com.