Former UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov has raised concerns about what he sees as deliberate obstacles being placed in the path of Russian MMA stars trying to reach championship status in the promotion.
In a recent interview, the retired Dagestani icon aired frustrations that Eastern European talent is being held back on purpose.
“I think that feeling started in the last couple of years — when they didn’t give Evloev a shot at 9-0. They were stalling Ankalaev too,” Nurmagomedov stated, referencing the undefeated featherweight Movsar Evloev and light heavyweight contender Magomed Ankalaev. “Yeah, really badly. Then there was that whole situation with Mokaev.”
His comments come amid a dominant run for Dagestani and Russian MMA athletes. Islam Makhachev holds the lightweight title and others from the region sit near the top across several divisions. But Khabib thinks that very dominance might be why the UFC is dragging its feet.
“And all of it together — it definitely creates that kind of impression. In terms of fairness, yeah,”
he said, before admitting there’s a business element behind it.
“But from a business perspective — let’s not talk sport — just business… They run things however they want to run them. And honestly, you can understand it to a point.”
He laid out several cases where Russian MMA stars seemed to be hitting walls for non-sporting reasons. Ankalaev, despite being highly ranked, still hasn’t gotten a proper title shot. Muhammad Mokaev is undefeated but got tangled up in visa and contract delays. And Khamzat Chimaev‘s travel issues have messed with his calendar over and over.
For Khabib, it all comes down to one thing: how much you’re willing to play the promotional game.
“The UFC wants you to be both a great fighter and marketable. That’s the problem with our fighters,”
he said, pointing back to Evloev as an example.
“Take Movsar, for example. He won’t play those business games. He just won’t. First of all, his Ingush brothers wouldn’t understand, and he knows that. Secondly, that’s just who he is. Calm, careful, humble guy.”
That quiet, disciplined mindset might help them win matches, but it’s not what gets fast-tracked in today’s UFC. Fighters who don’t trash talk or do marketing stunts are often passed over.
Khabib admits the UFC can run things as they please, but the tension between sport and showbiz remains impossible to ignore. As Russian athletes keep climbing the rankings, this conflict over how opportunities are handed out isn’t going away.
His words carry weight—not just as an undefeated former champion, but as a coach steering the next wave of MMA stars out of Dagestan. And the issues he’s talking about are bigger than just individual names. They go right to the heart of what modern MMA has become.
