The Octagon at UFC 330 was still buzzing when a piece of fabric turned into the biggest story of the night. Moments after Islam Makhachev put away his opponent to retain his lightweight strap, two members of Team Khabib climbed through the ropes and unfurled a Russian flag behind their champion.
For a few seconds it hung upside down, its colors briefly reading like the Serbian tricolor, before someone caught the mistake and flipped it right side up. Once it settled, fans watching at home could make out three names stitched across the stripes: Khabib, Islam, and Usman.
That last name didn’t sit there by accident. Usman Nurmagomedov, fresh off the end of his run in PFL, is reportedly in talks with the UFC about a move to the roster, and the flag reading like a lineup of past, present, and future Dagestani champions only added fuel to that chatter.
Not everyone watching felt like celebrating, though. Bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili saw the clip and did not hide his irritation. The Georgian, who has spent years navigating the promotion’s rules around national symbols, questioned why the moment was allowed to happen at all.
“I thought they not allowed to have a flag there. They don’t let me use the flag,” he said. “This flag is banned everywhere in the world. And only, of course, they show it here in UFC.”
His frustration has history behind it. The UFC banned flag displays back in April 2022 as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated, and while the promotion has since eased parts of that stance, the rules around what happens inside the cage after a bout have stayed murky.
Longtime MMA manager Daniel Rubenstein has said the current standard lets athletes walk out with a flag but keeps them from displaying it in the Octagon during post-bout celebrations, largely because a big piece of fabric can cover sponsor branding on the mat and the cage posts.
That policy showed up in a very literal way at UFC Winnipeg, when officials pulled the Canadian flag away from welterweight Mike Malott as he tried to celebrate a win over Gilbert Burns.
Dvalishvili has felt that enforcement up close. He used to wear a Georgian necklace into his walkouts until the UFC told him to stop.
“I was wearing a Georgian necklace. I got an email from UFC. They said I am not allowed to have this on anymore,” he revealed. Rather than let the matter drop, he found another way to carry his country with him, getting the Georgian flag and a map of the nation tattooed across his chest ahead of his 2023 meeting with Petr Yan.
Watching the Russian flag get carried and draped inside the cage while his own necklace got flagged by email left him pointing out what he sees as a clear double standard.
“And then this guy, not even from the same country. I don’t understand, bro. And especially the flag has the names,” he said, before adding, “But they don’t let me use it in there. Walkout, yes, but they don’t let me carry there in Octagon. I guess, OK, I will hide it somewhere, and then I will use it.”
While the debate over the rulebook played out online, the bigger mystery, who actually made that flag and how it ended up in Team Khabib’s hands, had an answer nobody expected. A woman named Gayana, originally from Russia and now living in Florida after relocating there last year, has come forward in a video as the person behind it.
She described the whole thing as something that came together almost on impulse, put together in the hours before she boarded a flight to Philadelphia for the event, with no real plan beyond wanting to show support once she got there.
The three names weren’t a random choice. In her telling, Khabib represents the champion who came before, Islam is the one carrying the torch now, and Usman is the one she believes is next in line to represent Russia in the UFC, especially with his potential signing already the subject of plenty of conversation.
She said she was a little surprised to realize she seemed to be the only person in the building who had shown up with that particular flag, but she was glad it worked out the way it did. She had been holding it up throughout the night to back the athletes on the card, well before Makhachev’s own walk to the cage.
The flag’s path from the stands to the Octagon, by her account, came down to a chance encounter. She said a man named Rizwan, who she understood to be connected to Islam’s team in a managerial capacity, spotted the flag and rushed over just moments before Makhachev’s post-bout interview to ask if he could bring it inside.
She agreed on the spot. She never got the chance to have it signed, figuring that might come later once the interviews and the celebration wound down, but once Team Khabib had finished up on the platform, event security came looking for her so the flag could be sorted out and returned.
She closed out her account with a note of gratitude toward Islam for what she called an outstanding performance, tying the win to both Dagestan and Russia, and said simply being there for it made the trip worthwhile, adding that she hopes it won’t be her last time experiencing something like it.
