http://68.media.tumblr.com/da6b1605d04715e36791b0e5346164ed/tumblr_ninbnjrPE51u8fgt4o1_1280.jpg Why many of the so-called “Russian” MMA fighters are not actually Russians and what is the place of nationality in today’s combat sports? One of the evolving landscapes of an expanded MMA roster is the increasingly difficult concept of ethnicity and nationality. Combat sports aren’t exactly a “national” competition, or at least not outside very specific confines (the Olympics, martial arts tournaments, etc.), however, much like other individual sports a very high value is placed on national representation. For the UFC, the fact that that current heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez is of Mexican heritage with a huge “Brown Pride” tattoo right on his chest carries some importance to their drive to expand into the Latino fanbase. Nationality and ethnicity aren’t the entirety of a fighter’s identity, but they are a part of it. As such, one of the major recent stories in MMA has been the “Russian Invasion” as first Bellator and later the UFC have become the home for a steady stream of so-called “Russian fighters”… Adlan Amagov. Rustam Khabilov. Albert Tumenov. Khabib Nurmagomedov. Omari Ahkmedov. To many MMA fans, they all get lumped together in one easy category: “Russians”. For real Russians, on the other hand, it sounds just as absurd as calling Zinedine Zidane “French” or Mario Balotelli “Italian”. Let those fighters try to explain themselves: “Me, when I came here, every time I would be working somewhere, my co-workers would call me ‘The Russian guy.’ I’d say, ‘I’m not Russian!’ I’d explain to them where I was from and how it was different, and they’d listen to me. Then at the end, still, I’m the Russian guy. It made no difference” – tells Murat Keshtov, who runs the K Dojo Warrior Tribe gym in Fairfield, New Jersey. It’s the same for many of the fighters Keshtov trains, few of whom actually consider themselves Russian. Instead they are Dagestani or Chechnyan, Circassian or Ossetian. They might use Russian as the lingua franca among themselves since even small republics in the North Caucasus region, where most of these fighters come from, might make use of upward of 30 different languages. But according to Keshtov, they would never identify themselves as Russian, and are often quick to correct others who do. When Keshtov says “our state,” he doesn’t mean Russia, a nation of 143 million people with a landmass nearly twice the size of the U.S. Instead he’s thinking of the much smaller, yet in some ways much more complicated, region of the North Caucasus. “The new wave of fighters in UFC and Bellator comes from the south part of Russia, the North Caucasus. It’s kind of an autonomous state with Muslim religion. It’s like a little country within a country, but it’s officially part of Russia” Keshtov said. As MMA, and more specifically the UFC, continues to expand it’s boarders and bring more combatants in to the public eye, these cultural distinctions are going to become more and more important. Right now we seem to be in the midst of a “North Caucasus Invasion,” the Russians have yet to arrive. http://white-rex.tumblr.com/post/108936944533/why-many-of-the-so-called-russian-mma-fighters
I posted this in the MMA section but it's very relevant for boxing too to clear any kind of misunderstanding http://68.media.tumblr.com/da6b1605d04715e36791b0e5346164ed/tumblr_ninbnjrPE51u8fgt4o1_1280.jpg Why many of the so-called “Russian” MMA fighters are not actually Russians and what is the place of nationality in today’s combat sports? One of the evolving landscapes of an expanded MMA roster is the increasingly difficult concept of ethnicity and nationality. Combat sports aren’t exactly a “national” competition, or at least not outside very specific confines (the Olympics, martial arts tournaments, etc.), however, much like other individual sports a very high value is placed on national representation. For the UFC, the fact that that current heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez is of Mexican heritage with a huge “Brown Pride” tattoo right on his chest carries some importance to their drive to expand into the Latino fanbase. Nationality and ethnicity aren’t the entirety of a fighter’s identity, but they are a part of it. As such, one of the major recent stories in MMA has been the “Russian Invasion” as first Bellator and later the UFC have become the home for a steady stream of so-called “Russian fighters”… Adlan Amagov. Rustam Khabilov. Albert Tumenov. Khabib Nurmagomedov. Omari Ahkmedov. To many MMA fans, they all get lumped together in one easy category: “Russians”. For real Russians, on the other hand, it sounds just as absurd as calling Zinedine Zidane “French” or Mario Balotelli “Italian”. Let those fighters try to explain themselves: “Me, when I came here, every time I would be working somewhere, my co-workers would call me ‘The Russian guy.’ I’d say, ‘I’m not Russian!’ I’d explain to them where I was from and how it was different, and they’d listen to me. Then at the end, still, I’m the Russian guy. It made no difference” – tells Murat Keshtov, who runs the K Dojo Warrior Tribe gym in Fairfield, New Jersey. It’s the same for many of the fighters Keshtov trains, few of whom actually consider themselves Russian. Instead they are Dagestani or Chechnyan, Circassian or Ossetian. They might use Russian as the lingua franca among themselves since even small republics in the North Caucasus region, where most of these fighters come from, might make use of upward of 30 different languages. But according to Keshtov, they would never identify themselves as Russian, and are often quick to correct others who do. When Keshtov says “our state,” he doesn’t mean Russia, a nation of 143 million people with a landmass nearly twice the size of the U.S. Instead he’s thinking of the much smaller, yet in some ways much more complicated, region of the North Caucasus. “The new wave of fighters in UFC and Bellator comes from the south part of Russia, the North Caucasus. It’s kind of an autonomous state with Muslim religion. It’s like a little country within a country, but it’s officially part of Russia” Keshtov said. As MMA, and more specifically the UFC, continues to expand it’s boarders and bring more combatants in to the public eye, these cultural distinctions are going to become more and more important. Right now we seem to be in the midst of a “North Caucasus Invasion,” the Russians have yet to arrive. http://white-rex.tumblr.com/post/108936944533/why-many-of-the-so-called-russian-mma-fighters
Slavic Eastern European boxers: Kovalev Lebedev Povetkin Mekhontsev Troyanovsky Drozd Pirog Vassiliy Jirov Ivan Dychko Mikhaylenko Dmitry Kudryashov Sergey Kuzmin Konstantin Ponomarev Lomachenko Usyk Klitschko Postol Gvozdyk Pulev Zlatičanin Marco Huck (Slavic Muslim) Felix Sturm (Slavic Muslim) Glowacki, Szpilka (practically everyone representing Poland other than that Ugu Izu Onbongo guy or whatever his name is) ... Non-Slavic boxers that get labelled as "Eastern Euros" here: Golovkin Beterbiev Gassiev Provodnikov Silakh Kostya Tszyu Sultan Ibragimov Sergey Lipinets Umar Salamov Arif Magomedov Dmitry Bivol Chagaev Magomedrasul Majidov Qudratillo Abduqaxorov Fazliddin Gaibnazarov Hasanboy Dusmatov Denis Shafikov David Avanesyan Beibut Shumenov ...
I have a better question, why are so many so-called German Boxers not actually German? Most are Slavs.
Germany is the nation with by far the best boxing infrastructure around for Balkan Slavs. If you're good at boxing and from here, Germany is pretty much the place to go. The Germans then want those boxers to take up German names and represent Germany, which some of them do. I guess Huck in particular would have no reason to represent Serbia since his people aren't particularly loyal to Serbia due to their history and Muslim religion. We don't have the boxing infrastructure that the Eastern Slavs have. In Socialist Yugoslavia, other sports were favored more, particularly the team sports.
When it comes to Kazakhstan, some of their boxers actually seem to be pure Slavs like Vassiliy Jirov and Ivan Dychko (they come from Russian minority in Kazakhstan), while most of them like Golovkin, Shumenov etc. are not pure Slavs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Kazakhstan
Muslims in ex-Yugoslavia (Bosniaks and Muslims from Sandžak) are pure Slavs ethnically, while Muslims from Russia have different ethnic origins. They just use Russian language to communicate better since there are so many different languages and ethnic groups in the Caucasus, like the article from the first post says.
Some Russian boxers like Provodnikov have ancestry from some indigenous north Asian groups. Russia is basically one huge multiracial empire where the Slavic Russians are just one of the many ethnic groups. Moscow is already the city with the largest Muslim population outside of Muslim countries (I think that there's already more than 2 million Muslims in Moscow) and there are a lot of Asians there too. When people talk about Russians as a nation, they mean the Slavic Russians and not just citizens of Russia as a country. The demographic trends predict bad times for Slavic Russians if things don't change. The Slavic areas of Russia have terrible natural population growth rates, they're dying off basically, while the Asian ethnic groups in Russia are expanding. Also, the Muslims in the Caucasus are absolutely booming, look at their crazy natural population growth rates in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Russia_natural_population_growth_rates_2015.PNG Those three Muslim republics inside Russian Federation are also crazy about combat sports and produce tons of fighters. That's why a lot of "Russian" fighters are actually from there. In the future when there will be even more of Russian and "Russian" fighters so I think it's good that you're informed about all this.
