He Fought The Russian Invasion, Now This Ukrainian MMA Champion Is Chasing UFC Gold
📖 Full Retelling
Yaroslav Amosov walked away from a stellar mixed martial arts career to fight against Russian forces occupying his home town of Irpin. Four years on, he has just been signed to the world's premiere MMA promotion.
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Share Share Print Yaroslav Amosov assumed his combat sports career was over. Amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, the Ukrainian mixed martial arts champion abandoned plans to headline a world title bout in London and was instead on the streets of Irpin, just outside Kyiv, with an assault rifle in his hands. “I think, OK, now I go to defend my city and I don't think about my career,” Amosov recalled to RFE/RL in a call from his base in Florida. After evacuating his wife and infant son out of Irpin in the hours following the Russian onslaught he says, "I called my friends and we met and talked about what we do and in the evening went back to my city and went to the war." Despite Russian forces being widely expected to capture all of the Kyiv region, Amosov decided, “I’ll stay in my city” he said. By late March, the invading army was struggling to hold Irpin amid counterattacks from Ukrainian forces that included locals such as Amosov and his friends, who knew the city and its surrounding forests inside out. It was then that the former MMA star, who held a flawless professional record of 26 victories with no losses, was reminded of his former life. In a suburb of Irpin, Amosov’s welterweight world championship belt from Bellator -- America’s then second-largest MMA promotion, lay hidden in the basement of his mother’s home where some of the fiercest fighting had taken place. "A couple of guys said to me: ‘Maybe you will get your belt,'" Amosov recalled, “I said: 'OK, let’s go, because now this is more safe.'" The fighter took directions from his mother by telephone as he searched the basement of the home where he had lived as a child. As he emerged triumphant with the trophy, his comrades laughed that he was claiming the belt “for the second time.” By the spring of 2022, central and northern Ukraine was largely cleared of Russian forces and Amosov’s friends and family began pushing for him to consider returning to the octagon to revive his long-h...
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