Ukrainian UFC fighter caught cheating. Changed his name and fooled Dana White

Ukrainian Askar Mozharov on the night of June 4-5 will hold his first fight as part of the UFC promotion. The duel with his participation did not attract much attention from the fans, until one curious detail was revealed: the record of a fighter from Ukraine is completely untrue.

At a press conference dedicated to the fight, the athlete had to make excuses to reporters.

The Ukrainian’s excuses looked so ridiculous that even his opponent laughed at him.

Obvious track record fraud

Askar Mozharov, by the age of 27, has a rich experience in mixed martial arts. The athlete also tried his hand at kickboxing and karate. A real breakthrough for him was the signing of a contract with the UFC. On June 4, he will make his debut at Fight Night 207 in Las Vegas, and immediately on the main card. The American Alonzo Menifield (11-3) will confront him.

Photo: © Chris Unger / Contributor / UFC / Gettyimages.com

The Ukrainian would have made his debut with a good record (25-7), if the Shergog portal had not revealed his attempts to hide some unpleasant pages of his early career.

Journalist Jay Pettri published a global investigation in which he laid out all the machinations of the fighter and his team. It turned out that Mozharov fought early fights under the name of Artur Shadkov in a little-known Chinese promotion. He lost many fights there.

According to Pettri, Mozharov and his team tried for several years by hook or by crook to remove uncomfortable defeats from their track record. The author provides evidence of some ridiculous attempts by Askar (that is, Arthur) to clean up his record.

In one of the letters sent from a Russian email, an unidentified person tried to challenge Sherdog with one of the Ukrainian’s defeats. An unknown person introduced himself as a Chinese organizer and asked to remove the defeat from the fighter Fan Rong from Mozharov’s track record.

Those who wrote the letter even included a banner for the event and a short video that looked more like a botched montage than real evidence. But the geographic location of the mail address caused more bewilderment, because in China it is forbidden to use the resources of other countries due to government restrictions, including Russian ones.

Pettri also stated that Mozharov’s team tried several times to provide false information about the athlete’s victories. The journalist identified at least four such cases. As a result of the investigation, the Ukrainian’s track record at Sherdog was replenished with five losses at once. Removed on the portal and six of his victories. Now the balance of victories and defeats of the athlete does not look so attractive anymore: 19-12 (instead of the previously announced 25-7). Obviously, the UFC did not want to see such a fighter when they signed a contract with a Ukrainian athlete.

“I didn’t know they would be in my record”

The Sherdog investigation made a lot of noise on the Internet. Unsurprisingly, at a press conference dedicated to UFC Fight Night 207, journalists asked Askar uncomfortable questions about his dubious past.

I don’t really care about my record, but I’ve had a lot of fights in China. These organizations do not add fights to the track record. It took a lot of effort for them to add the fights that I had there. No one has talked about this for the last 7-8 years. But now that I’m in the biggest promotion, the UFC, I think someone or one of the admins wanted to show off. It’s a little weird, right? I didn’t even fight among the pros, but had several semi-professional fights. I didn’t know that they would be counted in my record, ”the MMAJunkie portal quotes Mozharov as saying.

Photo: © Personal archive of Askar Mozharov

The fighter also acknowledged the name change. Askar did this only because he had a stepfather. It is with this that the athlete connects the confusion that has arisen with his track record. But if the change of surname in this case is still explainable, then why Arthur turned into Askar is a mystery.

The explanations of the Ukrainian amused even the opponent of Alonzo Menifield, who did not hold back his laughter, answering the questions of journalists.

– It’s ridiculous. I don’t know what to think. I don’t want to insult Askar, but I’m curious how he’ll fight on Saturday. When you’re in the octagon, you don’t pose much. There is a real struggle and a high level, ”Alonzo answered questions from the press about the situation around his opponent.

For sure, for such machinations, Dana White will not pat the UFC debutant on the head. Now it remains for Mozharov to give at least the fight of the evening so that the promotion thinks again about his return to the octagon.