13 things about Makhmud Muradov, Tajik-Uzbek-Czech MMA fighter

By Conan Altatis on October 28, 2020 • ( Leave a comment )

Makhmud Muradov

He was born Dushanbe, Tajikistan on February 8, 1990 to a Tajik father and Uzbek mother.
He speaks Uzbek, Russian, Czech, Polish and English.
In 1993, he and his family left Tajikistan because of the civil war there and moved to Uzbekistan.
In 2002, he started his training in boxing. He eventually transitioned to kickboxing and became the Junior Kickboxing Champion under the K1 rules in Uzbekistan.
In 2005, he and his brother started working as a construction worker after their father became disabled due to a car accident.
In 2008, he started his combat sambo career. In the same year, he and his brother moved from Uzbekistan to Russia. He worked as a security guard in a casino and lived in Tomsk, Siberia with his brother and other acquaintances.
In 2011, he moved to Czech Republic. Returning from Russia to Uzbekistan, he accepted an offer to go to Prague, Czech Republic from a friend he worked with at a construction site in Russia. He worked as a waiter and a cleaner and did several other jobs in Prague, where he also started his training in Muay Thai and mixed martial arts under the tutelage of Petr Kníže.
In 2012, he made his professional MMA debut. He won three out of five fights in one year.
In 2015, he only had one MMA fight in one year for the first time since his professional MMA debut.
He is friends with Czech bobsledder Miloš Veselý, who invited him to an event in March 2017 at Lávka Club in Prague where he met Floyd “Pretty Boy” Mayweather Jr.
In 2018, he officially became a citizen of Czech Republic. In February 2018, he signed with Mayweather Promotions, a boxing promotional firm founded in 2007 by Mayweather. In December 2018, he started dating Monika Bagárová, a Czech singer of Romani descent.
In 2019, he finally received his Uzbek citizenship. In the same year, he made his Ultimate Fighting Championship debut and won two fights in one year. He was the first ever Uzbek MMA fighter to join the UFC. On August 11, 2019, Mayweather took to Instagram to share a photo of them with a caption declaring him as the best MMA fighter in the world. He got a lot of attention and even received offers from Bellator MMA and ONE Championship, which he both declined.
His first child with Bagárová, a daughter named Rumia Muradov, was born on May 27, 2020.