Author – Hellowhosthat
The United Arab Emirates is certainly the place to be for MMA action this week. As anyone who’s into MMA enough to be reading this article likely knows, there’s a massive UFC Pay-Per-View on Saturday with two title fights in Abu Dhabi. There’s also a big card from the biggest Russian promotion, ACA, on Thursday.
However, for the purposes of this article, we’re focusing on Wednesday, where the best regional promotion in the Middle East — UAE Warriors — have put together an awesome card full of prospects which, if there’s any justice in the sport, will get the Lookin’ for a Fight treatment.
Even if it doesn’t, you’d still like to think the matchmakers will be there if not Dana himself. UAE Warriors have provided the UFC with some exciting prospects in recent times, such as Vinicius “Lokdog” Oliveira and Manon Fiorot, and there are a number of fighters who could well be UFC-ready who’ll be looking to impress and get an opportunity on the biggest stage.
Here’s who to look out for:
Amru Magomedov – 26 years old – Russia – Lightweight – 9-0
Amru is the most obviously UFC-ready fighter on this card. He’s a Nurmagomedov-trained fighter who’s regularly sparring with the amazing crop of fighters around his weight they have in the room there on a daily basis and looks absolutely ready to make the step up to the UFC.
In his last fight, Amru absolutely destroyed UFC vet Alex “Leko” da Silva, who was always competitive in his UFC fights but was completely incapable of dealing with Magomedov. Leko had been doing well again on the regionals and probably fancied his chances of making it back to the UFC himself until he ran into Amru.
He’s also an exciting fighter with flashy striking and very aggressive sub and damage-hunting grappling. He’s a similar age to his teammate and the more well-known PFL champ Usman Nurmagomedov, but when I watch them both, I kind of think Amru is actually the better fighter of the two.
He’s currently on a six-fight finish streak and will be looking to extend that here against a good regional fighter in 15-3 Martun Mezhlumyan who will be gunning to pull the upset here, but I like Amru to get him out of there in the first round and finally get a UFC contract in the coming weeks and go on to establish himself as a lightweight contender relatively quickly.
Asaf Chopurov – 23 years old – Georgia – Bantamweight – 8-0
Chopurov seems to change his nationality every time I look at his profile page on Tapology, but he was born in Georgia, so I’m going to go with that, although he also seems to be Russian or Azerbaijani depending on how he feels that day.
Anyway, Asaf had an insanely good amateur career, amassing a record of 35-1. After he turned pro, he jumped into the deep end pretty quickly after a couple of easy wins when he took on Petr Yan’s main training partner Denis Lavrentyev. He surpassed all expectations in that fight by dispatching the experienced campaigner in a couple of minutes to start to build some real hype.
Since then, he’s kept winning, including a win over former Bellator and team Fedor-trained fighter Nikita Mikhailov. He did experience a bit of adversity when he had to come back from behind to beat the bigger, dangerous, and roided Wanderley Junior at a catchweight, so he’s also shown he can deal with adversity.
On this card, he faces 16-3 Demarte Pena, a former EFC Africa and Ares champion who’s a good offensive grappler who should provide a good but manageable test for Asaf. If he can win impressively and go to 9-0, then that would seem like a good number for the UFC to come calling, and once he’s in the promotion, I can see him being there for a long time.
Iago Ribeiro – 32 years old – Brazil – Flyweight – 13-3
I think a lot of prospect watchers might point to Iago’s opponent Muhidin Abubakar as the guy to watch in this fight, as Iago clashes with him to unify his flyweight title with Abubakar’s interim one. Abubakar is younger and at 10-1 has a more impressive record on paper, but when I watch Iago, I see a much more interesting fighter than I think Abubakar is.
Although his record isn’t that great on paper, his last loss was in 2018 and he’s going into the unification on a 7-fight winning streak. He won the title against another very solid member of the UAE Warriors flyweight division in Yamato Fujita, who’s another guy who could probably win fights in the UFC in an absolute war.
I think the main reason I’d urge people to watch Iago is that he’s such an incredibly exciting fighter. This is a classic Brazilian flashy scrapper who comes to throw down and will take it to you on the feet and on the ground and try to kill you all the time.
If he has another exciting fight and win against Abubakar in the vein of his last victory, then I’d expect the UFC brass to finally take notice and hopefully give him a late-career opportunity.
Felipe Douglas – 33 years old – Brazil – Lightweight – 26-6
Better known as Felipe Buakaw, Douglas is another guy who’s been matched up with a younger prospect that people have their eyes on that I think could be the guy coming out of the fight with the hype.
Buakaw has been pretty close to the UFC before. Back in 2023, he was on a really good run and seemed poised for a call-up but then got caught by a Kaue Fernandes high kick in the last regional fight Fernandes had before he signed for the UFC, and Kaue has shown since then that there’s no shame in losing to him.
Buakaw has picked himself up since, moved to Fighting Nerds, and got himself on a 5-fight win streak. He’s a very violent fighter who can sometimes be a bit of a slow starter, but once he gets going, he’s constant pressure, throwing all the time and beating guys up on the feet and on the ground.
He’s fighting 7-1 Abdullo Khodzaev, who’s a nice flashy striker to watch, but I personally think Buakaw is going to break him and stop him late.
Abdul Hussein – 27 years old – Finland – Bantamweight – 13-2
Abdul is a former IMMAF champion who’s really starting to find his feet after a few years in the pro ranks. His last loss was a decision to Mo Mokaev in 2021, which is obviously understandable, and after taking a couple of years to work on his skills, he returned with a bang and has put together six wins in a row, with every one coming by finish.
Prior to his career break, he looked like a bit of a one-dimensional grappler to watch, but he’s clearly worked very hard on his striking to where he might actually look like the strongest part of his game now. Although once he hurts guys on the feet, the grappling is still there, as the five subs in his six-fight streak show.
Abdul fights 7-2 Gift Walker, who’s a former EFC Africa champion, but not one that I think is close to Abdul’s level, so I expect him to have a pretty easy night here.
Ullubiy Amirzhanov – 22 years old – Russia – Bantamweight – 5-0
Amirzhanov is the youngest and least experienced prospect on the list, but he’s a pretty prized prospect of the Nurmagomedov school, which should already tell you he’s worth watching.
He’s got the grappling you’d expect from that school, and he’s got absolutely beautiful kicks, which he seems to throw effortlessly in a style that reminds me of Zabit a little bit.
He’s not afraid of tough competition, as of the five guys he’s fought as a pro so far, all but one of them were undefeated, and he faces another undefeated fighter in 5-0 Rasim Mirzaev on this card.
So, there you have it — a great card with some great prospects. Cheers for reading and hopefully you can find the time to watch it (and hopefully Dana, Mick, Sean, and Hunter can too).