Artur Beterbiev is currently the #9 P4P fighter according to Ring Magazine. On March 28 he was to defend his unified light heavyweight championship against Meng Fanlong of China, a fight that was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The fight would have taken place in Quebec City, partially because of Beterbiev’s refusal to fight in China as a result of the mistreatment of the Muslim Uyghurs. The Chinese government has “allegedly” been placing these Uyghurs in concentration camps, with some reports having the numbers in the millions. Beterbiev is right in his stand against the atrocities that China is committing, and was congratulated for it in the media. The racial discrimination against the Muslims in China has no place in the modern world.
But Beterbiev has his own dark corners.
It’s very possible you have heard of Ramzan Kadyrov. In 2017, the Chechen Prime Minister made headlines for his Anti-Gay purge. According to human rights groups, gay men are sent to secret prisons in Chechnya. Around 100 men were imprisoned in the first purge. Three are confirmed killed. While there, they were beaten with pipes, humiliated, and electrocuted. Some of the guards in these “allegedly” unofficial jails are accused of releasing the prisoners to their relatives only if their relatives promise to kill them (at least one man was reported by a witness as having died after returning to his family). Kadyrov has denied these claims, going so far as to state that there are no gay men in Chechnya and if there were, their families would have killed them already. The United States responded to these reports by imposing heavy sanctions on Kadyrov.
A second purge occurred in 2018. Here’s what the United States report on Human Rights practices had to say:
“The most significant human rights issues included extrajudicial killings, including of LGBTI persons in Chechnya; enforced disappearances; torture that was systematic and sometimes resulted in death and sometimes included punitive psychiatric incarceration; harsh and life-threatening conditions in prisons; arbitrary arrest and detention; lack of judicial independence; political prisoners; severe interference with privacy; severe restrictions on freedom of expression and the media, including the use of “antiextremism” and other vague laws to prosecute peaceful dissent; and violence against journalists and bloggers; blocking and filtering of internet content and use of cyberattacks to disrupt peaceful internet discussion; severe restrictions on the rights of peaceful assembly”
Kadyrov hasn’t stopped there. On 7 October 2006, Russian journalist, writer and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment. She had been witness in a trial against Kadyrov for abductions. She also called him the “Stalin of our time”. A blogger, Imran Aliev was brutally stabbed to death in his hotel room in France in early February, 2020. He had a YouTube Channel that was critical of the Chechen Government.
Kadyrov rules Chechnya as a despot. He also has a deep affinity for combat sports, which is where Beterbiev comes in. Kadyrov is the founder of the Akhmat Fight Club and he established an international annual freestyle wrestling tournament called the Ramzan Kadyrov & Adlan Varayev Cup. Varayev was a Chechen wrestler who won silver in the 1988 Olympics but later drowned. On Kadyrov’s instagram @kadyrov._95, his account is filled with well wishes to fighters, including pictures of himself fighting. He was even sitting front row at the first UFC in Moscow, and UFC was accused of “Sportswashing” by the Guardian. He’s also been criticized in his country for being TOO generous to mixed combat athletes after gifting Beterbiev and UFC fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov new Mercedes after their respective victories.
Hopefully we’ve established two positions by now. One, that Kadyrov is a murderous homophobic villain with no regard for human rights and two, a massive mixed martial arts enthusiast.
Now let’s look at Beterbiev. First, he is a member of the Akhmat Fight Club. Next, he seems to have a very loving affection towards Kadyrov. Here is a video of him receiving a hero’s welcome from the despot: https://www.instagram.com/p/B4AcltloWdO/?igshid=lz5a5p7s66fs
It is clear Kadyrov and Beterbiev are very close. Why wouldn’t they be? Beterbiev is a member of Kadyrov’s boxing club, and has achieved worldwide success. He is lavished with gifts and praise and state parades and celebrations when he returns home. It also bodes well for Kadyrov to have bred a champion, and display the superiority of his boxing club on the global stage.
But where does that leave us with Beterbiev?
On the one hand, he has already displayed that human rights are an important issue to him when it comes to his own. He was universally applauded for standing up to the massive money that China was pouring into boxing and refusing to venture there, going so far as to state that he would give up his IBF title instead of defending it against his mandatory in China. That is a commendable sacrifice in the name of ethics. On the other hand, he has no issue praising and unapologetically supporting a known human rights violator. Someone so brutal that he has personal sanctions against him from the United States.
How do we respond to a person like this? Can you cheer for him? Can you separate the athlete from the issues? What if his next fight is held in Russia and Kadyrov is brought into the ring and praised? Would you watch? Would you demand Top Rank release Beterbiev?
It’s possible you may not care. There are boxers who have done worse who have continued their careers without retribution in the public sphere. Does it help Beterbiev’s case that he light-skinned? If he we a dark skinned Arab Muslim would the vitriol be more vocal against him? Would the media and sports fans take up a stronger case against him? Is he somewhat protected by his perceived “Whiteness”?
These are truly subjective questions. I for one, am going to have trouble cheering for Beterbiev in the future. I don’t blame his religion for his beliefs. Chechnya’s policies align very closely with that of Russia’s strict anti-LGBTQ policies, and Putin haa nothing to do with Islam. I find Kadyrov’s use of othering a more classical fascist approach to maintaining power, which makes it harder to forgive Beterbiev. In his short yet dominant career, he has not yet faced a true challenge. Maybe, as his star grows and the spotlight shines a little brighter on his relationship with this dictator, he may yet face a new challenge. Or, if he continues to find success in the ring and make money for Top Rank and ESPN, it may just be sportswashed away.