The UGs man on the ground in Chechenya, Boris Dealon, interviews Mayrbek Sulumbekovich, president of Berkut fight club, founder of the Absolute Championship Berkut, and one of the leading doctors in the country.
Boris Dealon: Mayrbek, tell us please how everything started. What year did you decide to create the club and the first tournament was held?
Mayrbek Sulumbekovich: Prehistory of creating the club is 2009. At that point I was doing Kyokushin and helping the Kyokushin Federation. I have supported the Haliev brothers – I rent a gym for them and supported then financially. I got involved in MMA, and Kyokushin paled into insignificance, and I started thinking about taking this business seriously. Having about 15-16 good fighters we decided to create a club.
We would think about a name a lot. We had some versions – Grozny, The Chechen, a name in a Chechen language Nohchi and even Anaconda – that’s my nickname among my friends. And one day I had this thought in my head to call the club Berkut. Everyone liked this one. We thought up and painted our first symbol right away – a flying eagle.
The date of foundation of the club is the end of 2009 and beginning of 2010. Within 3-4 years we built a good gym. In 2014 we created a league and started to perform as ACB. The first tournament we held in Grozny. Before ACB we held tournaments as Berkut, Grand-Prix Berkut, home championship, then we started to get around and started to perform as ACB-1, ACB-2, etc.
We have 7 champions in our league. Some champions moved to some other leagues and left their belts vacant. We will hold a qualifying cycle for these belts. At the same time this year we added the weight class 56.7 kg (125 pounds). Step by step we get closer to the international standards. We will put in new rules where it will be allowed to use elbows. Alongside we work on K-1 and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Also we would like to start doing boxing. There’s a situation in the world today that doesn’t allow you to get to a high level without big money. Why did we choose exactly these 3 directions? I think that the most important things for any MMA fighter’s succeed is knowing of striking, parterre, wrestling – taking your opponent down from stance to parterre. It’s not enough to have wrestling technique – took him down, then what? Then comes Jiu-Jitsu.
This year we already held 2 tournaments – in Poland and in Grozny. Now Nalchik is on the line. What after Nalchik we don’t know yet, but most likely before the belt all the fights will take place in Russia. When we have title fights for the belts we will hold them in Europe. We have 5-6 offers including ones from Belgium, Austria, Poland. Also we plan to hold 2 tournaments in BJJ and MMA. In Moscow we will hold a tournament in a very prestigious weight class.
BD: What are your impressions about the last tournament.
MS: It was an eliminatory cycle Grand-Prix. There was 8 fighters in 3 weight classes. All tournament organizing was given to the youth. We told them: you hold the tournament well – you got this job, you fail – adios, amigos. Considering their abilities and the fact that they are gifted – they held the tournament on the top level.
Everybody’s been asking the question – why there was so little audience? We didn’t count on getting profit. Why there was so little audience – it’s a question for the audience. We don’t do shows. I think if we invited some star from western show-business then we would have way more people out there. Now it’s just a mentality. But we work in MMA, so if you like it – come, if you don’t like it – don’t come.
We held the tournament not so much for audience as for eliminating champions. In the fight card we had this task: the opponents have to be equal and even better than the Berkut or ACB fighters. The fights were great. There were some questions about the last fight though and what’s more surprising the questions from our local audience, Chechens. They criticized the judges. I’m surprised by that. I want to stress that if I find out that a fighter or a judge have a collusion for a fight then neither that fighter nor judge will be in the ACB league again. I haven’t heard of this kind of situations so far. Yet at the first Berkut tournaments I told the judges that we don’t need a win in an even fight. We have to win not leaving any questions behind. This idea got only stronger wit time and we keep working in this direction.
BD: How do you think what is a singularity of Your league? What stands it out from the other promotions, that have been in the business for a long time?
MS: We work in the Grand-Prix system. If our financial ability will let us then I will never refuse from it despite it takes a lot of money. Grand-Prix is the most fair system. In 3-4 months a fighter knows for sure who is going to be his next opponent, in 8-9 months – who he will fight in the semifinal, in a year – who will fight in the final. He has plenty of time to prepare. There’s also a bad side – a fighter can get injured and fall out after his very first fight. But it can happen with anyone in a divisional method. You can get injured even walking with your wife having fell in a hole. UFC works in the divisional method. This method pushes the fighters away because you don’t know if you’re going to fight or not. You can sit for 6 months and wait, maybe yes, maybe not. I think that Grand-Prix is way more perspective, nice and predictable championship.
BD: Tell us about your own sport experience, titles.
MS: In 1976 I started to do classic wrestling. In 1977 I won a silver medal at the Chechen-Ingush ASSR championship in the weight class of 47 kg (104 pounds). I was doing wrestling until 1979. I didn’t have official titles. I was training with world champions. In 1979-1980 there was a karate fashion in Grozny. I wanted to get to the karate school really bad and I made it. During their training sessions I was staying at the window watching, then I would come home and was trying the moves I just saw in my room.
After school I entered the North Ossetian State Medical Institute. One of my course mates, older than me, he was teaching a Korean style. I was training with him for about 5 months. Then legendary Lazarev from Leningrad visited us. People who are aged, who are under 60 now should remember him. He had the second dan rank. I was the only Nakh that was training with him. I was doing great, I got in the top-10. After that there was a kung-fu fashion. I learned it great too. Starting from the style of Wing-Chun, then I moved to Jeet Kune Do – Bruce Lee style. I had been doing kung-fu for 3 or 4 years. During the year was holding a school in the village. Then I got a black belt in karate – not so much for sport achievements as for taking an active part in the development of Kyokushin.
During the battle action in the Republic I was able to keep my physical condition. I couldn’t do it professionally: some people were at war, some people passed away, some people were saving their family and themselves. Now there are great circumstances were made for training in the republic. Just look at Coliseum
About a year ago I started to like BJJ. I realized that those submission locks were made for me. I was especially good at arm submissions. Something I think up myself. It’s the kind of sports where you should think, and I love to think. I’m a lone wolf actually. I spend a lot of time alone thinking. When I get tired of thinking I start painting. I’d been painting projects of houses for almost 10 years. My own house I build with my own project.
BJJ for me is the style that allows you to think. And you have to think really quickly, like at a blitz-tournament in chess. By the way I used to love playing chess and always played with my father. At first he would win over me 10:0, then 10:1, then 10:2 and more and more. But I still haven’t won the whole cycle.
In January 2014 after four months of training we decided to try to compete in Portugal. But they didn’t let me go at the border of Belgium. We came back to Moscow. I left BJJ for two-three months then came back. In 2015 I decided to compete. My performance I view as a good one. I could have won at the final if I wasn’t badly sick. As a doctor, as a Doctor of Science I can tell that I had little time to recover. I’d been in bed for 7 days with a high temperature with a lung fever. Then I got better and in 5 days we took off. And can you imagine: we took off from Moscow in January 15, spent 7 days on the road, we got stopped at the border again, and we had just one training session in the hotel’s hall. Physically at the beginning of the first round I felt good. I felt that my skills are great. After the 2nd minute it started to get dark in my eyes and I got exhausted. But the guy and I agreed about a rematch.
In May I will go to a tournament in Monaco. I feel that I can get a black belt. I will try to perform among the black belts in the under 35 years old. Why not? There is one African-American performing among the youth of the heavyweight division. He’s 55 years old. He lost at the final against a 25 years old guy only 9:0. That’s a good result. You should set the bar high in front of you.
BD: There are 3 tournaments are planned for this year. One of them is a world championship. How do you plane to hold it?
MS: We want that there were at least a few top-10 world class fighters in each weight class – blue, black, purple, brown, white belts. Let’s say there will be four of the best in the world rank among blue belts, among purple ones, brown ones, black ones, – the same amount, the rating will be the highest. We have all abilities for it.
BD: What do you think of women fights? Zaira Dyshekova fights in Berkut.
MS: I feel that Zaira has a potential to become at least a number two in the world. What happened in Poland is just a lack of experience. She jumped at Badura – did something that she should not have done. She could easily defeat her in stance. Badura got signed to UFC. But I’m 100% sure that even now Zaira will beat her. Now she has 1:1 in her record. In the nearest time we will hold two-three fights with strong fighters and then we will try to get her signed to UFC or if Badura will be a free fighter we will call her out for a rematch.
Actually deep inside I’m against women’s MMA. But I see a person that comes to the gym first both among men and girls and she leaves the gym last. She’s just so into MMA and wants to become a champion. She’s a worthy, serious person. Here in Russian, in the Caucasus in Karachay-Cherkessia we have someone who can get a UFC title. This is a history right here. Would we help her? Yes.
Of course, woman’s place in family. But Zaira is young and she’s only 18 years old. She still has plenty of time. In a few years she will find her significant other and will make someone happy. So I see this case as a perspective one.
About the author:
Boris Dealon is the founder of the popular Russian language Internet MMA portal MMAboxing.ru, a journalist, tournament organizer, and plans soon to extend his talents into fighter management.
