FF-FilesThe FF-Files: I Fought the Law
—The Bobby Fuller Four, “I Fought the Law”
Occasionally, the FF-Files cup runneth over with ideas and topics to address. Whether the latest batch of zany words that people shout at us or baffling questions we receive, a slew of show-and-tell videos from leagues that don’t cut the mustard or some regulatory issue we wish to drill into, it’s all up for grabs. While a subject might take a little coaxing or punching up to get to the finish line, on the rare occasion, a story writes itself. Such is the instance here, with a piece that went from zero to 60 in precisely one hour and 12 minutes.
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For a bit of background on this particular scenario, and to sum up that 13-slide novella, a few bad actors started putting on events that raised eyebrows for the Fight Finder team. As is the case for someone pulling at a sweater’s thread, it unraveled into something much more curious. One corrupt organizer became two, and they started working with one another, only to branch off and drag other leagues down with them. The timeline is a bit murky as to who broke bad first, but suffice it to say, there may be more suspicious-to-outright-corrupt leagues operating in the country than legitimate ones.
We took notice when a fighter, , tried to improve his record and pull off some losses, using some of the old tricks out of the Askar Mozharov playbook. He just so happened to compete for the three leagues under the immediate investigation: Yusif FC, World Jaguar Federation and Ased Fighting Championship. What were the odds? His name kept changing, sometimes for minor transliterations like Huseinov, but other times his entire surname transformed to Husenzade or Huseynli. We do know there is another fighter from Azerbaijan with a frustratingly similar name, but he competes at middleweight while our problem child did not seem to exceed 160 pounds, and he got out in 2018 before things spiraled out of control. It didn’t get better the deeper we dug.
It all came to a head when Anar threw some wins at us that did not look right. All three were first-round knockouts, two at exactly 80 seconds in while a third was a 20-second demolition. He demanded we add three missing wins for the World Caucasian Battle Championship. When we suddenly receive information on an organization we did not have in our records or had next-to-no details about, we look into it first. The first was for WCBC 1, co-promoted with the Budo Fight Series. That second name rang a bell, and it was a loud one
Hang on tight. It’s about to get “Pepe Sylvia” up in here. Yusif FC, WJF and Ased, all mentioned above, were busted for a few extremely unscrupulous acts promoters cannot and shall not do. Not only were they fixing fights in favor of local competitors or those they wanted to thrive, but they were outright selling slots on events, claiming that two fighters fought and sending grainy footage to try to squeeze it through processing. This is to say, there was no actual fight, but they would attach a nonexistent result to a document of dozens of bouts—WJF regularly held 40-fight shows, with a few extras trying to sneak in, while Yusif rarely exceeded 30. Towards the end, Yusif’s team got greedy, and our fraud detectors slashed a fight card in 2021 from 34 matches down to eight. The whole event and organization paid the price.
Who worked with Budo Fight(ing) Series, also known as the International Open Budo Martial Arts Championship? You guessed it. WJF and Yusif. Who else did WJF join forces with, on more than one occasion? The IFFC, also known as Iron Fist Fighting Championship, which in itself was part and parcel with the Olimpia Fighting League. Those two were also regular Budo compatriots, whether through co-promotion or through with the same individuals.
One main player was a fighter named Orkhan Valiyev, who had his own share of shadiness in his career starting with the WJF. Look at how many wins are on his profile from WJF—his organization—alone. Another was Yusif Aliyev, who came up from his self-titled Yusif FC promotion. When those organizations went defunct after Sherdog and Tapology had independently flagged them, new fight leagues cropped up using the same fighters, buildings and individuals including and not limited to Valiyev and Aliyev. You can guess who contacted Sherdog directly, calling himself the president of the WCBC league with a shiny new email. What you may not expect who was publicly listed as matchmaker for WCBC. It was Huseynov, the very fighter who tried to get three wins from that league plugged into his record.
When called on their obvious antics, the one or two individuals contacting on behalf of WCBC plus Valiyev went silent. What rose from those ashes was a suspiciously similar league that called itself the Azerbaijan Fighting League. As if they were trying to pass the baton, the AFL admitted what was printed publicly on its YouTube channel, that Aliyev was its leader and founder. AFL was cooked. Shortly thereafter, another new organization called Warriors Azerbaijan Championship appeared suddenly, with identical posts from the WCBC, only with a new name of Farid Hasanov in command. How questionable was this guy? He introduced himself as Farid, Farit and Ferid in the same email. WAC too crashed and burned; upon confrontation, the reply was, “Thank you for informing me.”
They weren’t done, but now a new name had been implicated. The emails were the same, in fact so similar that they were almost certainly copy/pasted from league to league as they got busted. The playbook was the same. Deny until they disappear, and come up with someone new. This time it was Hasanov feigning ignorance, until he asked us to make him a new profile by saying his name was Farid Ahmadli, with a link to his renamed Instagram page which we had already reviewed in the past. Also, we knew what he looked like, so even though he tried to post an old photo and say he was younger, come on. We do have eyeballs at Sherdog Fight Finder.
In its feeble death rattle, the WAC gurgled, “This isn’t even my final form,” producing one more pearl and leading us to today. The Gladiator Fighting Championship, replete with identical formatting on the new social media profile—they spelled the word “matchmaker” wrong the same way every single iteration—and include the regular crop of names. The fall guy now was a referee, a name we had seen before on past sheets: Elvin Rahimov, coach of the Zabit Samedov Fight Club, which had supplied fighters to those defunct organizations. Was it a game to them?
This new representative reached out with the same claims as before, a new company wanting to operate out of Azerbaijan and so on. We shut them down as fast as the others, even informing them of their obvious and public connections to all of the banned organizations that, again, provided fixed and imaginary fights to Sherdog. This time, they had some teeth. Denial was the first part of the message, followed by an admission that they associate with those people we have flagged, and ending with a forceful request that we produce evidence proving this organization—which has yet to run a single match—is up to no good.
It took exactly three responses from the GFC before the threat came. “Groundless accusations” and “defamatory statements” would lead to “legal consequences;” they had thrown down the gauntlet. Rather than disappear, they wanted to fight. When these exceedingly rare instances come our way, we prefer a succinct approach, one not lost in translation: “We’ll see you in court.”
Most of the time, when we drop that line, the growling bear becomes a scared cub, and for good reason. They don’t have a leg to stand on, while we have a clear and obvious path to connect point A to point F (for foolish). How quickly they changed their tune from fierce to considerate, replying that, “our intention was never to issue a threat” and that “we would prefer to resolve [our misunderstandings] through respectful, open communication.” The problem is, you can’t put that card back in the deck. Don’t start nothin’, won’t be nothin’.
Pictured: Trying to close the barn door after the horse has
already escaped, burned down your entire farm and crapped all over
the ashes.
The tone of these messages kept loosening, until a new name picked up for Elvin, calling himself Natiq Abdullayev, who promptly tried to deescalate the situation. They tried to keep clarifying message after message, saying they wished to protect the integrity and reputation of their new organization they just thought of a few weeks ago. The GFC team did not think it through, throwing around terms they did not understand. Panic set in, as we told them we were not going to respond any further, to the point that one frantic subject line with bookending police siren emojis read, “Please Read Carefully: Clarification Regarding Misunderstanding.” Dude, you were the ones who said you wanted to sue us for defamation based on a private email response linking you to the people that you publicly linked yourself to on your pages.
In case anyone gets the wrong impression, Sherdog Fight Finder doesn’t sue anyone. This branch of Sherdog is a neutral record-keeping body that tracks MMA results and posts them publicly for free. We work for the good of the sport, period. We reserve the right to reject bogus results and flag individuals for fraud or other illicit acts, and do so only when it is our last resort. If it goes beyond that level, the FF-Files series shifts into gear. These organizations reached their limit years ago; they are long out of benefits of the doubt and tarnish their own names by their actions. No amount of Instagram deletions, fancy new AI logos or new individuals to swap in will ignore what we at Sherdog Fight Finder have personally witnessed—and oftentimes, screenshotted. If you try to start problems with us, remember that every dog has fangs.
If you want a TLDR acronym chain, it reads like: WJF & Yusif > Budo & IFFC > WCBC > AFL > WAC > GFC. If not, send your Fight Finder-related emails to fightfinder@sherdog.com.
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