In a parallel universe, Movsar Evloev might be held in similar esteem as the Shavkat Rakhmonovs and Ian Machado Garrys of the world, yet that kind of love appears to be just as elusive as his chin. As it stands, he’s the meanest pariah in the fight game. A dominant yawn that can’t be held back. Even after he beat longtime featherweight contender Arnold Allen for his eighth straight UFC victory back in January, UFC CEO Dana White talked about him like he was the human equivalent of ennui.
“The least fun fight anybody has ever seen,” White said of the performance at UFC 297.
Which, of course, was a little unfair. Evloev didn’t turn in a dud that night in Toronto. He turned in a deftly skilled masterclass in outmatching Allen, in a performance that might’ve been good enough to earn a title shot. But a reputation as a “boring” fighter has a way of obscuring objectivity, so instead it landed him a fight against former bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling a full 11 months after the fact.
Banished, as it were, to the dark side of the prelims on a big pay-per-view, in a fight that could easily be considered a title eliminator.
“And I’m OK with this,” Evloev says when asked. “No, it’s OK, no problem. Yeah, but people will understand after the fight.”
You get the sense that Evloev carries a subtle chip on his shoulder. He is 18-0 as a pro and has been a juggernaut in the featherweight ranks since debuting in the UFC five and a half years ago. Yet it can be said that he’s a rare occurrence, too, as he’s averaged only a single fight a year since 2021. At the rate he is fighting right now, we wouldn’t likely see him again, win or lose, until UFC 323 late next year. Why has that been the case?
“Because nobody wants to fight,” he says quite frankly. “I was supposed to fight Aljamain in August. Then he said September, then October. Then he pull out and now it’s December. It was like trying to get other opponent, but UFC don’t let him go.”
Then, of course, there’s the mandatory need of cageside judges whenever Evloev does fight. In each of his eight UFC bouts, all eight have gone to the scorecards. The opponent hasn’t seemed to matter. Choi Seung-woo fared about the same as Arnold Allen. It doesn’t help that most of his fights feel determined halfway through the first round, as Evloev generally establishes a pattern of dominance that renders his foes hopeless. He is a full custody fighter, so good that he removes the danger from the threat in front of him, yet not good enough to put them away.
As it stands, Evloev is the meanest pariah in the fight game. A dominant yawn that can’t be held back.
Or at least that’s what the consensus seems to be.
Yet this isn’t just some run-of-the-mill Jon Fitch we’re dealing in. The 30-year-old Evloev is at the peak of his powers as he heads into his fight with Sterling, and — realistically — plays a vital role to featherweight division intrigue. With UFC champion Ilia Topuria having already taken out the legends of the division in Max Holloway and Alexander Volkanovski, who presents the biggest threat to Topuria? Diego Lopes? Evloev beat Lopes back at UFC 288 in Newark, a cold production that at the time highlighted the fighting spirit of Lopes as he was swallowed up in the Movsar vortex.
No, the biggest threat to Topuria, as it stands right now, is probably Evloev. A machine that saps the will from opponents in real time and has no real want (or ability) to emote. An Evloev title shot? The thought perhaps makes the UFC shudder, even if we’re getting to the point where it might be inevitable.
“I am used to finding an issue or a problem within myself, so maybe it’s me who has to do more, me who has to show more in order for them to talk about me,” he says. “But to sit here and wait for somebody to notice me or for somebody to help me, that’s not what I’m used to doing. I’m used to going forward and taking what’s mine.”
What do we really know of this quiet, will-snatching force from the Russian hinterland? He can wrestle, boy. He can plant bodies in the soft earth. The deadpan deliveries whenever a microphone is placed in front of him are chilling, and the solid sweep of bangs look more and more like the summer tundra. We know he comes from Sunzha, where the ragged Ingush highlanders settled a couple hundred years back, but what we can’t understand is why hailing from the former Ordzhonikidzevskaya feels so intimidating. For whatever reason, that many Zs and Vs translates roughly to “this man’s a freaking problem” in English fight game vernacular.
But really, why isn’t Evloev getting the love he deserves? And the respect? He more than doubled Lopes in the striking department and took Allen down five times. His scrambles are pure cinema. He treated poor Mike Gundy as a tackling dummy for 15 vertigo-inducing minutes, while taking down Dan Ige and Hakeem Dawadu down a combined 18 times. His fights become someone else’s fight against futility. What’s wrong with that?
If it was Khabib Nurmagomedov, his praises would be sung in every promo. Yet for Evloev? Somehow his style is lost in translation. Which brings up the burning question: What is it, in his mind, that makes an exciting fight?
“I think it’s the skills that make the sport because, for me, somebody who’s a lifelong martial artist, I’ve been learning about this,” he says. “I keep improving myself. I know what needs to be done to go to the next move or go get out from one move or implement something that I want to implement. For me, it’s more interesting to see the sport that I understand or that I know a lot about.”
He says art, especially high-minded art, really is in the eye of the beholder.
“For instance, if it’s some fan that just shows up out of nowhere and says, ‘OK, I’m going to root for MMA, but I know nothing about it,’ it’s just like me coming in and trying to root for baseball. If I see a baseball game, I have no idea what’s going on, so I would be just a fake fan. It’s the same thing here. It’s more interesting when you see a sport that you know, that you understand, because it becomes more fun that way.”
