UFC’s first Afghan fighter Siyar Bahadurzada on his path from wartime to coaching in coronavirus
- Shooto world champion Siyar Bahadurzada has to coach via video calls at Singapore’s Evolve MMA
- With UFC fighting career seemingly over, pioneer hopes to give back to Afghanistan as country hit by pandemic and famine
Growing up in a war-torn country, Afghan fighter Siyar Bahadurzada was deprived of a normal upbringing.
“The experiences I had to go through at a very young age in life cooked me as a child into a man at a very young age,” he tells the Post. “I knew what I wanted and I worked very hard to get where I am now.”
The Kabul-born former UFC star (24-8-1) recounts “walking over dead bodies to make it home” as a child amid the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s. But he would go on to become one of Afghanistan’s first world champions.
At 15, Bahadurzada moved to the Netherlands. There the young refugee honed his raw tenacity and striking abilities with Martijn de Jong, one of the country’s most respected combat sports coaches. He became a world champion in Shooto – Japan’s adaptation of shoot-wrestling – before transitioning into MMA and working through Japanese promotions such as Rings and World Victory Road.
Nicknamed “The Great”, Bahadurzada signed for the UFC in 2011, winning KO of The Night against Paulo Thiago on his debut and marking several milestones for his homeland.