Rasul Mirzaev
The heated feud between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov almost cost Russian fighter Rasul Mirzaev his life on New Year’s eve, 2017.
Just a few night’s earlier Mirzaev had been on a night out with McGregor’s teammate Artem Lobov, who had been in Moscow to attend the Fight Nights 57 tournament as a guest of fellow UFC fighter Ali Bagautinov.
While at the ‘Garage’ club there, Lobov had been approached by a group of Dhaghestani natives who complained to him about the fact that McGregor appeared to be avoiding a fight with Nurmagomedov at the time.
The argument died down, but later that night Mirzaev was allegedly punched in the back of the head by one of the other group while going to the bathroom, leading to a fight breaking out between them until security intervened.
However, that was not to be the end of the incident for Mirzaev, as on December 31st three assailants broke into his apartment looking for revenge armed with a high-powered BB gun, baseball bat and chains.
Mirzaev was shot at 14 times, though only 4 bullets struck him, including one to the face, while he was also beaten with the bat and strangled with the chain during the attack, before the thugs stole money and jewelry and left.
Mirzaev was taken to hospital where he underwent surgery to remove the bullets. He was later able to identify one of the attackers from pictures shown to him by police.
