The FF-Files: Pieces of Eight

“Pieces of eight, the search for the money tree. Don’t cash your freedoms in for gold. Pieces of eight, treasures filled with emptiness. Don’t let it turn your heart to stone.”
—Styx, “Pieces of Eight”

It is a sad day in Fight Finder history that will play out in an article we do not pen lightly. As submitters provide information to the Sherdog Fight Finder staff, we keep track of the details. If the source and results are legitimate, we have no problem. If someone tries to pull funny business, we mark it down. For the latter, submitters are largely given several chances to rectify their errors, apologize for them, or come clean on malfeasance. Accidents do happen.

On occasion, individuals double down or worse on specific fighters, where it becomes telling that this unscrupulous manager, teammate, or the fighter themself is trying to gain an ill-gotten advantage over the field. Some send in fake wins, others try to modify losses to shelve them on other profiles, and the rare few even submit entirely falsified events. If we notice a pattern or determine the goal is to advance one specific competitor, we may make a private note that someone is attempting to manipulate their record. Get enough of these, and we have a problem.

At long last, we at Sherdog have been forced to publicly mark the profiles of eight combatants based on fraudulent misrepresentation or something worse. This does not include those that receive actual individual FF-Files pieces chronicling their handiwork, like the troubled Askar Mozharov or the multiple identity-bearing Bektursun Kaiypnazar–more on those gentlemen later, as their stories did not conclude at the publication of their respective exposés. While we generally like to avoid identifying athletes who have not gone beyond the pale, these eight men have all gotten involved in shady situations or perpetuated information that forced our hands. Behold the Sherdog Fight Finder Top 8.

Name: Abdel Fatah Toha
Age: 28
Location: Egypt by way of Russia
Offenses: Submitting numerous fake fights

For this presentation, we list the offenders alphabetically by first name so as not to favor one over the other in a particular metric like the number of offenses. We thought it best to present their cases accordingly and let the audience rip into these eight fighters—and as it turns out, another active combatant is strikingly close to joining this illustrious group of fraudsters. We will bring him up on his next offense. First, we check out .500 Egyptian bantamweight Abdel Fatah Toha, who might merit a standalone article.

This fighter, originally based outside of Cairo, is no longer engaged in active competition at the ripe age of 28. Toha ran with the Evolution Championship circuit for several years until he shifted gears to a more forgiving area in terms of record: Russia. That did not do him any favors, as he followed his EVO tenure by losing four of five, with all of his defeats first-round finishes. Why did he reach this fabled list? Toha and his team attempted to push many unearned wins on his ledger at EVO without realizing that we had direct contact with EVO, who informed us of his false matches and straightened things out quickly.

His team then claimed to Sherdog that a former manager tried to frame him, but that defense fell apart immediately upon scrutiny. How did Toha respond to getting flagged by this recordkeeping database? He opened his own promotion, Monster FC, and proceeded to put himself on the first card to earn himself a “win.” Many of his events have been marked as having questionable results and manipulated details, which is why there are only 12 registered on Fight Finder, as it integrated itself into co-promoted cards in Russia with bad photographic evidence and even worse video.

Name: Belek Aliev
Age: 25 or 26
Location: Kyrgyzstan
Offenses: Submitting numerous fake fights

Of all the problem children we have encountered over the last few years, Belek Aliev may have been the one that received the most chances. Perhaps because of an abundance of kindness or benefits of doubt, Aliev should have been marked far sooner. Even now, the record of this Kyrgyzstan native differs depending on the database. This bright star suffered his first loss at Mongol FC 2 in 2019, taking a fight in hopes that it would not reach his permanent record in the event of a defeat. Aliev went so far as to provide a poorly photoshopped poster with a different man named “Ali Belekov.”

Shortly after that, we received not one but two letters on behalf of Aliev, with the author claiming to be a representative of the Mongol FC organization. They claimed both times that Ali Belekov competed instead of Belek Aliev—a simple mistake in theory—and you can see the “stamped” documents they provided in the past FF-Files piece titled “At Least You Tried.” Laughable, right? If that were the end of his tale, we’d riff on him internally and move on. It wasn’t.

As recently as October 2023, submitters have attempted to write in on Aliev’s behalf to get his record updated. They say things like, “Who are you to eliminate the victory of a man who has won other fighters” or “Who even allowed you to touch Sherdog the Man who earns his victories with blood?” We kept receiving false fights involving this pain in the neck, including but not limited to Colosseum, WEF, Ased FC, Falco Fighting Championship and the International Federation of Full-Contact Fighting. Troublingly, all those organizations had events where Aliev was not the only benefactor of imaginary competitions, and some usual suspects like Richard Totrov and Konstantin Cherednichenko may not be far behind on this type of article. Aliev was flagged after the umpteenth fake, and his team is still trying: imagine a league called the Azerbaijan MMA Federation staging two events with the same five fighters both times, and each card had all five names prevailing over 0-0 Azerbaijan-based newcomers. What a laugh.

Name: Dmitry Zadorozhnyuk
Age: 26
Location: Russia
Offenses: Submitting numerous fake fights

It is quite a shame that someone so young burned his career so comprehensively. The 26-year-old Dmitry Zadorozhnyuk has only competed six times and has plenty of black marks on his page because of all his shenanigans. We say “him” and not someone representing him because the lion’s share of related communiques came directly from this fighter, and the 1-2 regional competitor did not claim to have management of any kind. It began with a falsified passport and ended with accusations of Sherdog being “involved in fake fights.”

The Russian from Rostov-on-Don named Zadorozhnyuk had someone with a random alphanumeric—read: untrustworthy and potentially dangerous—email address, claiming that we had the wrong guy. It was not him, but Damir Zadorozhnyi from Ukraine instead, and with it came the most comically poor photoshopped passport one could imagine—and it was a Russian passport at that. After we declined that garbage, he took matters upon himself and started saying he had some fake fights, that is, losses, registered on his page. One checked out because he competed in an organization called Harlem School, which ran mixed rules bouts that lasted one round of five minutes.

If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk to go with it. This happened with Zadorozhnyuk as he tried to capitalize on his success by inflating his record. He provided another missing fight from a Rostov-based show. Then he got cocky and thought anything would fly. A subsequent “missed bout” from a 2017 tournament, perhaps? How about an event in Omsk with all the fights registered but his? What about this match from a card where we don’t have its name? Here is a broken Instagram link to prove its existence. Also, will you add a fight I took two years before my listed pro debut, back when I was just 17, at an event that did not happen? Enough was enough, and we had to shut him down. He is currently 3-3, and the ACA Young Eagles promotion can use him at their peril.

Name: Dosbol Elegen
Age: 26
Location: Kazakhstan
Offenses: Submitting numerous fake fights

Of the four men highlighted in this piece—we initially intended for all eight to show up here, but they all have long stories to tell—Dosbol Elegen is the one who has plowed ahead in his career regardless of his profile’s listing. This Kazakhstani goof, the same age as Zadorozhnyuk, came out firing in his first contact with Sherdog Fight Finder in 2020. His manager first contacted Sherdog, repping a 4-2 competitor trying to build up his career improperly. Eventually, Elegen took the reins and boldly declared, “I started after an injury professional fight on August 2, 2019.” He meant that his first two fights, both losses, were amateur bouts and that he could prove this by sending in a doctor’s note claiming he had an injury that would not let him fight as a pro until August 2019.

Some might remember this also from the “At Least You Tried” piece in 2021, with the fake note that was not signed by any physician and said nothing of merit. We had seen the two fights, both losses to Satbek Esengelden, and there was no question that it was him against Esengelden each time. There was no dispute until he tried to claim one. What followed was a series of increasingly desperate requests, stating that these events were amateur, illegitimate or briefly that he was not the one who fought until he admitted actual defeat. Stuck with two losses on his ledger, he tried another tactic: drown them out by artificially pumping up his record. That always works.

A person who very questionably claimed to be the head of the Alash Pride organization—one that Elegen has competed in three times so far—pitched a missing fight with a tightly cropped newspaper clipping showing Elegen’s success in a tournament. The problem was that the “promoter” said this fight took place in Kostenay, Kazakhstan, and provided a sloppy poster of the “event, but the newspaper wrote he won in Uralsk, Kazakhstan. A quick Google Maps search shows that the two cities are about 1,250 kilometers (775 miles) apart and are not locales confused with one another. It was an old fight. There was also the small matter of two different bogus events turned in, both tournaments that he just so happened to win despite basically zero evidence to support their existence. How many strikes is that?

The second half of this Top 8 extravaganza will come soon, so be ready for the list’s glorious completion. Until then, did we miss someone who deserves to get blackballed by the MMA community? Feel free to send incriminating evidence, as well as all Fight-Finder-related requests and any additional fight documentation, to [email protected].