In America, there is no krysha

The American Kickboxing Academy sits in San Jose, California, an hour south of my home in San Francisco. Khabib Nurmagomedov’s team has trained there for years. San Jose is also home to the largest Georgian community in the Bay Area. Remember that geography. It matters more than the Nurmagomedovs seem to think. If this feud has a next round, it is likelier to be fought here than in the United Arab Emirates.On Wednesday, in a hotel lobby in Abu Dhabi, Merab Dvalishvili, the Georgian former UFC bantamweight champion, was giving an interview ahead of a Real American Freestyle wrestling event. Usman Nurmagomedov, Khabib’s cousin and a free agent widely expected to sign with the UFC, came up from behind with a group of men. Video shows Usman slapping him. In the brawl that followed, Merab was left bloodied, and his friend, the 21-year-old Georgian wrestler Saba Lazishvili, was hurt.Merab says the men “came like snakes from behind,” that security held him while he was hit, and that the group kept kicking them once they were down. He says Usman’s older brother Umar, whom Merab beat in a UFC title fight in January 2025, was there too. By Friday, the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court had convicted 10 people without naming them. Eight got six months in prison, a fine of about $82,000, and deportation, two of them for filming the brawl. TASS and other outlets reported that Usman is among them. The other two were fined about $14,000 each — according to reports, they were Merab and Saba, who walked out on Friday. By Merab’s count, about 20 men came for two. The Russian sports site Metaratings named UFC flyweight Tagir Ulanbekov, Khabib’s teammate, among the men on Usman’s side. It also reported that Lazishvili, the brother of former UFC fighter Zviad Lazishvili, knocked two of Usman’s companions down. The 21-year-old did not run.Look at the setting before you look at the slap. A group walked up to a man in the middle of an on-camera interview, the one moment of his day guaranteed to be recorded. In the clips I have watched, phones are already up on their side before the first blow. In my old profession, we would have called that a plan, not a temper.In Russian, Metaratings headlined it as “harsh revenge for the scandal in Tbilisi.” Islam Makhachev, Khabib’s closest protege, said Usman had only wanted to talk. In English, it is an ambush. In Russian, it is payback. Same video. Two languages. The gap is the product.In July, at a Real American Freestyle event in Tbilisi, Georgia, Dagestani wrestler Akhmed Gadzhimagomedov confronted Merab over a remark Merab had made about Umar. Merab says he was resting when “somebody came and grabbed my neck” and that he answered with a slap.Arman Tsarukyan, who was there, called it a sucker punch and said it was wrong. Fair enough. He also said the two men were then put in a room, talked it out one-on-one, and shook hands. Eyewitnesses quoted by the news site Sova confirmed the handshake.Umar answered with a lesson. In the Caucasus, he wrote, a man is measured by dignity, honor, and hospitality, and his true character shows when there is no crowd around him. In November, Umar’s brother brought the crowd.That is Tbilisi. Georgians are proud of their hospitality. It was tested, and it held.Tbilisi ended with a handshake. Abu Dhabi began with a camera.Why does a feud between two bantamweights keep pulling in men who never fought either of them? Usman’s defenders say Tbilisi. I say Tbilisi is the excuse. The reason is a flag. Merab says out loud that Russia occupies about 20% of Georgia. He objected when Makhachev’s team carried the Russian flag into the cage, because he was never allowed to bring his Georgian or American flag. “I hate Russian politics and the Russian government,” he said in August. “I don’t hate Russian people.” In certain gyms, that sentence is the real offense.Khabib’s world sits much closer to the Kremlin. Russian President Vladimir Putin has met him several times, and UFC President Dana White has said Putin gave him property worth about $20 million. In 2021, Khabib planned a visit to occupied Abkhazia. It was called off — the de facto authorities blamed pressure from Washington and Tbilisi.Georgia is run by Bidzina Ivanishvili, the oligarch who made his fortune in Russia. The Biden State Department sanctioned him in December 2024 for undermining Georgian democracy for the “benefit of the Russian Federation.” At Euro 2024, his prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, and Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze were photographed with Khabib and Ivanishvili’s son, Tsotne. In September 2025, Kaladze welcomed Khamzat Chimaev, the Chechen fighter who calls Ramzan Kadyrov his big brother, to Tbilisi as “my brother.” On the same trip, Chimaev received a Ferrari worth about $300,000, and the post announcing the gift named Kaladze among others. Kaladze says the car came from a Tbilisi dealer, not from him. Friendship, he has said, does not depend on politics.Kadyrov’s world does not only visit as athletes. In June 2023, a convoy of Mercedes cars with Russian plates crossed Georgia to Batumi — Georgian media tied one car to a reported member of Kadyrov’s inner circle. Gia Volski, Georgian Dream’s deputy speaker of Parliament, said security was “in no way under threat” and control was “quite intensive.” It was: The patrol police kept writing the convoy traffic tickets. Five days later, Kobakhidze, then the party’s chairman, said it had been “confirmed” that the Kadyrovites’ presence “was a lie.”After the attack, Kaladze called it “a completely unacceptable and shameful act.” Tsotne Ivanishvili wrote that it does not befit a Caucasian man. Good. When Georgia’s ruling circle, of all people, calls it shameful, the “revenge” excuse has no friends left in Tbilisi. And if their friendships in that world truly do not depend on politics, they will survive one honest phone call.Fine words. In December 2024, the Biden administration and Britain sanctioned Georgia’s interior minister over the violent crackdown on protesters and journalists. Georgia’s own public defender reported that some of that abuse could be equated to torture, and that minors were among the victims. Beating people who cannot fight back is nothing new for this government. Calling it shameful is.A word to my fellow Georgians, too. In 1992 and 1993, volunteers from the North Caucasus fought against Georgia in Abkhazia. Moscow has always profited when Caucasians bleed each other. This is one family and its entourage, not a people. Do not turn it into Georgians against Dagestanis.And a word to Khabib, who preaches respect. San Jose is not Makhachkala. In America, there is no krysha, the Russian “roof” that makes problems disappear. There are police reports, civil courts, and promoters with conduct clauses. Georgians here work, raise children, and train a few miles from your gym. When a family this famous condemns an ambush quickly, it stays a feud between fighters. When it calls the ambush “revenge,” it invites the next round. Nobody here wants that, you least of all.Usman’s manager, Ali Abdelaziz, said he was “truly sorry” and promised “the people of Abu Dhabi” it “will never happen again.” About the fight itself, he said, “I think both parties were wrong.” So the request is modest. Condemn it publicly. Apologize publicly to Merab. If that does not happen, I will write to White, and mine will not be the only letter. That is the minimum.I spent 12 years in Georgia’s security and police services. I learned one rule about public humiliation in the Caucasus: When it goes unpunished, it does not end. It escalates. July was a slap. November was a group beating with the cameras rolling. On Friday, Gadzhimagomedov gave his version of Tbilisi: Merab, he says, hit him and insulted his mother. Then he wrote, “My brothers got ahead of me and did what any man would do in response to an insult to the family,” and, “This is a conflict between us, and we will resolve it sooner or later.” I have seen where that road leads.THE WEST STOPPED FINDING BOMBS. THAT’S WHEN THE CONQUEST BEGANEveryone is asking what Khabib will say. Wrong address. Reporter Ariel Helwani put the real question plainly: Will the UFC still sign Usman Nurmagomedov? Real American Freestyle barred him from Saturday’s event within a day. White has since called the attack “absolutely ridiculous and stupid,” and talks to sign Usman are on hold until he serves his sentence, Uncrowned reported. On hold is not an answer.In Makhachkala, his defenders will call it revenge. In Las Vegas, they will call it a signing. In six months, we will learn which language White speaks.Emzari Gelashvili is a San Francisco-based geopolitical analyst and columnist who monitors Russian-language media. From 1996 to 2008, he held senior positions in Georgia’s Ministry of State Security, Ministry of Defense, and Ministry of Internal Affairs, with a counterintelligence career focused on Russian and Iranian intelligence operations, and he was a member of the Georgian Parliament from 2008 to 2012. His work appears in Newsweek, the Hill, the Washington Examiner, RealClearDefense, RealClearWorld, RealClearEducation, and RealClearPolicy, and at emzargelashvili.substack.com.