On May 21, 2017, scores of Chechen citizens gathered in Grozny before marching towards the Colosseum, carrying flags emblazoned with a picture of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s late father, Akhmat Kadyrov. Thousands of men flooded into the arena, where the latest World Fighting Championships of Akhmat (WFCA) event was scheduled to begin. Ranging from pre-teen boys to old men, the crowd took their seats, prepared for the violence ahead. Women, dominated by patriarchal traditions, were not present within the building. Fighting, as well as its spectacle, was reserved for men.
While the sounds within the arena ranged from incoherent shouts to musicians waxing poetic while strumming the phandar, a three-string instrument native to the region, once the welterweight title fight was announced as the upcoming bout, the crowd settled down and began to chant a single word in unison: “Beslan!