Karim Zidan delves into the troubling trend of athlete deaths in Dagestan, as well as the various unsavory reasons behind their tragic demise.
When a hooded Shahbulat Shamhalaev entered Port-Petrovsk, a fashionable restaurant in Makhachkala, armed with a hunting rifle and a pistol, he sparked a series of events that shed light on the troubling underbelly of combat sports in Dagestan.
Shamhalaev, a renowned MMA fighter in the region, stormed the restaurant in search of a particular target but was instead ambushed by two hidden assailants. The near-fatal fallout was due to an altercation that occurred the previous day - one of the assailants, a bodyguard for an infamous Dagestani politician, allegedly held a gun to Shamhalaev's head following a verbal confrontation.