Aliev Won the Belt in Istanbul, Then Had to Fight His Way Out of the Arena

Mourad Aliev did the hard part beautifully on Saturday night in Istanbul. The 6-foot-7 French southpaw walked into Ülker Sports Arena, stood behind his jab in front of a hostile crowd, won the first four rounds on all three judges' cards and outpointed Umut Camkiran over 12 rounds to take the vacant WBC Silver heavyweight title, according to World Boxing News. Camkiran came in 25-0 with 23 knockouts, the kind of record that fills arenas at home. He left 25-1, beaten for the first time, and Aliev improved to 16-1 with 11 knockouts.

Then came the part nobody will remember the scorecards for. After the decision was announced, Aliev made a gesture toward the crowd that the arena read as obscene and insulting. Camkiran confronted him. Footage from the arena shows a bottle thrown at Aliev, fans breaking through barriers and storming the ring, and metal chairs flying as fighters, seconds, security and spectators tangled in the middle of the canvas. Zamin reported that the international broadcast was cut while police and security forced a path out of the building for the visiting champion.

Aliev later said the gesture was a protest — aimed, he claimed, at the low blows and punches to the back of the head he believed he had taken during the fight, per EssentiallySports. Nobody in the building read it that way in the moment, and the two verdicts that mattered arrived quickly. Promoter Ahmet Öner split his statement down the middle: “First, I want to make one thing clear: Mourad Aliev deserved his victory,” he said. “However, his gesture toward the audience after the fight was unnecessary and provocative. It should not have happened.” Öner added that he and Birol Topuz did everything possible to get Aliev out of a dangerous situation, and he apologized to the WBC officials caught up in it.

WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman did not split anything. “The WBC rejects the barbaric violence from fans who attacked [a] visiting boxer in Turkey,” Sulaiman said in a statement the WBC reposted. “It was a fantastic promotion ruined by wild hooligans who must be investigated and punished to the full extent of the law.” Zamin reported that a WBC disciplinary investigation into the night is expected. As of Tuesday, World Boxing News reported there was still no confirmed update on whether Aliev was injured in the attack, or whether arrests or disciplinary proceedings have followed.

If the name and the chaos feel familiar together, they should. Aliev represented France at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and was disqualified in his quarterfinal against Britain's Frazer Clarke for headbutting — then staged a sit-in protest on the ring apron for about an hour. The Court of Arbitration for Sport later rejected his appeal while acknowledging the referee may have made an error. Five years on, Aliev has a professional belt, the best win of his career, and a second ring he had to be rescued from. The boxing was the easy part both times.

Video: the Istanbul brawl footage, via Zamin.

The APEX undercard names its next fights

The rest of the fight weekend's unfinished business sat in Las Vegas, where the winners from Saturday's UFC Fight Night 293 prelims at the Meta APEX used their post-fight media time the way veterans do — to do the matchmakers' job out loud. Karine Silva (20-7 MMA, 6-3 UFC) outworked fellow Brazilian Gabriella Fernandes for a unanimous decision that snapped a two-fight skid, and she was still emotional about it afterward. “I sacrificed a lot to be here tonight,” Silva told reporters, via MMA Junkie. “I have two names. I want a rematch against Jasmine and against Maycee Barber in the future. I know it won't be the next fight, most likely, but I'm working hard on everything I can to come back in the best possible shape and continue climbing the rankings, and consequently face them both again and change the outcome of the fight.”

Austin Bashi (15-2 MMA, 2-2 UFC) had the shortest night and the clearest ask. His original opponent, Lucas Brennan, fell out, Carlos Calderon stepped in on four days' notice, and Bashi finished him with a rear-naked choke in 67 seconds — then called out Tommy McMillen, per MMA Junkie. Seokhyeon Ko (14-3 MMA, 3-1 UFC) ground out a unanimous decision over Wellington Turman, who was returning from a layoff of more than 1,000 days, and asked for welterweight gatekeeper Neil Magny next. And Andre Petroski (14-6 MMA, 9-5 UFC) stopped Mantas Kondratavicius by TKO at 4:39 of the second round — snapping a three-fight skid with his first finish in more than four years — then floated a side hustle in Real American Freestyle wrestling, the same promotion whose Abu Dhabi card took over Monday's roundup. Ollie Schmid closed the prelims with a decision over Keiichiro Nakamura in a fight he described through a Dan Hooker mentality: tough, and willing to scratch.

Saturday's other boxing scorecards

The weekend's boxing undercards produced three more results worth filing. In Manchester, Jack Rafferty won the vacant IBO welterweight title with a unanimous decision over Hovhannes Martirosyan at AO Arena — scorecards of 114-113, 116-111 and 116-111 moved him to 28-0-1, per The Oldham Times. In Arlington, Texas, Ramla Ali took the vacant IBF and WBO junior featherweight titles on a split decision over Mikiah Kreps that nobody in the building scored the same way twice: two judges had it for Ali, 97-92 and 96-93, while the third gave it to Kreps 98-91. The Guardian's figures, via FightBook MMA, had Kreps outlanding Ali 115 punches to 78, and promoter Lou DiBella publicly called for the verdict to be investigated. The result stands; the argument will travel.

And in London, Cheavon Clarke knocked out former world champion Chris Billam-Smith in the seventh round at the Copper Box Arena — the biggest win of Clarke's career, against a man who had never been dropped, let alone stopped, before Clarke put him down twice on the way to the finish, per Sky Sports. Add it up and Saturday's boxing, from Istanbul to London to Arlington, produced a riot, a robbery argument and a career-maker. Tuesday was just the day the bills came due.