Namo Fazil Claims 15 Chechens Attacked Him Before DWCS Fight
Namo Fazil says he was attacked in his hotel room by 15 Chechen men while cutting weight for Dana White’s Contender Series, and that UFC middleweight Baisangur Susurkaev was among them. The Kurdish welterweight says that alleged hotel-room attack is why he was not himself in Tuesday’s main event, which ended in a third-round knockout loss to Kaik Brito.
Fazil (10-2) was chasing a UFC contract in the Season 10, Week 2 headliner at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas. Brito earned a UFC deal by stopping him with a punch 12 seconds into Round 3.
UFC CEO Dana White already knew fight week had gone sideways. After the show, White told reporters, “We had some sh*t go down this week too, so I know who he is,” then made a point of saying Fazil “definitely did not cause problems.”
Fazil has now given his account of what that trouble was.
“I want to talk to you about something. As you know, I fought yesterday.”
He said he wanted people to understand the performance they saw.
“I want to explain why I wasn’t able to put on a very good performance.”
He told viewers the man who showed up against Brito was not the fighter they know.
“If you noticed, I didn’t fight like the Namo Fazil you’re used to seeing. I wasn’t myself.”
Fazil said he was still in the middle of his weight cut, with about 3 or 4 kilos left after already dropping more than 10 of a typical 14-kilo cut.
“Then, while I was in that condition, someone was going to come into my home — my room — and attack me.”
He asked a coach to answer the door.
“About three minutes later there was a knock at the door. I said to my coach, ‘Could you please open the door?’”
According to Fazil, his coaches stood up while he was still wrapped in blankets as the group came in.
“There were 15 of them, and the 15 people who came were Chechen.”
The situation turned physical immediately, Fazil said.
“One of them suddenly came at me and slapped me. Then he slapped me a second time.”
He said his coaches grabbed him and told him not to engage.
“My coaches were holding me back, saying, ‘Namo, you’re not going to fight.’ They were stopping me because I had a fight.”
Fazil said he tried to delay any settling-up until after Contender Series.
“I told him basically, ‘Be a man. Let me finish my fight first, then we can settle this.’ He was saying, ‘Let’s fight now,’ and I said, ‘No, I have a fight. Wait.’”
A scuffle still broke out after his coaches stepped in, Fazil said. He claimed the other group then ran, and police arrived as shouting spilled into the hotel lobby.
He did not paint himself as a man who fought off a crowd on his own.
“At the end of the day, this isn’t a Van Damme movie. There were 15 people.”
He said the group could have hurt him far worse if that had been the plan.
“If they really wanted to, they could have done much worse to me. Clearly they had some kind of objective.”
Accounts of the incident have named Susurkaev, the undefeated UFC middleweight and Khamzat Chimaev teammate, as part of the group. After the knockout, Susurkaev posted a photo of his hand with the caption, “Left hand 2-0 Namo cryer.”
That post has been widely read as a reference to the hotel incident. Susurkaev has not issued a detailed public statement matching Fazil’s description of 15 men entering the room.
Video being shared with the story is not footage of the alleged Las Vegas hotel attack. UFC middleweight Robert Valentin circulated older clips from Thailand that are unconnected to what Fazil says happened during fight week.
Chimaev later posted about the tension without naming Fazil and said he was not happy with what happened.
“We all are brothers. Chechens and Kurds, we are Muslims and we should stay united.”
He also offered respect — and a warning.
“I respect strong Kurdish people. When someone speaks bad then he should know there always will be consequences.”
Why the group went to Fazil’s room has not been independently confirmed. Fazil himself suggested the public still may not have the full story.
“People want to know what happened. Maybe nobody actually knows the truth.”
He also said swallowing that kind of treatment went against every instinct he has.
“As a man, it’s extremely difficult for people to come at you like that and for you to just stand there and say nothing. But I don’t belong only to myself anymore.”
The allegation landed after a high-profile DWCS loss and after White had already confirmed that something happened around Fazil’s fight week. If Fazil’s account holds, he took a welterweight main event after a hotel confrontation, an unfinished weight cut, and a police response in the lobby.
None of that has been laid out in a public UFC or police report. Until it is, the hotel-room attack remains Fazil’s claim, with White’s comments and Susurkaev’s post as the main public signs that a fight-week incident did occur.
Fazil does not have another bout booked, and Tuesday’s card did not produce a UFC contract for him. Any return path to the UFC now runs through a rebuild from the knockout, while the hotel-room claim waits on a fuller public accounting from the people involved.