For French MMA, Dagestan and Chechnya are breeding grounds for fighters

“My older brother would pick me up, say, ‘Tighten your shoes, let’s go.’ And I was going to fight another little one. Saying no would have meant I was scared. » Nourdine Imavov, 27, a good meter ninety of muscles, full beard and slightly marked face, legacy of his career, is a professional mixed martial arts fighter (Mixed Martial Arts or MMA). He plays in the middleweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the sport’s biggest league in the world. His next duel will take place on the night of Saturday June 10 to Sunday June 11 (at 2 a.m. Paris time) against the American Chris Curtis, in Vancouver (Canada), very far from his native mountains of Dagestan.

In this Russian region to the north of the Caucasus, neighboring Chechnya, bordering Azerbaijan and Georgia, the king sport is wrestling or, more generally, fighting. In clubs and halls, a lot, in the street, too. “I remember the fights to train with the other children outside, remembers the Franco-Dagestanais. We were bored. In France, we play football, over there, we play wrestling. » His brother, Dagir, three years his senior, who also practices MMA, supports the statement: “Fighting is part of our culture. At 3 or 4 years old, our parents can make us fight with the children of friends to see who is the strongest. »

Like them, many of their compatriots have made martial arts their livelihood. Within the UFC, out of all the fifteen best in each weight category, there are 7% of fighters born in one of the Russian republics bordering the Caucasus to the north, where a little more than seven million inhabitants live.

England has football, Caucasus has wrestling

In 2006, the Imavov family moved to the south of France, to Salon-de-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône). In his tenth year, the young Nourdine discovers a country where, when you return with a coquard, your parents do not ask you if you won but give you a soap. “I wanted to fight all the time, he confides. With the language barrier, my only way to explain myself was with my fists. » To channel this frustration, the parents enroll the brothers in boxing, then in MMA a few years later. “After the sport, we were wise as images”ure Nourdine and Dagir, in chorus, with a slight carnivorous smile.

For these generations resulting from immigration from Daghestan and Chechnya, combat sports do not only serve as an outlet, they are a true cultural marker. Above all, wrestling, which is to this region of the world what football is to England. It is cherished within the diaspora, estimated at at least 60,000 people in France, and, more generally, successfully practicing a sport of direct physical confrontation is socially valued. “It’s a way of continuing entrenched warrior traditions”ures Jean Radvanyi, historian and geographer specializing in the Caucasus.

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