An Israeli mixed martial arts fighter had a knockout win against a Kazakh fighter who sent antisemitic messages to him in the lead-up to the bout.
Rafael Aronov, who also works as a police officer in the city of Be'er Sheva in southern Israel, received threatening private messages on Instagram from his opponent Ilyas Sadykov which included a picture of Hitler accompanied by the message “I will burn you like this guy”.
Sadykov, 23, also wrote “I’m gonna kill you b***h”, and “do you like German music?” to his Jewish opponent in the days leading up to the March 9 fight in the Israel World Combat Championship.
Aronov, who has family members that survived the Holocaust, chose not to respond to the threats he received and instead screen-shotted them and shared them with an Israeli news channel.
He told Now 14 that he “preferred to respond in the arena” and that the victory seemed like “a double win” because of the antisemitic messages he received. He said “trash talk” was to be expected between MMA athletes before a match, but Sadykov’s messages “crossed the line.”
Aronov said: “In this case my opponent was revealed to be an antisemitic person who sent me a picture of Hitler about two weeks before the battle and told me that he would burn me like Hitler burned the Jews. There are lines that you do not cross and there are things about which there is no forgiveness,”
The fight lasted about five minutes and resulted in Aronov winning his first MMA championship belt.
Following the victory, the Israeli fighter shook hands with Sadykov and took to Instagram to explain that “it is always important to me both in victory and defeat to be [sportsmanlike] and shake hands after the battle,”
Sadykov attacked the “fake” judges on Instagram and accused them of influencing the outcome of the fight. He requested a rematch in Kazakhstan.
In December, another Israeli mix martial artist Natan Levy pushed back against Kanye West’s alleged antisemitism, saying “if you’ve got a problem with me or my people, come see me, bro.”
