A severe and exemplary sanction was recently carried out on the Iranian fighter, Ali Heibati in the HFC MMA league in Russia, causing a heated time in Mixed Martial Arts. The man in question was banned for life after attacking the woman in charge of displaying the posters between assaults to announce them.
Ali Heibati publicly apologized for the unfortunate event, and the ring girl in question offered words about what happened and gave her version of the events, something that could compromise and complicate the fighter’s image.
An Iranian MMA fighter named Ali Heibati kicked a girl in the ring because “he felt offended by her clothing,” but the Russian public gave him a beating when he got out of the ring for attacking the lady. Do you support the public’s actions against the cowardly aggressor? pic.twitter.com/U00nn9eT9l
— Eduardo Menoni (@eduardomenoni) April 22, 2024
Words of the attacked woman
The Russian portal Sport24 managed to talk with María Andrianova who is the ring girl who was attacked and in the interview with the sports media, she gave her testimony about everything that happened in the octagon where Heibati kicked her in the hip while she was announcing the first round of the fight where she was finally defeated:
“I was in shock, I didn’t expect it. She was hysterical, sobbing… a nightmare! She did my job: soft, pretty and positive, I went out and took out a poster. It was offensive that as I was starting to leave the ring, I turned my back to Ali, and he walked up and kicked me. Then Heibati started swearing, but I don’t remember what he was saying exactly. I was shocked by what had happened, I turned around and went towards him. I don’t know what he wanted to do, but I thought he wanted to hit him back with the sign. Then the referee separated us so that nothing else would happen. Otherwise, he would have hit her back with the banner. I was afraid to do it because he might have hit me back. Maybe things could have ended much worse.”
“It hit hard. If I had gotten closer, it would have been much worse. There are no bruises. It hurt a little and then it went away,” she said. Later, Andrianova placed a lot of emphasis on the video in which Ali Heibati expressed his apologies and María, although she accepted the Iranian’s apologies, did not endorse this type of actions at all: “He apologized in front of the cameras, yes, there is a video , but I didn’t accept it. This is the first time I have encountered such behavior. I’m still in shock. He hits a girl who comes out to the ring and does her job. By the way, after Heibati recorded that video, she wanted to hug me, but I ran out of the room. Are you going to hug me after that?! No thanks I’m fine”.
“After hitting me, everyone demanded Ali apologize publicly in the ring, but he didn’t want to. On the contrary, he said that he would hit me again. Everyone wanted him to get in the ring, but since he was crying, I couldn’t do it. Even after the fight he wanted to do it to me again, although in the video he said that he loved women and that he had a Russian wife,” added the victim, who declared: “It’s not how I imagined my popularity.”
Formal complaint against the fighter?
Maria Andrianova had the thought of taking legal action at the time against Heibati, but at the end of the day he made the decision to move forward, leave it in the past and avoided taking a stand due to the severity of the life-long suspension that was imposed on the fighter.
“It is not my place to judge him, but it is not the first time that this fighter has found himself in conflictive situations.”. Heibati is very aggressive and you don’t know what to expect from a man like that. The league has made that decision. Today he has kicked a girl, and tomorrow he can kill her.” These words are due to the fact that the native of the Middle East was a participant in previous incidents that placed him under the microscope, such as attacks on his opponent after the defeat and his participation in fights prior to the fight. The league considered the attitude toward the woman “unacceptable behavior.”
Furthermore, María defined the Iranian’s blow as “exaggerated.” “He didn’t calculate and he didn’t think very well. “I can’t say if she realized what she did or not,” she expressed. Finally he also wanted to make it clear that he does not plan to abandon his work in the MMA because of this incident.
“I’m not going to leave, I like this league. I like participating in it, even despite this incident. I’m not going to put my ring girl career on hold and I’m going to continue doing it. I am a pretty girl, I like attention, I get excited in this job. I have higher education, I have a permanent job, I speak English fluently. Participating in projects as a ring girl is not to make money, but for the soul.”
Keep reading:
UFC 300: Max Holloway makes history and earns $600,000 in bonuses after brutal knockout over Gaethje
UFC legend Mark Coleman recovers and tearfully recounts how he saved his parents
UFC legend Mark Coleman fights for his life after saving his parents from a house fire