10 Questions for ACA President Aleksey Yatsenko
Russia’s MMA market is going through a globalization phase. The Ultimate Fighting Championship and the Mubadala Investment Company in July 2018 announced the formation of UFC Russia. Its creators believed it would boost the growth of the sport in the Commonwealth of Independent States by holding events under the UFC flag. Meanwhile, two of the top Russian MMA organizations -- Absolute Championship Berkut and World Fighting Championship Akhmat -- in December announced their merger. Tech-Krep Fighting Championship had joined ACB previously. The newly formed organization became Absolute Championship Akhmat and set out to claim its stake of the market by paying record-breaking pursues and staging major events on a monthly basis, with many of them taking place outside of Russia. In fact, two of the last six shows have been held in Poland.
Yatsenko, one of the best-known promoters in Russia, was named president after agreeing to terms with ACA owner Mairbek Khasiev. In this exclusive interview with Sherdog.com, he discusses his plans.
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Yatsenko: Why the south of Russia, you might ask? The thing is the majority of Russia’s greatest fighters, including Khabib [Nurmagomedov], come from the Northern Caucasus, and I’m also talking about boxing, kickboxing and different types of wrestling and grappling, not just MMA. There is sort of an MMA cult here in the Norther Caucasus. For instance, in Europe, kids spend their free time playing football. Here, they wrestle and grapple. You can say that almost every man there possesses those skills.
Sherdog.com: What can you say about ACA based on the six events it has held?
Yatsenko: Each of the three previous organizations did a great job before meeting. ACB alone held 90 events. If we talk about all three combined, the number would be around 200. We do not shy away when it comes to our future plans and global ambitions. One of them is to become one of the world’s biggest MMA organizations. I don’t agree with people who say you have to get into the United States market to get big in MMA. If that were the case, the UFC would not be holding events in China, for example. We have many Asian fighters in ACA, and fans from Asia follow what we do here closely.
Sherdog.com: You reportedly pay athletes more than any
other MMA organization in MMA. Is it possible for a fighter to make
$100,000 for an ACA bout?
Yatsenko: Yes, it is, and it has happened numerous times. We have fighters who get more than $50,000 a fight on a regular basis. Of course, this money can’t surprise anyone in the world’s biggest MMA organizations. On a couple of occasions, we paid $100,000 per fight, or sometimes even $200,000. Apart from that, we have fight bonuses. For each finish, we pay $5,000, the fighters who managed to score the best finish or impress the audience with the best fight of the night also get $10,000 from us.
Sherdog.com: Almost every MMA fighter from Russia wants to make it to the UFC, and other local promotions make good money selling their best fighters to the UFC or Bellator MMA. Does ACA also sell its fighters?
Yatsenko: No, we are not interested in making money this way. We want to be competitive in the MMA market; that’s why we don’t sell our fighters. We actually do everything we can to keep the best of the best with us, and that’s the reason they get big paydays.
Sherdog.com: Some fighters still choose to leave -- Iranian fighter Amir Aliakbari, for instance. You had to release him from his current contract so he could move to the UFC, correct?
Yatsenko: It was a bit more complicated that. There was a breach of contract from Amir’s side, so his management team had to work very hard to settle it with us and avoid legal procedures. As a result, we released him from his ACA contract. Any fighter is free to leave the organization as long as he they succeed in fulfilling all the obligations they agreed to in their contract. It’s simple. We do what we have to do and the fighters do what they have to do, all in strict accordance with the contracts.
Sherdog.com: There are many Russian fighters who are popular in the West. Nurmagomedov and Fedor Emelianenko are the most prominent examples. How do you explain them?
Yatsenko: Exceptions only confirm the rules. Indeed, the UFC achieved something that seemed impossible. Even the title “UFC veteran” has become a sort of brand in some places. I have spent a lot of time promoting fighters, and I have never considered the UFC as a future organization for them. I have signed fighters to different organizations fully realizing that they will be making a lot more money there than in the UFC. When a fighter decides to join the UFC and gets smaller paydays with little possibility to grow, I frankly do not understand them. From my standpoint, it is better to be a champion of a smaller promotion than to be just one of the many fighters in the UFC.
Sherdog.com: Many consider airtime to be one of the main characteristics of a successful MMA organization. With what TV channels to you have relationships?
Yatsenko: Since we are from Russia, we have contracts first of all with the national TV channels. We also have contracts with TV channels in Europe and Central Asia. We’re negotiating with Canadian channels and other channels in North and South America. Unfortunately, there is not a well-developed pay-per-view system -- a main source of revenue for the United States-based MMA companies -- in place in Europe, but thanks to the Internet, we’re developing our own pay-per-view system.
Sherdog.com: ACA is the first and only Russian MMA organization that produces its content only in English. What have you decided to go in this direction?
Yatsenko: We see ourselves as an international or even transitional company. That’s why we have English-speaking hosts and TV commentators and we show Tales of the Tape and everything only in English. We have our office based in Warsaw, [Poland], and we have also recently opened small offices in Brazil and Central Asia. Our fight card in Lodz, [Poland], consisted of not only Polish and Russian fighters but fighters from Brazil, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Bulgaria … We also plan to advance our product to Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries, but for the time being, we mainly focus on Europe as our steppingstone to other markets.
Sherdog.com: Not so long ago, there were around 100 major events in Russia. Now, there are only a couple dozen. What do you think is behind that?
Yatsenko: The situation in Russia drastically changed in the middle of last year. ACB, Akhmat and Tech-Krep FC joined to create a new MMA organization. Fight Nights had serious financial problems, though it was clear that the founders constantly did their best to sustain it. M-1 [Global] also slowed down dramatically, as businessman Sergey Mativienko discontinued his support. So it happened that in the European part of Russia, there were four times fewer events than even two years before. Many professional fighters lost their jobs. This actually helped us. Amid the general downturn in MMA, we became the undisputed market leaders when it comes to paydays and the number of fighters. Right now, we have more than 250 fighters on the roster.
Sherdog.com: How do you fell about the UFC’s effort to get into the Russian market?
Yatsenko: Honestly, I’m not impressed with what they do here. When they held their first event here, spectators came to see it simply because it was a UFC event. This won’t go on forever. They held two events here, and neither of them could be considered a great fight card with exciting fights.
