Muhammad Mokaev and Manel Kape have been caught on camera in the midst of a brawl with their respective teams outside the fighter hotel ahead of UFC 304 in Manchester, England on Saturday night.
The video footage doesn’t capture what sparked off the incident and by this stage there were numerous other people holding the two fighters apart, but Mokaev seemed satisfied enough with what had happened to post it up on Instagram alongside a brief message.
“This is how it happens in life,” Mokaev wrote (translated). “They didn’t teach you how to fight.”
Muhammad Mokaev and Manel Kape got into an altercation in the fighter hotel
— Lewis Simpson (@LewisSimpsonMMA) July 25, 2024
Kape’s coach Eric Nicksick was caught up in the chaotic scene and has since given his side of the story to MMAJunkie, claiming that the incident was “a set-up”, with Mokaev initially asking Kape to take a photo with him “for our Muslim brothers,” before proceeding to attack him.
If true Mokaev was likely retaliating after a previously rumored altercation between the two at the entrance of the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas a week out from his fight with Alex Perez in March.
On that occasion Kape was alleged to have headbutted and elbowed Mokaev, knocking him to the floor and opening up a cut in the process.
Despite the bad blood between the two and the fact they could yet be future title contenders at 125lbs after compiling notable winning streaks, Mokaev and Kape’s fight has actually been bumped down the pecking order of the UFC 304 fight card over the course of this week, moving from it’s initial spot on the main card down to the featured prelim, and then down even further to the early prelims.
