UFC fighter shared how he got back into MMA through his job as a club security guard

Light heavyweight representative of Uzbekistan Bogdan Guskov in an interview with , he admitted to returning to martial arts after a long break thanks to nightclub encounters with UFC stars.

Guskov will fight his second UFC fight against Zack Pauga at UFC Fight Night 236 in the light heavyweight division. Previously, the fighter played in Russian leagues and, as he himself admits, worked in the security service of a popular Moscow establishment. The statistics of the 31-year-old Guskov are 14 wins and 3 losses.

— You said you worked as a security guard at a nightclub and mentioned a particular bar. As I remember, when UFC stars began to be brought to Russia for seminars in 2013-2014, they were very often taken to this very club. Do you remember it?

— Yes, yes, I have a lot of photos just before Jon Jones’ first fight with Alexander Gustafsson (took place in 2013, — approximately “”). They both came here and were just chilling in the bar where I worked.

— So you took photos with them precisely as a security guard, and not as a fighter?

— I was working as a security guard at the time, but I had already started training at Martial Arts Club No. 1, which was the club that brought them. I trained in boxing in Uzbekistan, then moved to Moscow. I had a break for about three years, and after three years it was probably the work at the club that influenced me. I saw these fighters, a spark lit and I wanted to try. I decided to continue my journey in martial arts.

— Let’s be clear, if you worked as a security guard at another club, maybe you wouldn’t have gotten this far in MMA by now?

– I think yes. What lit the spark was the fact that famous fighters were coming, I looked and thought, “Wow! These are the heroes I watched from Uzbekistan,” Guskov told .

Live broadcasts of mixed martial arts tournaments can be seen on and Match! Fighter”, as well as on the sites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.