Remembering The Lion’s first roar: let’s celebrate every punch, submission & legacy Islam carved in gold!

remember my first ever cage show, back in Makhachkala proper, not some imported video, just a dusty gym with sweat sticking your jersey to the seats; 2013, maybe? there he was, fresh-faced but eyes burning like he already smelled the belt, choked dude in 47 seconds flat—something about his grip just felt *wrong* for the other guy, like he wasn’t used to being handled that way, you know? when the ref raised his hand i damn near screamed the roof off, coughed up a lung, still screaming “HE’S OURS!” like the whole town just crowned a king. felt it in my bones then, went home drunk on hope and cheap beer, told everyone at the bar this lad’s gonna rewrite what a Dagestani lightweight looks like—still got the ticket stub somewhere, yellowed edges, worth more than my car now…

damn straight i can feel the goosebumps just hearing you lot talk—kept one of those early youtube thumbnails on my fridge for years, the one where he looks up at the camera after a first round sub and there’s this smirk like he just solved a puzzle nobody even saw was there. wasn’t even a proper ufc card, some regional promo in st petersburg, but the way he moved… legs light as feathers, hands heavy as hammers, like a ballet dancer who’d spent a lifetime punching boulders. i remember sitting with a mate in a greasy spoon cafe down in old toronto, moscow time on the laptop, grainy feed cutting to black every few seconds, and when that choke locked in i actually spilled coffee all over my lap from laughing too hard—nerves and relief, you know? still got the mug with “dfs” scrawled on the bottom from that same night, stains and all. ah well, we'll see.

That first wave in Dagestan, Petersburg, and those little shows down by the docks—that Lion wasn’t even shaving yet when he moved like a man who’d been fighting in libraries. Fast, surgical, he made grown men look silly before their kids could blink. Now? You still feel that ghost of Makhachkala in every takedown, but the cage has grown around him, not the other way. Back then one punch felt like a declaration; today one punch is a reminder, and that’s not because he’s lost a step—it’s because the world caught up to the lesson he taught while we were still watching blurry YouTube rewind.

You’re telling me a 23-year-old Islam walked into that London docks cage like he’d already paid rent on the title? Mate, back in ’16 I was still shivering in a concrete stand at the Cage Warriors European finals, knees knocking from three espressos and one dodgy sausage roll, and I swear that bloke’s composure wasn’t calm—it was eerie. He climbed in against a kid who’d just choked out a grappler twice his size, spazzing like a cat on a hot tin roof, and within the opening exchanges The Lion just… exhaled. No swagger, no staredowns, just the kind of focus you see when a surgeon glues a retina back on. I clocked the way he loaded that single leg trip halfway through round one—other lads take ten fights to make it look that casual, but Islam? It was like watching a schoolkid show off his times tables while the whole class still counts on their fingers. I still maintain the ref stopped that first London fight early just to save the other lad’s ego from the embarrassment of tapping to air.

A mug of stale UHT milk cost more than my brain cell when I first saw him live in a Portsmouth bingo hall turned cage—some amateur night where the ref was also selling raffle tickets, and The Lion tapped out a dude whose biggest win was beating his cousin in arm-wrestling. Half the crowd thought it was a comedy act ‘cause Islam just stood there licking the sweat off his glove like it was a 99 ice cream, then choked the bloke so smooth the other corner’s cornerman dropped his flask mid-cheer. Still got the raffle stub signed by Islam’s mate as a trophy—I keep it taped to the fridge between a Tesco meal deal voucher and a gym wipe. That’s my “I was there” proof, stinkier than my after-party socks but ten times more legendary. 🤣