Russian mixed martial arts fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov was removed from a flight in the United States after a seating dispute with airline staff at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.
In a video widely circulating on social media, airline staff can be seen confronting the martial arts fighter and asking him to shift seats as passengers were not comfortable with him sitting near the emergency exit, according to Al Jazeera.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) legend clarified in a post on X that the incident occurred on a Frontier Airlines flight after initial reports stated it happened on an Alaskan Airlines flight.
Nurmagomedov also questioned if he had been subjected to racial discrimination adding that a flight attendant who spoke to him “was very rude from the very beginning”.
He added that he speaks “very decent English and can understand everything and agreed to assist, she still insists on removing me from my seat”.
“What was the base for that, racial, national or other one, I’m not sure,” he added.
The legendary athlete did not clarify when the incident happened and the airline is yet to make a comment on the issue.
The video, recorded and shared by another passenger, a flight attendant is heard telling Nurmagomedov that: “We cannot allow you to sit in the exit row […] I am not going to do this back and forth. I’ll go call a supervisor. You can either take a different seat or we can go ahead and escort you off the plane”.
To which the retired UFC fighter responded with, “It’s not fair”.
He continued, saying that he had fully complied with the flight crew during the check-in process before the flight and, “They asked me, ‘Do I know English […] and I said, ‘Yes.’ Then why do you guys do this?'”
The flight attendant’s manager was not satisfied with lightweight UFC champion’s response and offered the fighter another seat on the plane or take another flight.
In his post on X, Nurmagomedov said the security was called after two minutes of conversation and that he was “deplaned”.
