Bellator welterweight champion Yaroslav Amosov has not fought for well over a year, missing all of 2022 for reasons rarely seen in any sport.
Amosov (26-0), a Ukrainian citizen, awoke on February 24, 2022 to news that Russia had invaded his country, he recalled during Bellator 291’s media day this week. When he alerted his mother, she didn’t believe him. “No, Yaroslav, you’re crazy. Maybe you’re not sleeping.”
It was no dream, but very much a nightmare. Panic came after, as Amoslav fled his city, nestled nearby the initial Russian attack. “All people panicked, they don’t understand — what should people do?”
Amosov and his family fled. “We drive 36 hours, no sleep, only driving. 36 hours, I’m driving, 41 hours, I had no sleep. And my friends told me every time, ‘drive,’ because we want to save our families.”
Once Amosov’s family was safe, he returned home to help in the defense of his country, despite lacking any military experience. Just like many other Ukrainian citizens, including boxing champions Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko, and Vasiliy Lomachenko. Once his hometown of Irpin was liberated, Amosov returned to his mother’s home, where she had hidden his Bellator championship belt.
The retrieval was covered globally, with Amosov’s story appearing on CNN. More recently, the BBC covered his journey from champion to soldier. While Amosov is not the first athlete to serve in the military or go off to war, his is still the kind of story you see only once or twice in a generation. Thankfully.
When he was first offered a return fight, against Logan Storley, his immediate reaction was that it had been a “long year,” said Amosov. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to fight, with the war at home dragging on. Friends and family helped convince him to return; now, he uses the war and the plight of his people as fuel.
“For me, it’s a big motivation. I understand it’s a very hard year for all Ukrainians, yes, but our very long time started because we have one side in Donbas [land Russia has since annexed, marking the largest such move since Nazi Germany in World War II], and we have an eight-year war. But the big war, to Ukrainians, is one year. For me, it’s now a big motivation because I understand what’s going on now in my country,” he explained this week. “When Russian soldiers get out from Central Ukraine, many people said to me, you must go defend belt. Now, you’re working with media. You must win this fight, you must talk with the media.”
And that’s the other reason for Amosov’s return. To represent Ukraine. To tell his story. And to let people know that, a year on, Putin’s war on Ukraine is not over. “So yeah, I want to talk about this. For me it’s hard sometimes, sometimes I think for my country it’s hard, but I understand I must do this,” he stated. “I want to talk about this situation because I think many people do not understand what’s happened, what’s going on now.”
Difficulties in training, meanwhile, have become minor in comparison what has been endured by those still fighting in the war, as Amosov himself did. And where he plans to return, after this fight. “The situation in Ukraine now is motivation for me.”
Watch the full Bellator 291 media day appearance by welterweight champion Yaroslav Amosov above.
