When the annoucer calls Tamerlan Dulatov’s name on Saturday and the graphic appears on the screen at Oktagon 76, the German flag will display proudly next to his name. However, it wasn’t always a smooth relationship between the country he loves and the middleweight. In fact, coming from Chechnya, his first years in the country contained plenty of learning moments. And those learning moments prevented him from reaching his goals sooner.
“It’s like my own fault. I was many times in jail because of some fights on the street,” Dulatov said. “If you beat someone or punch someone on the wrong place, you will get problems and I learned on the hard way. And that’s the reason why it took so long to get to the professionals.”
A big reason for those issues came from a misunderstanding of the cultural norms. Where Dulatov and his brothers come from, it was a way of life and something your elders teach you is right.
“I’m from Chechnya, we don’t come from like usual country. We grew up with fighting; we grew up with like our adults, our big brothers and family teach us to be a man. A man has to know how to fight, a man has to protect his family like this,” he explained. “And with this mindset, I come to Germany. It was very fast, everything, someone says something, you say what’s going on, you fight him, you beat him. But it’s Germany, we are not in Chechnya.”
However, even after all of that, he and his family have flipped the switch. With his brother Islam in the UFC and Tamerlan making a name for himself as well, the country they came to years ago now stand fimly behind him.
“Man, to be honest, it’s a big honor, because like you said, it was a hard start here. We flew as refugees, so we come to Germany, we don’t have the best start,” Dulatov explained. “But right now I see German people on the street, you know, they say you make us proud, you make our country proud, people like you, you are refugees.”
He’ll look to make the German people proud yet again on Saturday. He’ll get a chance to when he fights Sebastian Hirtenlehner as part of the Okatgon 76 prelims. You can see those fights on oktagon.tv with the fight card starting at noon EST.
