Internet celebrity Hasbulla has pulled out of his long-awaited fight with singer Abdurozik, with claims that he was unable to agree on a satisfactory purse for his services with promotor Askhab Tamaev.
A clip of the two wannabe brawlers went viral in May and made them famous overnight.
While Abdurozik has been spotted living the high life in Dubai with the likes of Liverpool legend Mohamed Salah, Hasbulla, who is friends with fellow Dagestani and UFC GOAT candidate Khabib Nurmagomedov, became an internet sensation in his own right.
The 19-year-old saw his social media following explode, and promoter Tamaev has now claimed the star has demanded more money for any showdown with fellow celebrity Abdurozik, who hails from Tajikistan.
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“Initially, Hasbulla and I agreed on the amount of 1 million rubles ($13,400),” Tamaev began.
“Then it was a lot of money for Hasbulla. I gave him 20,000 rubles ($270) for the video, but recently – 500,000 rubles ($6,700),” Tamaev added, noting he was prepared to offer Hasbulla 5 million rubles ($67,000) for the fight.
Tamaev revealed that was able to agree on a fee with Abdurozik, which he would not disclose, before then lamenting that Hasbulla is ghosting him.
“Hasbullah isn’t answering my calls and messages,” he said.
“There is no hatred or dislike for him, despite this whole story. He changed his number, but he didn’t give it to me. He said that he didn’t want to throw off extra people – it turns out that I’m superfluous.”
“At the moment, Hasbulla is on a [wave of] hype. Thanks to the efforts of our team, we were able to achieve this,” Tamaev went on.
“They want to invite him to the UFC press conference, Snoop Dogg wrote to me about him, Marshmello wrote [to me], [so did] Logan and Jake Paul. World [famous] stars want to see him.
“If Hasbulla and I went to Dubai, to America, he would now be a dollar millionaire,” Tamaev insisted.
“Unfortunately, he doesn’t understand this.”
“He could earn this money in just two minutes. We wanted to have Hasbulla and Abdurozik fight two rounds, one minute each. Maybe three rounds of 40 seconds. Everyone understands that there will be no cruelty.
“Even if the fight took place in a standing position, the gloves would be as soft as possible. I perfectly understand that for Hasbulla and Abdurozik, even if there was a fight, the responsibility lies with me.
“But I prefer that the fight would be grappling and wrestling. And we would know who is stronger on the ground,” Tamaev remarked.
Claiming that Hasbulla supposedly even balked at 7 million rubles ($94,000), the pint-sized pugilist reportedly demanded 20 million for the fight ($286,000) and 1 million ($13,400) per video.
In the comments section to Tamaev’s video post speaking on the matter, there are replies such as “Your entire audience writes to you that Hasbulla is not worth that kind of money” and “Don’t give him money. He will come running to you!”
“For 20 million he should fight [MMA legend] Fedor Emelianenko,” scoffed another unimpressed party.
Others, though, have pleaded for a promoter to step in and pay the kind of money that Hasbulla was supposedly asking for.
However, Hasbulla later fired back at the claims on Instagram.
“I want to explain to everyone about the latest situation,” read a caption to his 2.1 million followers.
“Askhab says that for so many millions, I fought with Conor [McGregor] with [Mike] Tyson, etc. It means you have different values and I have others, my father’s word is dear to me and I will not break his word even for millions.
“Askhab initially knew that my father was against all this but continued the intrigue, now he himself blames me and creates an intrigue against me, who do you think is right?”
