Fast facts
- Division: Welterweight (UFC)
- Record: 30-1
- Nationality: Ukrainian
- Team/gym: American Top Team
- Notable wins: Douglas Lima, Logan Storley (twice), Neil Magny, Joel Álvarez, Roberto Soldić, Ed Ruth, Erick Silva
About a year ago, Turkish journalist Kerem Akbilek asked Ian Garry what he thought about Yaroslav Amosov coming to the UFC. As Akbilek recounted on X this month, Garry said he didn’t know who Amosov was and that fighters coming over from Bellator tend to fail. Akbilek reposted the clip once the matchup became official, adding that his one dream was for the UFC to use his question in the fight promo.
Amosov saw it. He quoted the post with a short line and a raised-eyebrow emoji: “Looks like this guy doesn’t believe in me.”
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It’s a mild response from a man who has spent most of his adult life choking people for a living, and it fits him. Amosov has never been loud. He has mostly been right.
Irpin, Hermes and a stepfather’s idea
Amosov was born on Sept. 9, 1993, in Irpin, a city in the Kyiv region. He came to combat sambo at 15, and it was his stepfather who pushed him toward it. He trained at the Hermes club in Kyiv under Fedor Seredyuk and Vadym Korytny, two names you won’t hear on a UFC broadcast but should, because the fighter who shows up in Riyadh next month was largely built in their room.
The early results weren’t all gold. In 2012 he took bronze at both the European and World Combat Sambo Championships at 82kg, and in both tournaments Ikram Aliskerov was part of his story. He won the European Combat Sambo Cup that same year, his first real breakthrough against adults, and then the medals came in bunches. He won world titles under the WCSF in 2013, 2014 and 2015 (Wikipedia credits him with four world sambo championships in total), European titles in 2013 and 2014, and combat jiu-jitsu golds in 2013 and 2014. In September 2014 he won the Eurasia championship in professional combat sambo by choking out Shamil Zavurov, a seasoned Russian, in the final. Ukraine named him an Honored Master of Sports in March 2015.
The long unbeaten road
His MMA career started the way his sambo career ended, with a lot of wins and very few close calls. Amosov rattled off 16 straight victories in Tech-Krep FC before beating Roberto Soldić in June 2016 for the promotion’s vacant welterweight title. In 2017 he defended it twice, submitting both Diogo Cavalcanti and Nathan Oliveira in the first round.
When Bellator signed him in November 2017, he was 19-0 and only two of those fights had gone the distance. That number matters, because his Bellator run looked different. He went to decisions over Gerald Harris at Bellator 202 and Erick Silva at Bellator 216, then put David Rickels away with a brabo choke in Round 2 at Bellator 225, the first time Rickels had ever been submitted.
The matchmaking after that tells you how Bellator saw him. They fed him wrestlers. He beat Ed Ruth, a three-time NCAA Division I champion out of Penn State, by unanimous decision at Bellator 239. He stopped Mark Lemminger between rounds when a cut ended things at Bellator 244. Then he edged Logan Storley, a four-time Division I All-American from Minnesota, in a split decision that went back and forth at Bellator 252.
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On June 11, 2021, at Bellator 260, he took the welterweight title from Douglas Lima by outwrestling him for all five rounds. A sambo man grinding down an elite kickboxer with takedowns for 25 minutes is about as clean a summary of his style as you’ll find. With that win he became the first Ukrainian-born champion in Bellator history.
The war and the belt
His first title defense was booked against Michael Page for May 13, 2022, at Bellator 281. Amosov never made it. Russia invaded Ukraine, and after getting his family to safety he stayed behind and joined the defense of his country, alongside fighters like Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko, Oleksandr Usyk and Vasiliy Lomachenko. Page fought Storley for an interim title instead.
The detail that stays with you comes from Irpin, his hometown, which saw heavy fighting. After the city was liberated, Amosov posted a video of himself recovering his Bellator belt from his mother’s home, where it had been hidden. The reigning champion of a major MMA promotion, digging his title out of a house in a town that had just been fought over.
He sat out all of 2022. On Feb. 25, 2023, he came back at Bellator 291 and beat Storley again, this time with no ambiguity, 50-45 on all three cards.
The first loss
Then came Bellator 301 on Nov. 17, 2023, and Jason Jackson. Amosov was knocked out in the third round, the first loss of his professional career. In September 2024 he announced he was done with Bellator after six years.
What he did next is worth respecting. He went to Cage Fury FC and submitted Curtis Millender in the first round at CFFC 140 in March 2025. Then he got the UFC call.
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The UFC so far
His debut came on Dec. 13, 2025, at UFC on ESPN 73 against Neil Magny, a fighter who has been the welterweight division’s measuring stick for longer than most. Amosov finished him with an anaconda choke in the first round. On May 9, 2026, at UFC 328, he submitted Joel Álvarez with an arm-triangle in Round 2 and collected a $100,000 Performance of the Night bonus.
Two UFC fights, two finishes, which is a better rate than he managed in Bellator. He trains with American Top Team now and sits at No. 8 in the Knockout Daily welterweight rankings.
For a man who was 19-0 when he was signed, Amosov has always felt slightly under the radar, a European grappler on a secondary promotion’s roster while the attention went elsewhere. Garry not knowing his name a year ago probably wasn’t an insult so much as an honest picture of how far Bellator’s top guys sat from the UFC’s spotlight. That’s done now.
What’s next
Championship Rounds reported on Nov. 6 that Amosov had signed his next contract. Two days later the UFC made it official: Amosov vs. Ian Garry, originally slated for UFC 335 on Dec. 12, moves up one week to UFC Fight Night 295 in Saudi Arabia on Dec. 5. The UFC broadcast confirmed it will be a five-round co-main event underneath Israel Adesanya vs. Shara Magomedov. No reason was given for the shift.
Five rounds is the part that should worry Garry’s camp. The last time Amosov had 25 minutes against a top welterweight, he took Lima’s belt by wrestling him for every one of them. When the card was announced, MMA analyst Dovy wrote on X that Garry vs. Amosov should be the one headlining. He may have a point, and on Dec. 5 Garry gets to learn exactly who he’s been talking about.
