Fast facts
- Division: Featherweight (PFL)
- Record: 18-0 per Cagefile data before PFL Chicago, then a split decision win over Gabriel Braga on October 16, 2026
- Nationality: Russia
- Team/gym: DagFighter (Makhachkala); American Top Team (Coconut Creek, Florida)
- Notable wins: Bibert Tumenov, Daniel Weichel, Enrique Barzola, Brendan Loughnane, Gabriel Braga (twice)
Partway through the co-main event of PFL Chicago on October 16, 2026, the promotion’s own X account posted a clip with a question attached: “How did Timur Khizriev survive this??” About 15 minutes later it posted the answer, “INSTANT CLASSIC,” and the scorecards. Khizriev beat Gabriel Braga by split decision, 29-28, 28-29, 29-28. It was the second time the two had gone the distance and the second time one judge sided with the Brazilian. Their first fight, in Washington, D.C., in August 2024, was scored 30-27, 28-29, 30-27.
That word “survive” carries more weight if you know where Khizriev was 15 months earlier. On the evening of July 15, 2025, two masked attackers shot him five times in Makhachkala, the city where he was born. He was hospitalized with injuries that were not life-threatening, and the motives for the attack are still unknown. In Chicago he stepped on the scale at 145.4 pounds, walked into Wintrust Arena and fought three rounds with a man who had already pushed him to a split once.
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Makhachkala
Khizriev was born November 19, 1995, to a Dargin family in the Dagestani capital. He started freestyle wrestling at nine under Konstantin Kamilovich, a coach who has since died, and the detail from those years that sticks with me is this one: weighing 64 kg, he entered the 71 kg bracket at the Dagestan Championship and won gold anyway.
He split his time between wrestling and Wushu Sanda, where his first striking coach was Rasul Chotanov, the first USSR karate champion in 1981 and a Russian Sanda champion. Chotanov learned under Gusein Magomaev, founder of the Five Directions of the World school and the man who taught Zabit Magomedsharipov, Muslim Salikhov and Magomed Magomedov. Khizriev became a two-time All-Russian Sanda champion, then set striking aside to commit to wrestling, then changed course again at 18 and gave himself to MMA. He’d been watching Pride on Russian television as a kid. He also logged up to 80 amateur bouts in combat sambo, plus time in boxing and ARB.
He has been candid that, early on, he got into street fights more often than sanctioned ones. He doesn’t defend that now. His view is that fighting skills belong in the gym and in competition, and outside of those only when someone has to protect himself or the people he loves.
The men in his corner
A silver medal at an amateur MMA championship in Dagestan got him through the door at DagFighter. His first coach there was Jamal Magomedov, and the head coach was Mansur Uchakaev, a world combat sambo champion trained by Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov. Today Timur Valiev and Uchakaev run his camps in Dagestan, where Zabit Magomedsharipov is a teammate. He still drifts between rooms at home to wrestle and spar, and he makes the trip to Khasavyurt to sharpen his Muay Thai with Aslan Mamedov.
On fight night the corner is Jamal Magomedov, Valiev, Uchakaev and Magomedrasul Zubairov. When Khizriev lists his role models, Jamal Magomedov’s name comes first, ahead of Zabit and Rustam Khabilov. A fighter who puts his first coach at the front of that list is telling you something about how he was raised in the sport.
The nickname is Imam. His patronymic, Shamilovich, traces to Imam Shamil, the 19th-century resistance leader of the Northeast Caucasus, and Khizriev took the name from there. He is a devout Muslim.
The long road
Nothing about his rise was fast. His pro debut came on August 30, 2014, a win over Roman Kishev at 18, followed by a fight in the CSDF League and then a break of more than two years. Meanwhile he kept collecting amateur medals and losses: bronze after a semifinal loss to Gamzat Saidbekov at the 2015 MMA Cup of Dagestan, gold in Yekaterinburg that May, and then, on October 31, 2015, a semifinal loss in Obninsk to a young Arman Tsarukyan. In 2016 he took silver in Chelyabinsk and bronze at the Amateur MMA Cup of Russia.
He came back to the pros in Beijing in September 2016, worked through Fight Nights Global and Eagle FC, and fought four times for ACB in 2019. He entered the Young Eagles featherweight Grand Prix as a substitute, even though he’s a natural bantamweight, beat Chechen grappler Yusup-Khadzhi Zubariev in the semifinal and Bibert Tumenov in the final on March 22, 2019. He planned to drop to 135 afterward. It never happened. He walks around at 73 to 74 kg and cuts seven to eight kilos for fight week, and he calls the cut the hardest part of the job.
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His last two Russian fights were a unanimous decision over Alexander Belikh and a first-round guillotine of Ruslan Ryskul. Then Bellator called.
Bellator and the million
His American debut came on November 18, 2022, at Bellator 288 in Chicago, stepping in for Akhmed Magomedov against Daniel Weichel, ranked fifth at the time. Khizriev won a unanimous decision. He beat Irish BJJ black belt Richie Smullen 30-27 in June 2023 and Justin Gonzales by 30-27 across the board at Bellator 301, the last Bellator show under Viacom. Along the way he trained at Jackson Wink, where he shared a room with Jon Jones, and at Kill Cliff FC under Henri Hooft. He now trains at American Top Team with his older brother, UFC middleweight prospect Aliaskhab Khizriev.
The 2024 PFL season was the whole case for him in one year. He opened against Brett Johns in April while fasting for Ramadan and won a decision. He outpointed Enrique Barzola in June, survived the first Braga split in August, and on November 29, 2024, beat Brendan Loughnane by unanimous decision at PFL 10 for the featherweight title and $1 million.
Here is my opinion, plainly. Every one of his fights in Bellator and the PFL has gone to the cards, and people who want highlight reels will hold that against him. They shouldn’t. This is a guy whose undefeated record was built across a decade of amateur losses, regional cards, a short-notice debut against a ranked veteran and a season of fighting a cut he hates. That is the opposite of a hype train.
Where he stands
The PFL had him at No. 2 at featherweight as of August 21, 2026. Fight Matrix put him 10th in the world in April 2025. Our own Knockout Daily rankings list him at No. 24, a number that reflects almost 23 months between the Loughnane fight and Chicago more than anything he did in the cage.
The Braga rematch was his first fight since the shooting, and it was close
