The finals of The Ultimate Fighter 34 went down last night (Sat. Sept. 26, 2026) at UFC Fight Night: Rosas Jr. vs. Barcelos, and while this season of the reality show came and went with barely a blip, the men’s bantamweight tournament final may be remembered for the extremely messy way it ended.
Azerbaijan’s Mehemmedeli Osmanli and Kyrgyzstan’s Ilimbek Akylbek fought their way through the 8-man tournament on Paramount+ to earn a spot on the main card of Saturday’s Meta Apex card, but their fight ended
via DQ just 2:19 into the first round after Osmanli threw a running knee at a downed Akylbek, catching Ilimbek right in the face when he was clearly grounded on the canvas.
The ref swiftly stopped the fight and Akylbek flopped to his back in a daze. The fight would be ruled a DQ win for the underdog Akylbek, but not without controversy: some, including Osmanli, insisted the Kyrgyzstani fighter had faked being knocked out.
“He fake,” Osmanli declared in an Instagram Live video following his loss. “First he take my leg. Then when referee stop, he put on show.”
Slow motion replay of the incident does show Akylbek grabbing Osmanli’s leg, adjusting his grip, and fighting for position. Then the referee stopped the action and Akylbek rolled onto his back and zoned out. He remained out of it even as his team sat him against the cage, and when they lifted him to his feet after the fight was ruled a disqualification.
We’ve seen fighters who have been knocked out try to wrestle their opponents or even the referee, so Akylbek’s instinctive reaction to grapple doesn’t definitively confirm he was faking things. Osmanli fans might want to spend a little more time being mad at him for throwing the blatantly illegal knee to a grounded opponent than raging against Akylbek for being handed a DQ victory.
While no one in North America seems to care that much about The Ultimate Fighter any more, the men’s bantamweight finale was a big deal in Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan and the way it ended caused a big commotion amongst fans in those regions. Rafael Fiziev, who has roots in both countries, took to Instagram following the controversy to try and calm the situation.
“In the finale of such a historic show, two Turks walked onto their opponents with honor and grace!” he said. It’s amazing that two men of ours, living on another continent, can represent Turkish identity at such a high level. Do not fight among yourselves! Here, we all belong to each other!”
