MMA was once used to curry favor with Putin. Now, Trump is using the UFC to project a nationalist cult of masculinity

Ten years ago – before I became an investigative journalist – I found myself working as a color commentator for a Russian mixed martial arts organization bankrolled by an oligarch deep in Vladimir Putin’s orbit.

The job took me around the Russian Federation and its neighboring states, allowing me to pursue unique stories that would otherwise have been out of my reach. I met a Latvian fighter who escaped a black magic cult run by his coach, attended an MMA show with the president of Ingushetia (now Russia’s deputy minister of defence) and knocked back vodka shots with ex-KGB officers and Russian oligarchs.