Last year, former PFL tournament champion Timur Khizriev’s life was put in grave danger. On July 15, 2025, two masked men allegedly ambushed the fighter in his hometown of Makhachkala, Dagestan, shooting him five times with a non-lethal traumatic pistol that typically fires rubber or other less-lethal projectiles. Fortunately, Khizriev survived the attack, although the resulting hand injury kept him sidelined and disrupted a significant part of his MMA career.
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More than a year after the incident, Khizriev is finally returning to competition. Ending his nearly two-year MMA hiatus, the undefeated 18-0 Russian is set to face Gabriel Braga in a featherweight bout at PFL Chicago on October 15. However, before stepping back into action, reflecting on the incident, the No. 2-ranked featherweight cryptically suggested that those responsible for the attack have been dealt with.
“Things were taken care of,” Khizriev told Home of Fight through an interpreter. “I don’t know how that sounds, but I’m not really involved in this as much. I was more involved in the recovery. Things were taken care of. I think they found who did it. We don’t know, and he (Khizriev) doesn’t seem to care.”
The former PFL champion didn’t disclose what happened to the alleged attackers or who was responsible for dealing with them. However, reports at the time indicated that authorities had already taken action against the suspects.
According to a SportRBC report published on July 16, 2025, Dagestani police identified two men allegedly involved in the attack on the former PFL champion, with the Ministry of Internal Affairs also addressing the incident on its Telegram channel. A subsequent report from the same outlet stated that Dagestan Sports Minister and former Olympic wrestler Sazhid Sazhidov confirmed that the alleged attackers had been detained.
“The attackers on Khizriev have been detained,” Sazhidov said.
Furthermore, the outlet reported that criminal cases had been filed against the unnamed suspects under Part 2 of Article 213 of the Russian Criminal Code, concerning “hooliganism involving the use of a weapon or committed by a group of people.”
Although further details have yet to emerge, the suspects could face up to seven years in prison if convicted. As for the motive behind the attack, preliminary reports cited by the outlet suggested that a debt-related dispute may have sparked the incident.
Thankfully, Timur Khizriev survived the ordeal and, by his own account, appears to have put the incident behind him. However, he isn’t the only fighter whose life has been threatened by gunfire. A current UFC title contender once endured actual gunshots that nearly cost him his life.
UFC featherweight fighter Lerone Murphy was shot in his jaw
Lerone Murphy might have cemented himself as one of the strongest UFC featherweight contenders today, but the Brit was once dangerously close to meeting GOD over a decade ago. In 2023, Murphy was walking through Manchester when he was shot in the face in broad daylight. The attackers fired two live rounds, leaving the bullets lodged in his jaw and the base of his neck.
After one of the bullets pierced his mandible, Murphy recalled regaining consciousness and hearing nothing but a constant “beep,” while his mouth felt as though it was barely attached.
“So I get shot, I went on the floor, I woke up, and it’s just like, beeep,” Murphy told The Athletic. “That’s all I could hear. And I stood up, and it felt like my mouth was heavy. So I spat on the floor, and the bullets came out on the floor. And I jumped in my cousin’s car, and we went to the hospital.”
The aftermath was equally harrowing. Murphy revealed that he spent two days in the ICU in a comatose state, leaving his loved ones deeply concerned. When he finally opened his eyes, however, he was greeted by his family and friends, who had been anxiously waiting for him to recover.
“It was mental,” he added. “I was asleep for probably two days in the ICU, like in a coma. I was asleep for two days, so I didn’t really see all of that. But when I woke up, it was just like, all my family’s there, all my friends are downstairs. It was crazy, man. It was crazy.”
Both Khizriev and Murphy survived terrifying encounters that could have ended very differently. While Khizriev is now preparing to return to the PFL following his lengthy absence, Murphy has gone on to establish himself as a UFC contender. Their experiences serve as a stark reminder that life-changing adversity can strike anyone, regardless of whether they are professional MMA fighters or ordinary people.