“He called me and said, ‘Arslanbek, I have an offer for you,’” Makhmudov tells The Ring. “Do you want to fight a bear?
What can I say? It sounded like an interesting challenge, and I like to be challenged. I’ve done some crazy stuff in the past, so I just said, ‘OK, let’s do it.'”

The video of the scrap between the WBA’s fifth-ranked heavyweight Makhmudov (21-2, 19 KOs) and the bear, not currently ranked, swiftly went viral.

The 6-foot-6 Dagestani, encouraged by his friends in the middle of a forest clearing, can be seen maneuvering the bear with superior footwork and grappling experience. Even though the beast was three meters tall and weighed more than 800 pounds, Makhmudov appeared to do enough to win the round.

“The thing is, I thought it was going to be funny,” Makhmudov says. “But it really wasn’t funny. I don’t want to do any more of this. It’s just too much risk. In one second he could turn me into meat, and that’s it. All over.

"I’ve done a couple of crazy things in my life, but that might be the craziest.

On Saturday night at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the 36-year-old is back to fighting humans as he takes on the returning Tyson Fury in The Ring’s main event live on Netflix.

Victory would propel him back toward the world title picture after two damaging stoppage defeats during a nine-month spell across 2023 and 2024 left his career in tatters. After the second of those, which came against underdog Guido Vianello in Quebec City in August 2024, Makhmudov did the only thing he knows and simply kept fighting.

UFC champion Islam Makhachev famously told Daniel Cormier to send his son "2-3 years Dagestan and forget" if he wanted the youngster to improve his wrestling skills. The line has since become a meme for toughening someone up.

As a proud Dagestani, Makhmudov smiles when he is reminded of the phrase. He knows exactly what 2-3 years in Dagestan could do to anybody.

“Where I come from, people have to be strong always,” he explains. "For us it’s very important, genetically. If we don’t feel we are strong, we feel we are weak person, a weak man.
For us it’s very important to be strong. Growing up there was always a pressure to fight. Maybe it has changed now, but when I was a small boy, if you’re not strong, you’re a loser.

 “You have to always fight. In the street, you fight. You go to play soccer, you fight. You go to the river for some swimming, you fight. You go somewhere, you go everywhere, you have to fight. We have a cultural competition for violence. In our history we always made wars against anybody who comes to try and beat us. Maybe it stems from that, I don’t know.”

But Makhmudov has worked hard to create a far less violent atmosphere for his three children to grow up in. It is now nearly a decade since Makhmudov moved to Montreal, where he and his wife have raised the kids, aged 11, 10 and 4. None of them, however, have made the trip to London to watch him fight Fury in a clash that could change all their lives forever.

While Fury’s eldest son, Prince, has trained alongside his dad throughout his 16-week training camp in Thailand, for Makhmudov, there is a conscious effort to separate his children from the boxing completely.

“I have started trying to keep my kids away from this sport,” he says. “This sport is not for kids. It is dangerous.
Of course I teach my son boxing, but I’d rather he didn’t choose to do it. I would prefer him to do some martial arts, maybe wrestling or judo. Something where you get less damage to yourself.”

His wife will watch the fight through her fingers from their home, but his parents still cannot bear to see their boy in action. “They will just sit and wait for the result,” he says. “Somebody will tell them that it’s all OK, and I’m good. Then they’re happy. Even if I win, they won’t watch the replay.”

The heavyweight pair, likely to weigh a combined 550 pounds on the night, have engaged in a slightly strange and light-hearted build-up all week in London. Fury tickled and blew kisses at his opponent while Makhmudov responded by giving the Gypsy King a bear hug that lifted him off his feet at Thursday’s final press conference in London's Canary Wharf.

They are both experienced enough to know that none of it will matter when they eventually collide in the center of the pitch at Spurs.

“We don’t have to become enemies,” Makhmudov says quietly. “We don’t have to be crazy all the time. We can be friends now, we can be nice to each other now, but on the day of the fight, we both go to war.

 “Two big guys go to war and try to kill each other. It’s normal for boxing. I know when it’s time.”