Alleged Rapist Abdul Razak Alhassan; What Is His UFC Status?

The UFC has not commented on the fact that one of its fighters has been indicted on sexual assault

The tale of Abdul Razak Alhassan is incomplete.

Remember Alhassan? He opened his UFC career with a "Performance of the Night" knockout win over Charlie Ward in November 2016. After he knocked out Niko Price in September 2018, he was 10-1 overall and 4-1 in the UFC with four first-round knockouts. Alhassan's matchup against Price opened the UFC 228 pay-per-view card in Dallas, Texas, which is just a short drive from Alhassan's home in Fort Worth.

Two days before that fight, "The Dallas News" printed a glowing profile of Alhassan. The brief story pointed out his life as a stay at home dad and the struggles he went through moving from Ghana to Minnesota to Texas.

"I always wanted boys, and then I got a girl, it was the most amazing thing ever," Alhassan said. "It made me a better person. … She brings some kind of emotions in you that I've never had. I want to hold her and kiss her all the time."

A few weeks after that tale and his win in Dallas, the "Fort Worth Star-Telegram" ran a decidedly different story on Alhassan.

"A former bouncer at the Varsity Tavern has been indicted on a sexual assault charge, accused of driving two intoxicated women home from the bar in March, then raping both women inside one of their homes," read the lede of the story.

The alleged incident occurred in March of 2018 and Alhassan was arrested in April and released on $20,000 bond.

According to the report, Alhassan let the two women, aged 20 and 22 into the bar in exchange for the older woman's phone number. Alhassan later allegedly drove the two women back to the younger woman's home and forcibly raped both of them.

We don't know if the UFC knew about Alhassan's arrest when they booked him and allowed him to fight in September 2018. We don't know that because the UFC has not issued one comment on Alhassan since the news of the alleged rape broke. He just kind of disappeared from the UFC. And that is odd for a fighter who was described by his coach, Sayif Saud, as one of the top 170-pound fighters in the world.

"He's not a prospect; he's a proven commodity," Saud testified in a hearing to allow Alhassan to have his court-mandated tracking device removed in November.

That motion was granted, but the judge did warn Alhassan, "If he so much as sneezes during the wrong time," or tries to contact his alleged victims, "you go back to jail."

One of the victim's mothers attended the hearing and argued against Alhassan being allowed to remove his tracking device.

"These monitoring devices are intended to supervise the conduct of a person who has broken the law, (is) out on bail and to reduce any incentive they may have to violate the conditions of their release or to commit any new crime," the mother said. "Releasing the device has made the victims and their families not feel safe. Our law system is to adhere to protect and serve."

Alhassan's name has not appeared in the news since that time.

The UFC has been asked multiple times about Alhassan's case and has yet to offer a single word on that subject.

The UFC claims to be a professional organization. Yet when something like this could harm its business or make the promotion look bad, the UFC goes radio silent in a big way. Media members are lucky to even get a no comment out of the PR team and UFC president Dana White is rarely asked about these issues by the media.

The UFC needs to do better here. The MMA media needs to do better as well. White should be pressed on issues like these and asked about fighters like Alhassan, who, as far as we know, is still a member of the UFC roster.

If the only chance the media has to get an answer from the UFC is when White is involved in a scrum, he should be asked about Alhassan.

In an ideal world, the UFC PR department would answer the media when they ask about these issues. But transparency has never been something the UFC has been worried about.