Muslim fighters can force hostile audiences to respect their faith through sheer competitive dominance.

Evidence

In the words of legendary fight trainer Teddy Atlas, “You don’t play boxing.” This tenet rings especially true for MMA, its combat sports’ sibling, where fighters risk their very lives every time they climb into that cage. For Khabib, the Muslim fighter known universally by one name, each one of his opponents—and the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) rapidly swelling fan base—learned, very quickly, not to play with his religion. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1081

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: MMA as a rare arena where a visibly Muslim public figure holds unilateral power over a white nationalist audience — how combat sports invert the usual dynamics of Islamophobic spectatorship.