Manel Kape is snapping back at fight fans.
Starboy’ secured another big win inside the Octagon on March 1, scoring a third-round TKO against Asu Almabayev at a Fight Night event in Las Vegas. However, the victory came with a heap of controversy after Kape appeared to poke his opponent in the eye multiple times — once in the second round and then again in the third.
Despite the foul being pretty obvious, referee Mike Beltran never once stepped in to pause the action.
Days later, Almabayev took to social media and revealed the horrific condition of his eye as a result of the egregious foul. But even with the evidence mounting, Kape insists that Almabayev’s eye was compromised from the very first punch and that his win had nothing to do with illegal strikes.
“Against Asu, his eye became like that, it was the first punch,” Kape told MMA Fighting. “It was the first punch that hit him. If you guys watch the fight very carefully and watch the first round, when I got the punch, immediately his eye was already destroyed.”
While a punch may have compromised Almabayev’s eye in the early going, it doesn’t change the fact that ‘Starboy’ delivered two very blatant eye pokes during the fight-ending sequence.
Manel Kape insists Fans just want to hate on ‘special fighters’ like himself
But despite there being undeniable evidence of multiple fouls being committed, Kape shrugged it all off as just another case of fans trying to discredit his performance.
“It was not an eye poke that made the fight, that finished the fight,” Manel Kape said. “I was beating him. People go and find excuses because it was me. People want to find an excuse. There’s a type of fighters that get a lot of hate. This is a special fighters, the champions, they always talk about them and they want to criticize them. I know I’m one of the people that get a lot of hate but when you’re winning, when you become a champion, they want to be on your side.”
With the win over Almabayev, Kape has now won six of his last seven and will likely fight for the flyweight championship next.
Currently, reigning titleholder Alexandre Pantoja is linked to a fight with No. 4 ranked contender Kai Kara-France at UFC 316 on Saturday, June 7 though no official announcements have been made. Chances are, Kape will face the winner of that fight in late 2025 or early 2026.
