Saber Fakoori had his first organized fight in Afghanistan when he was 13 years old. It was a kung fu tournament, where he would need to win three fights in order to take the championship. He won all three fights that day. And he’s won every fight since.
“I like fighting,” Fakoori says with a smile, sitting in the lobby of the Burnsville Martial Arts Academy where he trains today.
A babyfaced 23-year-old, Fakoori is friendly, polite, and full of gratitude as he chats about his journey from Afghanistan to the U.S., where he arrived last October. His younger sister, Narges, sits across from him, helping to translate the conversation as he dutifully works to improve his English. He apologizes for his broken sentences, though he’s very easy to understand. His build is athletic but not intimidating—certainly not what you imagine when you think about a mixed martial arts fighter.
Fakoori radiates humility, which also feels uncharacteristic of an established fighter. That humility makes it even more bonkers when he whips out his phone and plays a video of a fight he won in mere seconds with a devastating kick to the head.
This weekend, Fakoori will step into the cage on American soil for his first time at the Med City Fighting Championship in Rochester. And while he’s new to competing on the local scene, fighting has always been in his blood.
“My father was a very good fighter when he was young,” he says. “And my brother was a champion in wrestling. He had 10 or 11 fights, but he broke his arm and stopped. My cousin was a fighter, too. We all enjoy it.”
One of five siblings, Fakoori says he took to training at such a young age because of his family history and the popularity of fighting in Afghanistan. But it quickly became evident that Fakoori was destined for much more than just recreational sparring. “When I lived in Afghanistan, people knew me because I was the best,” he explains.
That’s not ego talking. Fakoori is a seven-time Afghanistan national champion in the disciplines of MMA, kickboxing, and kung fu, and he has a perfect record of 54 wins and no losses. But when the Taliban returned to power in 2021, his career—and the MMA scene in Afghanistan—came to a screeching halt.
“When the Taliban came into Afghanistan, all of the gyms closed,” Fakoori says. “They said that all of the fighters could no longer compete in MMA, because they felt it was too dangerous. They didn’t like people getting punched or kicked in the face.”
With his fighting career on indefinite hold, Fakoori fought for his own safety and wellbeing, with one particular incident almost costing him his life.
“Robbers wanted to steal my motorcycle,” he recalls. “I started fighting them off, but they injured me with knives. They injured my shoulder and my leg.”
The knife wounds on his body would heal, but Fakoori and his family knew they couldn't remain in Afghanistan. After fleeing and waiting over two years in Pakistan, they were given U.S. refugee status through a visa program for former staff of American agencies. (Fakoori’s father had spent 20 years working for Catholic Relief Services, a U.S. government-funded humanitarian organization.)
The Fakoori family arrived in Minnesota through the Welcome Corps program.
“The way the program works is that you apply to be a sponsor for a family or a group of refugees who have been approved for resettlement,” says Andy McGinn, one of the group’s sponsors. “So my brother-in-law [Fakoori’s father’s former boss] said he was going to apply to be a sponsor, and asked Farid if he and his family would be willing to go if they were selected. He said yes. So he applied, and honestly it was a long shot to be selected, because there are 10,000 people in Islamabad waiting to get out. But he got picked, and they were able to get second-tier exit visas [which are reserved for skilled workers].”
Once the family arrived in America, McGinn helped them set up schooling and find jobs, and Fakoori once again felt the urge to fight.
“When we came to the United States, I told Mr. Andy I was a good fighter in Afghanistan,” Fakoori says. “He said he would find me a good gym.”
After calling around to a few other MMA training facilities through Minnesota, McGinn finally found his way to Burnsville Martial Arts Academy, and owner Justin “Gus” Kratzke.
Kratzke, a lifelong martial artist, began coaching students after he retired from fighting back in 2011. He has trained hundreds of athletes of all levels, from newbies to UFC fighters. But when McGinn called and spoke with his wife and co-owner, Nakita, he was skeptical.
“We got a call, and [Andy] said the words that, as a coach in the MMA world, make us cringe: ‘I have a friend who wants to be a pro fighter and he says he’s good,’” Kratzke says, laughing. “I said, ‘Not a chance.’ I’ve heard this song and dance so many times. Then Nakita started explaining what Andy had told her, and convinced me to take a look.”
Fakoori, along with his father and his cousin, all came to visit the gym, where they were able to provide a little more background on his fighting past.
“I still had some skepticism, but he was very humble and didn’t have any signs of arrogance,” Kratzke continues. “He said, ‘Let me show you something,’ and showed me a couple of videos of himself looking incredible. That’s when I started to think, ‘OK, we can work with this.’”
Despite not training in MMA for years, Fakoori immediately fell back into his old form, wowing the coaches and fellow students at the gym. He beat a few of them up, too.
“The first day he hopped in with everyone, you could tell there was a big difference in how they train here and how they trained in Afghanistan,” Kratzke says. “Everything was full-contact. He told me, ‘Where I am from, every time we train, we fight.’ So I had to talk with him a little bit and tell him that we try to be a little more technical and playful in our training, and he picked it up right away.”
Despite only being a part of the team for a few months, Kratzke and Fakoori decided pretty quickly that he was ready to compete. With his background, Fakoori has already had more fights than many fighters will have in their entire career.
The only problem is that there isn’t any official record of his fights.
“I used to work for the state commission that oversees MMA and boxing as an inspector,” Kratzke explains. “So I spoke with the head of the commission and let him know about Saber’s experience in Afghanistan, but what they consider pro over there might not be the same as it is here. Over here, you’re classified as an amateur if you’ve never been paid to fight. Even though he has had over 50 fights, Saber has never been paid, so he was classified as an amateur.”
That might not be the case for long. Depending on the outcome of his fight this weekend, Fakoori is hoping to officially go pro and start working towards his goal of fighting in the UFC.
“I’m working very hard for this,” he says. “But if I win or lose, no problem. That’s OK. It’s my first fight in the United States.”
“Around here we say it isn’t win or lose; it’s win or learn,” adds Kratzke.
Fakoori’s entire family will be in the crowd this weekend to see him take that next step, as will his teammates at Burnsville Martial Arts Academy and some folks from Welcome Corps. That network of support in the U.S. is extremely important to Fakoori, but having his network of support in Afghanistan with him in spirit is equally important.
“Afghanistan is my country,” he says with a smile. “I have a lot of friends who are still there that are very close. They are all fighters, and I love them all.”
