Russian President Vladimir Putin is not all bad. Just ask Anthony Ruiz.
Bleacher Report reported that Putin attended an MMA match in 2012 in Sochi which Ruiz was fighting Russian and Bellator's middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko. The match represented the first time that Ruiz fought outside California.
Shlemenko pummeled Ruiz for three rounds during their fight. After the match Putin came into the ring and encouraged both fighters.
"Putin was right to tell me I fought nobly-I didn't want to kill Ruiz in the ring," Schlemenko told Bleacher Report after the match. Schlemenko also said he couldn't understand how Ruiz kept getting up from the canvas.
According to Bleacher Report, Ruiz kept fighting even though he knew he was overmatched. His effort was lauded by Putin, who gave him a standing ovation after the fight.
Putin went to Ruiz after his loss to Schlemenko and said, "You need to fix your nose."
Two weeks after the match, Ruiz told Bleacher Report that he got a phone call from an unidentified person asking about his health and his well-being. After reporting he was fine, the caller was asked for his SWIFT code - the standard means of transferring money between banks, used predominantly internationally.
Not knowing what the caller was talking about, Ruiz wen to his bank and asked what it meant. When he found out, he gave the caller his swift code, just to see what would happen.
Two days later, Ruiz found out that $50,000 had been wired to his account from the Russian Federation.
Not believing the transaction was real, he went back to his bank and was assured that the transfer was legitimate. Ruiz got another $50,000 the next day. And then, he received a third $50,000 wire.
"The bank was telling me there's some people who aren't all that straight doing transfers and stuff like that," he told Bleacher report. "I also knew it was coming from Putin, and he's one of the wealthiest persons in the world. So, really, $150,000 ain't that much to him. That's what I'm telling myself to justify it. Sure enough, I kept it in there and left it alone. It was real. It really happened."
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