Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) featherweight Suman Mokhtarian, who was also a contestant on Season 27 of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF), was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting on Wednesday in Riverstone, a suburb of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia.
He was just 33 years old.
Mokhtarian was first targeted by assassins outside his Australian Top Team gym in early 2024 but survived the ordeal, then found himself in the crosshairs for a second time last April. That prompted authorities to intervene and shut down a local mixed martial arts (MMA) event to prevent a potential “gangland hit.”
“We believe he may have been out for a walk, but we’re yet to confirm that,” Riverstone police commander Jason Joyce told reporters during a press conference (via Daily Telegraph). “You’d want to think that in a residential area like that, people could wander the streets at that time of night and be safe, but we do believe it’s a targeted attack. It would’ve been a horrific thing to witness and it’s certainly not something we tolerate in the community.”
Mokhtarian (8-2) was defeated by Ricky Steele in the TUF 27 quarterfinals but managed to score a spot on the UFC roster anyway. Unfortunately, the Aussie was unsuccessful in two trips to the Octagon, getting stopped by Sodiq Yusuff at UFC Adelaide before losing a decision to Seung Woo Choi at UFC Busan.
