Seven fighters have accused UFC and PFL veteran Francimar Barroso of booking and then cancelling MMA events in Russia to steal money from sponsors and not pay fighters.

Ednaldo Oliveira and Leonardo Guimaraes, who have also fought in the UFC in the past, allege that Barroso convinced them to travel to Russia under the promise they would fight for Barroso’s MMA promotion Bodão Fighting Championship. The events ended up being cancelled days before each date on three separate occasions in 2024, with fighters not receiving any portion of their contracted purse.

Oliveira and Guimaraes claim that Barroso pocketed the money paid by sponsors after each cancelled event. MMA fighters Delmar Silva, Marcos Sullivan, Leonardo Fraga, and Alexsander Pereira all spoke with MMA Fighting and also echoed the claims.

“He moved to Russia to start his team and texted everybody offering good purses and structure,” Oliveira said. “He then set a date for his event and started to use our image as ex-UFC fighters to promote the cards, so sponsors saw that and injected money. He then cancelled the event four days out. I stayed [in Russia] for four months and he did that three times. He got the money from the sponsors and there was no show.”

According to Oliveira, they initially stayed in a nice apartment in Russia, but then got moved to a small room in the back of Barroso’s gym and barely had money for food. According to the group of fighters, Barroso promised to pay them a daily fee of 1,000 rubles (approximately $10), but eventually started delaying the payment.

“There were rats and cockroaches everywhere,” Oliveira said about the room in the gym. “There was no money for us to return to Brazil. The original agreement was that he would pay for our costs until we fought, but then he started charging us for everything… He’s been doing that for many years, so we’re getting together to file a lawsuit against him now.

“We want to expose him because we heard he’s trying to build another team in 2025 and fool more fighters.”

Speaking to MMA Fighting, Barroso has denied any wrongdoing. Barroso, who had nine UFC appearances — including a decision win over Ednaldo Oliveira back in 2013 in the UFC — and went 5-0-1 under the PFL banner, returned to action in June 2024 after a long period of inactivity, defeating Dmitriy Vezhenko via second-round TKO in Russia. He claims that Oliveira is stirring up controversy and attempting to turn fighters against him due to jealousy.

Esther Lin, MMA Fighting

“He had two fights in a big organization [UFC], I defeated him, and since then he’s said everything was normal between us,” Barroso said. “He said he was my friend, we were buddies, so I brought him here, but I never felt he was really solid. Many people told me he just wanted to get back at me, that he was mad at me because he feels I was responsible for him getting cut [from the UFC]. I was like, ‘What? Is he mentally ill? This is a sport.’

“Sadly, I had no idea. I helped him with everything I could, but people said he was angry and jealous of me.”

Like Oliveira, Pereira said he was approached by Barroso with an offer to join his team and to fight in a MMA promotion not owned by him. Pereira was already training in Russia at the time of the invitation, and said he was promised a $4,000 purse, but was only paid $800.

Pereira claims Barroso stopped paying his daily fee for food when he heard he planned on leaving for Brazil. Barroso denies those claims.

“I told Delmar he would do also that to all of them,” Pereira said, claiming he stayed illegally in the country for six days after his visa expired, but still managed to board a flight to Brazil. “In my opinion, he just wants to take people there so they can teach classes for him. He keeps promising fights and charging a high percentage.”

Silva was living in Portugal when a friend suggested him to text Barroso to be on his team in Russia, and so he did. Silva claims he was also promised to have his costs paid for until he got a fight, but Barroso eventually cut the money and became aggressive. The fights were supposedly booked for August, September and October, but the events never happened. According to Silva, an associate of Barroso claimed they pulled the plug on one of the cards because “the broadcast was cancelled.”

Silva said he agreed to fight for a show money of $500, way under the original purse agreement, because he needed money to pay his bills. He also stated the opponent was not good and it was a chance to improve his MMA record. Silva claims Barroso tried to convince all the fighters in his gym to use steroids, which he agreed to.

Silva said he and the others were forced to teach private classes to get paid but they never received the agreed-upon payment.

“I remember telling the others that I wasn’t feeling alright, that I couldn’t take it no more,” Silva said. “My alimony was late, I owed money to my friends, and the money he was giving us could barely pay for the food. He wouldn’t even give us money most of the time, and not pay for the private classes either.”

Silva decided to leave Russia in October and Barroso countered that he would get him a fight later that month. Silva asked for money upfront so he could pay for his flight, and claims that Barroso responded, “Even if you fight here 10 times you won’t be able to pay me back because you have debt with me.”

A screenshot of a conversation between them shows Barroso charging him nearly $2,000 for the cost of staying in Russia.

“I kept training for the fight, and again they cancelled the event,” Silva said. “I already had the flight ticket, so I got my stuff and left running. I was the first to realize we were treated like slaves.”

Barroso alleges the Bodão Fighting Championship cards were cancelled due to numerous circumstances, including the ongoing Russian attack on Ukraine. He said he would pay for fighters’ flights back home, but they left the country during the night without informing him, and he claimed he paid all the fighters the agreed fee for the private classes.

He added the reason why the fighters were moved from the apartment to the room in his gym was because they were being kicked out of the building over complaints from the neighbors for being “too messy and noisy.” Barroso also claims one of the fighters was using his gym overnight to teach classes, and another man had stolen items from the gym and constantly asked students for money, resulting in a “big financial loss.”

All the fighters managed to eventually leave the country, but Guimaraes had to stay longer than anyone else.

Guimaraes said he was the only one to sign a contract with Barroso, naming Barroso his manager, and exclusively tying himself to Bodão Fighting Championship. After so many cancelled shows, Guimaraes said he reached out to other promotions and booked two MMA fights for December, looking to make enough money to buy a flight back to Brazil.

Guimaraes, who boxed Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and Fabio Maldonado in surging fight promotion Fight Music Show in Brazil in recent years, claims he lost a good sponsorship deal thanks to the many cancelled fights in Russia. Guimaraes was knocked out by Vladimir Seliverstov on Dec. 7, and claims he did not earn what he was promised.

“[Barroso] told the promotion to give me half the money and wire the other half to his account, and told me he would give me some more when we got back to the gym,” Guimaraes said. “When we got here, he said he wouldn’t give me anything because he had to pay his rent otherwise he would lose his gym. What has that got to do with me?”

Guimaraes fought a week later in Moscow and was again stopped in the second round. He finally made it to Brazil on New Year’s Eve.

“They put guys on slave labor here,” Guimaraes said. “They give them 400 rubles ($3.60) a day. That’s nothing. They bring people with a one-way ticket and you can’t go back, because the flight ticket doesn’t exist. You have to fight in order to make money to go back, and who knows if they really will get you a ticket.”

Barroso denies all the allegations and said he decided to stop promoting MMA events until he’s able to control the production himself, and said some fighters left Russia owing him money.

“They had to pay me because we had an agreement,” Barroso said. “I didn’t want more than what we had agreed to, which was 20 percent [of their purses]. Some didn’t fight, and one of them escaped during the night. I found out when he was at the airport, and he escaped without paying me anything. They even created a fake Instagram account to send mean words to my wife.”