EA Apologizes to Muslim Fighter Who Has Christian Celebration in UFC 2

Electronic Arts has apologized to a Muslim UFC fighter after it came to light that his in-game EA Sports UFC 2 win celebration animation featured him gesturing the sign of the cross, a Christian tradition. When the fighter, Khabib Nurmagomedov, discovered this, he spoke up on Twitter and Instagram.

A video of Nurmagomedov performing the sign of the cross in EA Sports UFC 2 can be seen here.

On Twitter, he said, "I'm a MUSLIM and not Baptized. Please @EASPORTSUFC edit my after fight celebration. I have a lot of Muslim fans and you have to respect it."

Thankfully for Nurmagomedov and his fans, that's exactly what's going to happen. As spotted by Bloody Elbow (via Kotaku), EA Sports got in touch with the fighter--who has skipped a fight due to Ramadan--to say it is sorry, and that a future update will remove the Christian gesture.

Here is the message EA sent to Nurmagomedov, as posted on his Instagram page.

In the caption, Nurmagomedov says EA--like every person on the planet--is not infallible. He says he hopes EA can learn from this mistake so it doesn't happen again in the future.

"I have nothing against Christians. Every man in this life has his own way, and my way is Islam," he said. "Developers of the game made mistake. Let's be honest, every human being made mistakes, and I'm not holding a grudge. They apologized and promised to fix it. Hopefully, next time they wouldn't make mistakes like this, and take account everybody's religion."

In the real world, Nurmagomedov has a record of 22-0-0 and is ranked No. 2 in the Lightweight division.

For more on EA Sports UFC 2, check out GameSpot's review.