In July of 2021, the summer before Aidan Lubin’s freshman year at UR, he had 20,000 followers on his MMA Instagram account @BrawlerBible. At the time, he used his account primarily as a platform to post breakdowns and analyze fights.
While in Las Vegas to watch a UFC fight that summer, Lubin, ’25, was contacted by MMA coach Eric Nicksick and invited to come and meet fighters at his gym Xtreme Couture.
Unsure of what he had to offer, Lubin grabbed his mom’s 2008 Canon camera and pretended to be a photographer, figuring out the mechanics as he went.
Now Lubin is a senior journalism major at Richmond with nearly 100,000 followers on his MMA commentary and photography account, and he can call some of the top fighters in the world his friends.
Lubin became close with one fighter in particular, Kevin Holland. In 2023, Holland ranked eighth in the world in the UFC’s welterweight division. Holland has given Lubin, or “Brawler” as he calls him, shoutouts at press conferences on three separate occasions, even referring to him as family.
“I’m not the only person that thinks it’s amazing to have him write about us or even come out and take a picture,” Holland said. “You know, it’s a whole gym.”
Lubin first got into MMA, or mixed martial arts, when he was 15 years old because he loved the feelings it evoked in him from inside the ring—being nervous, challenged, vulnerable and scared all at once. “I was just hooked on it,” he said.
Lubin’s mother, Jeannie Lubin, attributes her son’s success in part to his sports edits that he made as a kid.
“He was constantly video editing ever since he was a little boy,” she said.
"I care more about a smile, a hug at the end of a round, how a fighter’s eyes look in an exact moment."
Lubin’s love for MMA photography blossomed during that Las Vegas trip in 2021, and he hasn’t stopped since. “It’s not about, you know, photographing blood or a fist hitting a nose,” he said. “I care more about a smile, a hug at the end of a round, how a fighter’s eyes look in an exact moment.”
Holland spoke highly of Lubin’s work, saying that what makes his account different from others is that Lubin can approach a fight without picking sides. He said that Brawler Bible is better than other platforms like Yahoo Sports or Google when it comes to the MMA world.
“It was almost to the point where, like, you could read his breakdown and know exactly how you’re going to assess the fight, when you were going to go into the fight,” Holland said. “He was just that good.”
Brawler Bible inspired Lubin to major in journalism, as it combines his love for the visual arts with his love for writing. The account is constantly evolving, from commentary to photography. He said that whatever happens next, this is the work he wants to pursue.
“This is what I want to follow once I graduate in May,” he said.
Author’s note: Bettina Johnston, ’25, is a journalism and English major from West Palm Beach, Florida.
