Zabit Magomedsharipov was one of the most promising prospects in the UFC featherweight division and fans have hoped for a return every since his abrupt retirement in 2022. He recently opened up about his decision to leave the sport.
Magomedsharipov is expected to grapple in a ACB JJ event sometime in 2026, his first time competing since his final UFC bout in November of 2019, when he beat Calvin Kattar via decision in a main event to improve to 6-0 in the octagon. Magomedsharipov said on a video posted by the promotion that he retired from MMA after growing frustrated over multiple fights cancelled, especially against Yair Rodriguez.
“There were a lot of reasons [I retired], so many reasons,” Magomedsharipov said. “Just couldn’t make the fight happen. I wanted to fight but [the fights got postponed] like three of four times. They’d postpone fights and we couldn’t make a deal. But all these times I was making weight, going through camps, flying out to America. And by the time you get there, you’ve already been through so much: weight cut, training, camp and everything. And then you arrive and two or three weeks before the fight they tell you, ‘That’s it, he’s injured,’ and they postpone again. I’d go back home again, and start getting ready all over again. Imagine that about five times. I got tired of it. Like, how much can you take?”
The Russian talent, who turned 35 in March, claimed he was in negotiations with the UFC to be awarded a shot at the 145-pound belt in case another fight got cancelled, but that didn’t happen. The last time he was booked to enter the UFC cage was August 2020, but Rodriguez withdrew with a fractured ankle.
“We had some agreements with them: if he pulls out of the fight a third time, they’d automatically give me the title fight,” Magomedsharipov said. “That’s what we’ve talked about. And the third time he found excuses, he came up with a lot of reasons, Then they started offering me someone else. First [Korean] Zombie, then some other guy, but really, at that time, it was me and Rodriguez. The two of us were contenders.”
The UFC featherweight belt changed hands in 2019, with Alexander Volkanovski dethroning Max Holloway in the final card of the year, and Magomedsharipov felt the UFC wasn’t interested in promoting him to a title bout after all.
“And they just didn’t want to make me a champion,” Magomedsharipov said. “I know why, too. Because at that time we already had a lot of champions from Russia. Khabib was the champion then, and Yan. And because of that it wasn’t beneficial for them that a third champion would be from Russia. At first, before they were around, they promoted me really well.”
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