It’s been seven years since Zabit Magomedsharipov last competed inside the UFC Octagon.
Way back in November 2019, “Zabeast” picked up a unanimous decision victory over fellow top contender Calvin Kattar, pushing him into the Top Five and significantly closer to a title shot. Unfortunately, Magomedsharipov would never make it into the cage again. Initially, his return was delayed by Yair Rodriguez’s injuries, and at one point “Pantera” was briefly cut from the promotion for turning down the matchup.
Afterward, Magomedsharipov dealt with some health issues that kept him on the sidelines. By 2021, Magomedsharipov was booted from his No. 3 spot in the Featherweight rankings due to inactivity, and he announced his retirement a year later.
Fortunately, the high-flying Featherweight has remained active as a coach and recently returned to the competitive grappling scene. Speaking with his new grappling promotion Absolute Championship of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Magomedsharipov explained how Rodriguez repeatedly pulling out of fights and UFC failing to uphold its promises led to his retirement.
“There were a lot of reasons, so many reasons,” Magomedsharipov said of his retirement. “[The UFC] just couldn’t make the [Yair] fight happen. [I] wanted to fight, but like three or 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. By the time you get there, you’ve already been through so much, weight cut, training camp and everything.
“Then you arrive and two or three weeks before the fight, they tell you, ‘That’s it, he’s injured’ and 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. How much can you take?
“We had some agreements with them: if he pulls out of the fight a third time, they’d automatically give me the title fight … and the third time he found excuses. He came up with a lot of reasons. Then they started offering me somebody else, first [Chan Sung Jung] then some other guy, but at that time, it was just me and Rodriguez. The two of us were contenders, and they just didn’t want to make me a champion.“
He concluded, “I know why too. At that time, we already had a lot of champions from Russia. Khabib was the champion then and Yan. Because of that, it wasn’t beneficial for them that a third champion was from Russia.”
Could Magomedsharipov have been champion? At the time of his peak, the top dogs of the Featherweight class were Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway, who certainly would have tested his five-round mettle. That said, Magomedsharipov’s combination of fluid and flashy kickboxing with elite wrestling has yet to be matched all these years later, so it would have been interesting to see him try.
It’s a shame “Zabeast” never got his title eliminator fight at a minimum. Yair Rodriguez, meanwhile, is still camped out at the No. 5 spot in the Featherweight rankings. He hasn’t fought in 13 months, remains unbooked, and doesn’t want to face divisional rival Diego Lopes.
