{"id":38217,"date":"2026-05-12T14:09:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/news\/news\/Zabit-Magomedsharipov-believes-UFC-didnt-want-him-to-be-champion-201159"},"modified":"2026-05-12T14:09:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:09:15","slug":"zabit-magomedsharipov-believes-ufc-didnt-want-him-to-be-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/zabit-magomedsharipov-believes-ufc-didnt-want-him-to-be-champion\/","title":{"rendered":"Zabit Magomedsharipov believes UFC didn\u2019t want him to be champion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/div>\n

Zabit
\nMagomedsharipov<\/a> holds the
\nUFC<\/a> partially responsible for his premature
\nretirement. <\/p>\n

Magomedsharipov (18-1) is one of the biggest \u201cwhat ifs\u201d in MMA
\nhistory. From elite striking to grappling, the Dagestani standout
\ncould seemingly do it all. However, Magomedsharipov fought for the
\nlast time in 2019 and officially retired in 2022 to pursue a career
\nin medicine. <\/p>\n

\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Magomedsharipov recently opened up about his premature retirement.
\nMagomedsharipov blames multiple fight cancellations, which
\neventually took a toll on him. Magomedsharipov particularly notes
\nthat he had multiple fights against fellow featherweight contender
\nYair
\nRodriguez<\/a> canceled. After going through multiple training camps
\nand weight cuts, only to have Rodriguez pull out at the last
\nminute, Magomedsharipov had enough. <\/p>\n

Rodriguez was even briefly released from the UFC<\/a> after allegedly
\nrefusing to fight Magomedsharipov. While Rodriguez was supposed to
\nfight  Magomedsharipov upon his return to the UFC, the Mexican
\npulled out again. However, Magomedsharipov also holds the UFC
\nresponsible. Magomedsharipov claims that he had a deal with the UFC
\nthat he would be granted the title shot if Rodriguez pulled out a
\nthird time. However, the UFC allegedly didn\u2019t keep its word, and
\nMagomedsharipov believes he knows why. According to
\nMagomedsharipov, with Khabib
\nNurmagomedov<\/a> and Petr Yan<\/a>
\nalready being champions, the UFC didn\u2019t want a third champion from
\nRussia at the time. Magomedsharipov admits that the UFC was
\npromoting him well before Nurmagomedov and Yan became
\nchampions.<\/p>\n

\u2018How Much Can You Take?\u2019<\/h2>\n

\u201cThree or four times they had postponed fights and we couldn\u2019t make
\na deal,\u201d Magomedsharipov told Absolute Championship of Brazilian
\nJiu Jitsu (ACBJJ). \u201cBut all these times I was making weight, going
\nthrough camps, flying out to America. And by the time you get
\nthere, you\u2019ve already been through so much: weight cut, training
\ncamp and everything. And then you arrive, and two or three weeks
\nbefore the fight, they tell you, \u2018That\u2019s it, he\u2019s injured.\u2019 And
\nthey postpone again. I\u2019d go home again and start getting ready all
\nover again. Imagine that like five times. I got tired of it, like,
\nhow much can you take?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had some agreements with them: if he pulls out of the fight a
\nthird time, they would automatically give me the title fight. And
\nthe third time he found excuses\u2026 Then they started offering me
\nsomeone else, first \u2018Zombie,\u2019 then some other guy. But really at
\nthat time it was just me and Rodriguez; the two of us were
\ncontenders. And they just didn\u2019t want to make me a champion. I know
\nwhy, too. Because at that time we already had a lot of champions
\nfrom Russia. Khabib was the champion then, and Yan. And because of
\nthat it wasn\u2019t beneficial for them that a third champion would be
\nfrom Russia. At first, before [Khabib and Yan] were around, they
\npromoted me really well.\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
<\/blockquote>\n

<\/center> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zabit Magomedsharipov holds the UFC partially responsible for his premature retirement.  Magomedsharipov (18-1) is one of the biggest \u201cwhat ifs\u201d in MMA history. From elite striking to grappling, the Dagestani standout could seemingly do it all. However, Magomedsharipov fought for the last time in 2019 and officially retired in 2022 to pursue a career in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38218,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-martial-arts-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}