According to Zabit Magomedsharipov, the UFC didn’t want any more Russian champions, resulting in his retirement.
During his time in the premier MMA promotion, Zabit Magomedsharipov was widely regarded as a future UFC champion after an incredible start to his career.
Despite that, following a win over Calvin Kattar in 2019, the impressive Russian striker decided to retire from the sport after several years of health issues and other factors.
And now, some of those other factors have become apparent, as the 35-year-old has claimed that the UFC never wanted him to become a champion.
Zabit claims the UFC didn’t want any more Russian champions resulting in his retirement
Zabit officially notified the UFC of his retirement in 2022 after a long stint on the sidelines attempting to fix his ongoing health complications.
And ever since then, the Russian has received calls from the fans to return to the sport, and at times it seemed as though it was a possibility.
Despite that, in a recent interview with ACB Jiu-Jitsu, Magomedsharipov has revealed that one of the reasons why he retired from the sport was because of broken promises from the UFC.
“There were a lot of reasons why I retired. It just never worked out. I wanted to fight. The fights got postponed 3-4 times. We just couldn’t come to an agreement somehow. I was cutting weight going through full training camps… Then you arrive 2-3 weeks before the fight and they tell you, ‘he’s injured’… That happened to me like 5 times. I got tired, how much can a person take?
“We had some kind of agreement with them that if he pulled out a third time, they’d automatically give me a title shot. Those conversations happened, but the third time they found a lot of excuses again. They just didn’t want to make me champion and I know why too.
“Because at that time there were already a lot of Russian champions. Khabib (Nurmagomedov) was a champion then, (Petr) Yan too. They didn’t like the idea of a third champion being from Russia.”
Zabit was referring to the fact that he was booked to fight Yair Rodriguez several times but the Mexican contender withdrew each time with injuries.
However, despite his claim that the UFC broke their promise that they would give him a title shot if Rodriguez pulled out a final time, Dana White has a different recollection of the matter.
The UFC boss has previously claimed that he offered Zabit an immediate title shot if he decided to return to the promotion following his hiatus after his health issues.