“I’ve come to terms with it,” Basharat said with a wry smile, posted up in his dorm room at the South Florida MMA outpost, where he and his brother have been training for the last 18 months. “I feel like — not to play a victim role or anything, but I feel like I’m not one of those guys that isn’t getting pushed massively. I’m not a Payton Talbott who goes from getting dominated at the start of 2025 to getting a Top 10 guy —a legend, a former champion. What a sweet layup! I’ve never been given a layup like that!
“All my fights have been awkward fights, ugly fights, that kind of thing, but it is what it is. You play the cards you’re dealt in life, and all I can do is keep winning; keep training, keep progressing. At the end of the day, I can trick myself out of the race if I’m not careful. Matsumoto is not somebody to be taken lightly; he’s very tough.
BASHARAT FAMILY: Javid Basharat Interview
“Why I want somebody in the rankings is because some of these guys outside the rankings are tougher than the guys in the rankings,” continued Basharat, who has faced a steady diet of talented, but underrated bantamweights while remaining unbeaten. “Taylor Lapilus has never been dominated — he’s either lost split decisions in his opponents’ hometown, or he didn’t lose; he’s like 23-4! He’s had two tenures in the UFC, and he goes 6-2, goes elsewhere and continues to beat everyone there. That’s another guy who is really good, could easily have been ranked.
“Matsumoto dropped a split to Rob Font that could have gone either way, so we could be talking about Matsumoto as a ranked guy right now. Why I’m not given all this too much attention is because I don’t expect the layman to know these things. I don’t expect them to know, ‘He had a close fight with Rob Font, he could be ranked, he’s that caliber.’ They just look and say, ‘Is he ranked? No!’
“Matsumoto is tough, so why would I take this guy lightly? He’s a serious, serious test, and I have to go beat him, convincingly.”