Zabit Magomedsharipov blames UFC, failed bookin...

Zabit Magomedsharipov says several factors lead to his decision to hang up the gloves. Magomedsharipov (18-1 MMA, 6-0 UFC) is one of the biggest what ifs in MMA after rising to top featherweight contention, but abruptly retiring. Magomedsharipov, 35, last competed when he defeated Calvin Kattar in a Fight of the Night in November 2019. He saw numerous bookings with Yair Rodriguez scrapped, which lead to his frustration with the UFC and his eventual retirement in 2022. "There were a lot of reasons – so many reasons," Magomedsharipov told AC BJJ. "(UFC) just couldn't make the (Rodriguez) 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. And 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 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? "We had some agreements with them: If he pulls out of the fight a third time, they'd automatically give me the title fight. That's what we talked about. 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 really 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. I know why, too. At that time, we already had a lot of champions from Russia. Khabib (Nurmagomedov) was the champion then and (Petr) Yan, and because of that, it wasn't beneficial for them that a third champion would be from Russia." Magomedsharipov recently signed with Russian grappling league ACBJJ, a spinoff of Russian promotion ACA. In an interview with MMA Junkie last July, manager Ali Abdelaziz pointed to the same reasons when asked about Magomedsharipov's retirement. This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Zabit Magomedsharipov: UFC didn't want to make me a champion

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Zabit Magomedsharipov blames UFC, failed bookings for early retirement