Former UFC featherweight star Zabit Magomedsharipov blames the UFC, not personal health issues, for his abrupt retirement from MMA.

Zabit Magomedsharipov walked away from Mixed Martial Arts as one of the best featherweights in the world, and appeared on the cusp of a title shot before retiring in June 2022. It was a shocking exit for Magomedsharipov, as he was just beginning to enter the physical prime of his career and was deemed by many as a potential future champ.

Magomedsharipov initially blamed a series of concerning health issues with his immune system for his abrupt retirement. But in his most revealing interview since exiting the UFC, he shared the full story and blamed his former promoter for his never hoisting UFC gold.

Zabit Magomedsharipov clears the air on shocking UFC retirement

In a recent interview with AC BJJ, Magomedsharipov accused the UFC matchmakers of intentionally sabotaging his career.

“There were a lot of reasons – so many reasons,” Magomedsharipov said.

“(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,” Magomedsharipov continued. “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 Rodriguez and me. 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.” (h/t MMA Junkie)

Magomesharipov’s final win came against Calvin Kattar in November 2019, in what would be his first and only UFC main event. He retired from MMA with an 18-1 record with 13 finishes.

Could Zabit Magomedsharipov have won a UFC title if he had never retired? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!