Talented featherweight fighter Zabit MagomedSharipov has confirmed to the UFC that he is going to retire from the sport at just 31-years-of-age.
The news isn’t a complete surprise as there has been talk for some time that Magomedsharipov commitment to the sport appeared to be wavering during a two year spell on the sidelines.
The exact reason for this isn’t clear though, with his coach at one point suggested that a health condition which was affecting his immune system was preventing him from competing, while recently reporter Ariel Helwani had suggested that a “religious dilemma” was the problem, and Magomedsharipov himself recently stated that he now wants to become a doctor.
If this is indeed the end for Magomedsharipov’s MMA career then it will leave a lot of unanswered questions as to just how far he could have gone in the sport had he continued to fight.
Up to this point the sky had appeared to be the limit for the unusually lanky 6ft 1″, 145lb’er as he had been riding a six-fight winning streak since joining the UFC in 2017, extending his career record to 18-1.
Along the way he had picked up a number of notable victories, including a rare ‘Suloev stretch’ submission finish of Brandon Davis, while his latest two wins on the scorecards were against Jeremy Stephens and Calvin Kattar, pushing him up the rankings as he started to make a compelling case for a future title shot in the division.
Unfortunately we’ll never know whether he would have made it all the way to title glory and so he’ll likely go down in history as one of the sport’s great ‘what if’s?’.
