Zabit Magomedsharipov has signed with Real American Freestyle and will return to action against UFC fighter Giga Chikadze at RAF Abu Dhabi on November 14th.
The enigmatic Russian fighter disappeared from the UFC back in 2019 after going 6-0 with the promotion. The reason? He said he was sick of getting jerked around when opponents — specifically Yair Rodriguez — pulled out of fights. After seeing how the matchmaking and scheduling sausage is made, we don’t blame Zabit one bit. After walking away from the sport, he’ll go down as one of the great ‘What If’ characters of the sport.
What if Zabit had stuck around? Would he have become a UFC champion?
We’ll never know because Magomedsharipov has said he has no interest in returning to active MMA competition. But he still has a fire for sports inside of him, and that has led him to grapple at an ACBJJ event in August and now this RAF fight in November.
While much more active than the 35-year-old Magomedsharipov, the 38-year-old Chikadze is also in the midst of a bad slump in the UFC, having gone 1-4 over his past five fights. It’s a winnable fight for the returning Zabit, and hopefully we’ll see more competition out of him as RAF likes to keep its name fighters active.
RAF Abu Dhabi is being headlined by cruiserweight crossover champ Colby Covington versus Khamzat Chimaev, and also features a rewind of the 2019 World Championships classic between Jordan Burroughs and Azamat Nurykau.