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This content was machine-translated from the French version.
Khabib Nurmagomedov has never minced his words, and retirement has done nothing to change that. The former UFC lightweight champion, unbeaten in 29 professional fights, has launched a scathing attack on the recruitment policy of the organisation that made him a legend. According to him, the UFC now favours strikers at the expense of wrestlers, even if it means letting talent slip through their fingers and weakening the discipline that built its own dominance.
“They don’t sign many wrestlers”
In comments reported by the French media outlet La Sueur on 17 July, and subsequently picked up by MMA Live, the Dagestan native was blunt: “They don’t sign many wrestlers.
In comments reported by the French media outlet La Sueur on 17 July, and subsequently picked up by MMA Live, the Dagestan native was blunt: “They don’t sign many wrestlers. On the other hand, they’re recruiting strikers. If they gave Muhammad Mokaev a chance, for example, he’d become champion. They’re sidelining the wrestlers.”
The reference to Muhammad Mokaev is not insignificant. The British fighter of Dagestani origin, known for his grappling-heavy style, was released by the UFC despite a convincing victory over Manel Kape. A dismissal that had already caused a stir in the industry and which Khabib now cites as proof of a deliberate shift in philosophy.
The war of styles
This media outburst forms part of a recurring debate surrounding the evolution of MMA as a spectacle. The UFC, under the leadership of Dana White, has gradually shifted its focus towards fighters with a more spectacular stand-up style, who are more marketable to the general public and broadcasters. Grappling, however effective it may be, suffers from a lack of appeal that pay-per-view audiences simply won’t tolerate any longer.
Khabib, for his part, embodies the archetype of the dominant grappler who has nonetheless filled arenas: his rivalry with Conor McGregor remains the highest-selling fight in the organisation’s history, proof that the promise of relentless ground fighting can also be a major selling point.
A lifetime contract that ties him down
Behind this controversy lies another. A few days earlier, Khabib revealed to Yahoo Sports that his UFC contract bound him to the organisation for life, preventing him from fighting elsewhere even decades after his official retirement. This is a rare contractual situation in professional sport, which several American colleagues have likened to an exclusivity clause barring any promotional appearances in competitive MMA.
Implicitly, then, the former champion is voicing a two-pronged criticism: that of an organisation which no longer invests enough in scouting fighters, and that of a contractual obligation which prevents retired fighters from competing elsewhere. The debate, already heated across the Atlantic, is bound to reignite the question of fighters’ bargaining power in the post-Boec era.
A message heard as far as Dagestan
The fact remains that Khabib’s words, even in retirement, still carry weight within the ecosystem. In Dagestan, where the tradition of grappling remains a defining feature of local identity, several young fighters will be closely following the fallout from this outburst. The UFC, for its part, has not yet responded publicly to the criticism, but media pressure could force the organisation to clarify its signing policy in the coming months. Failing that, other, more radical voices would take up the baton and force a fundamental debate on the place of wrestlers in contemporary MMA, a sport on which Khabib has left his mark more than anyone else.
