Fast facts
- Division: Bantamweight (No. 8 in the Knockout Daily rankings)
- Record: 16-0 (7-0 in the UFC)
- Nationality: Afghan-born British
- Team/gym: American Top Team
- Notable wins: Taylor Lapilus, Chris Gutiérrez, Jean Matsumoto, Kleydson Rodrigues, Victor Hugo, Da’Mon Blackshear
Farid Basharat has fought 16 times as a professional and won all 16. Seven of those wins came inside the UFC octagon. On October 14, MMA Fighting reported that the promotion had removed him from its roster anyway, a story Guilherme Cruz flagged on X the same afternoon. Basharat had fought out his contract, and the UFC chose not to give him another one.
That sentence would be strange about almost any fighter. It’s stranger about Basharat, because the shape of his career, from a refugee childhood in England to an unbeaten run at 135 pounds, is the kind of story this sport usually loves to tell.
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Two brothers, one weight class
Basharat was born on August 2, 1997, in Afghanistan. As a child he came to England as a refugee with his mother and his older brother, Javid, and the family rejoined his father there. Both boys grew into bantamweights. Javid now fights in the PFL. By their own account the two have been competing against each other for as long as either can remember, which is the kind of detail I always want to know more about. Two brothers in the same house, then the same sport, then the same division, keeping score on each other the whole way. You can learn a lot about a fighter’s patience from a sibling rivalry that never ended.
He turned pro in April 2018 at FightStar Championship 14, beating Camilo Petkoff by unanimous decision. Over the next seven fights, mostly on the English regional scene, he kept winning and kept mixing up how he did it: submissions, decisions, one knockout. Eight fights, eight wins, and then a call to Dana White’s Contender Series.
On Season 6 he drew Allan Begosso and beat him by unanimous decision. That earned him the contract.
The octagon run
His UFC debut came at UFC 285 in Las Vegas on March 4, 2023, against Da’Mon Blackshear. Another unanimous decision. Six months later, at UFC Fight Night 226 on September 2, 2023, he submitted Kleydson Rodrigues with an arm-triangle choke in Round 1. That remains his only finish in the promotion.
On January 13, 2024, at UFC Vegas 84, he outpointed Taylor Lapilus. A June 2024 booking against Montel Jackson at UFC on ABC 6 fell apart when Basharat got hurt, and that injury is the only scratch on an otherwise busy calendar.
The Victor Hugo fight at UFC 308 on October 26, 2024, is the one I keep coming back to. It was booked at bantamweight. Hugo missed weight by 10 pounds, and the bout went ahead at featherweight. Basharat took a fight against a man who had shown up a division heavier and won a unanimous decision. That’s a fighter who wanted the fight.
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He beat Chris Gutiérrez by unanimous decision at UFC 320 on October 4, 2025. Then came the closest night of his career, a split decision over Jean Matsumoto at UFC Fight Night 266 on February 7, 2026.
His last fight was a mess before it ever started. He was scheduled to face Ethyn Ewing on June 20, 2026, at UFC Fight Night 279. For reasons nobody disclosed, the bout moved to UFC 329 on July 11. Ewing then withdrew, again for undisclosed reasons, and the UFC brought in promotional newcomer John Garza. Basharat beat him by unanimous decision. That was his seventh UFC win and, as it turned out, his last.
The style, and the problem with it
As Championship Rounds pointed out when it relayed the MMA Fighting report, six of Basharat’s seven UFC wins went to the judges. The regional record shows he can finish, with submissions and a knockout on it, and the Rodrigues arm-triangle shows he can do it against UFC opposition. But for most of his octagon run he has been a fighter who wins rounds, piles them up, and leaves with his hand raised.
My honest read, which is my opinion and nothing from the UFC, is that a 7-0 run built mostly on decisions makes for a quiet résumé in a company that sells finishes. I don’t think it should be enough to cost a man his job. Decisions are wins, and he never lost a single one of these fights.
The reason nobody will name
At a press conference on October 17, White was asked about it. Championship Rounds posted his answer: “If you’re 16-0 with 7 wins in the UFC and don’t get re-signed, there’s definitely a reason.”
He did not say what the reason was. That’s the part that stings, because a line like that leaves the fighter to fill in the blank himself, and everyone else gets to fill it in too.
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Basharat answered the next day in a video on his own account, which Championship Rounds shared. He said White “kind of alluded to maybe I was turning down fights or I was difficult to deal with.” Then he denied it flatly: “I definitely didn’t turn nobody down. There was no issues with me in any way.”
So the public record stands like this. The promoter says there was a reason and won’t give it. The fighter says there were no issues and that he never refused an opponent. The only thing either side has put on paper is the result column, which reads 16-0.
What the sources do show is a fighter who took a featherweight fight on short notice of a weight miss, who accepted a date change and then a replacement opponent on the same booking, and whose one cancellation came from an injury. You can weigh that against White’s hint however you like.
Where he stands
Basharat is 29, unbeaten, ranked No. 8 at bantamweight in the Knockout Daily rankings, and a free agent. He trains out of American Top Team. No new promotion or next fight has been announced. His older brother is already in the PFL, and after a lifetime of competing over everything, it would be a very on-brand detail for Farid to follow him there, though nothing in the reporting so far says that’s where he’s headed.
Wherever he lands, he arrives as a 16-0 bantamweight whose last loss doesn’t exist, and somebody with a 135-pound division should be making that phone call this week.
