Dana White isn’t slamming the door on Farid Basharat, the undefeated bantamweight the UFC just released. He also made it clear nobody should hold their breath.
White spoke to the media after UFC 333 and said a reunion could happen down the line, though not soon. “I wouldn’t see the near future. I mean, we just let him go. But I’m not saying that it’s not a possibility that he could come back to the UFC,” White said, according to a Heavy report republished by Yahoo Sports.
That’s about as warm as White gets about a guy his company just cut. It suggests nobody burned a bridge on the way out.
Basharat is 16-0 as a pro and went 7-0 inside the Octagon. Fighters with a zero on their record usually get pushed toward the rankings, so the release was a head-scratcher. Nobody has said publicly why it happened. Heavy described the reasons as unclear, and White didn’t offer one in the remarks that were reported.
The knock on Basharat has been finishing. Of his seven UFC wins, only one ended early, and it was a submission. The other six went to the scorecards. In a company that hands out bonuses for highlight-reel stoppages, a perfect record built mostly on decisions is a tougher sell to the people writing the checks than it should be.
The tools are there, though. Heavy noted that Basharat finished fights before he arrived in the UFC, and that lone Octagon submission shows he can close the show when the opening is there.
As Heavy laid it out, the likely road back runs through another promotion. Sign somewhere, stack some wins and, more important, finish a few of them so the matchmakers have a reason to pick up the phone. Winning alone got him to 7-0 and still didn’t keep him on the roster, so the math is pretty simple.
My take: cutting a bantamweight who never lost in the building is a strange call, and White’s comments sound like a guy who knows it could look strange later. Decisions don’t move pay-per-views, sure. A 16-0 record still gets a fighter signed fast, and if Basharat lands a couple of first-round finishes wherever he goes next, White’s “possibility” turns into a contract offer.
