Muhammad Mokaev knows what it looks like when the UFC lets a fighter go and the explanation arrives afterward. When he left the promotion, he was regarded as the top flyweight contender in the world, and the split came out of a behind-the-scenes falling out that plenty of people criticized at the time. So when outlets including MMA Crossfire and The Eastern Herald tied his latest post on X to Farid Basharat’s release, it landed as testimony from someone who has already sat in that chair.
He’s right. And the most damning part of what he wrote has nothing to do with whether any single release was justified.
The phone call problem
Here’s the line from Mokaev’s October 20 post that should bother anyone who cares about the sport as a competition. He described fighters getting calls from bosses telling them, “If you keep wrestling like that, you’re going to get cut.” Then he asked whether that amounts to influencing the competition.
It does. If a promotion is telling athletes which legal techniques will cost them their jobs, it is shaping how fights are contested before anyone walks out. Takedowns are scored. Control is scored. A wrestler who wins rounds on top is doing exactly what the rules reward, and a fighter who abandons that to keep a contract is fighting someone else’s fight with his own career on the line.
Mokaev didn’t name who made those calls or who received them, and I won’t pretend to know. NY Fights framed his shot as aimed at Dana White’s UFC, though the post as BJPenn.com published it names no executive. That gap matters. But the claim is specific enough, and comes from someone close enough to that world, that it deserves a straight answer from the promotion.
Look at the week this happened
The timing makes the argument for him. On Saturday at UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi, Alexander Volkanovski defends the featherweight title against undefeated Movsar Evloev, a fighter who built that zero on grappling and patience. The same week, Jose Aldo said Evloev should be cut from the UFC, telling BJPenn.com, “He’s a guy who doesn’t sell.” A legend is publicly saying a man who earned a title shot should lose his job over his appeal, days before that man fights for the belt.
That’s the climate Mokaev is describing. A wrestler can be winning his way up the rankings and still be talked about as a problem to be managed.
The contradiction is that the promotion keeps recruiting wrestlers. Former Oklahoma State standout Jacobe Smith is undefeated and was just booked on short notice for a Halloween fight against a veteran. Bo Nickal and Gable Steveson, two of the most decorated wrestlers to cross over, are among the promotion’s most talked-about names. The UFC clearly wants the pedigree. Mokaev’s complaint is that it doesn’t always want the style that comes with it.
Cut him, then leave him alone
The second half of his post is the part I keep coming back to. Mokaev conceded the obvious, that a promotion can release whoever it wants. His objection was to what happens after, when a released fighter gets publicly labeled “hard to deal with” and other organizations start to hesitate.
This is where I’d push hardest on his side. A release is a business decision. A parting shot about a fighter’s character is something else, because it follows him into every negotiation he has next. Promoters elsewhere read those comments. A matchmaker weighing two similar prospects might pick the one without a public reputation for being difficult, and nobody will ever tell the other guy that’s why.
The sources here don’t spell out what, if anything, was said publicly about Basharat on his way out, so I won’t put words in anyone’s mouth. Mokaev’s post reads as a warning about a pattern more than a ruling on one case. He closed it plainly: “Release fighters if you want. Just don’t try to damage their careers on the way out.”
That’s a reasonable ask. It’s also one he’s earned the standing to make. Mokaev is 26, still early in his career, and has kept proving himself away from the UFC. BJPenn.com previously reported him calling on the promotion to deliver a promised reunion after a 42-second win, though for now a return doesn’t appear to be on his radar. He’s living proof that a fighter shown the door can keep winning. He’s also proof that the door, and whatever gets said as it closes, stays attached to your name.
Evloev walks out against Volkanovski on Saturday in Abu Dhabi. If he wrestles for five rounds and wins the belt, watch how the champion gets described the next morning.
