Shavkat Rakhmonov is not coming back in January, and he is not fighting Jack Della Maddalena, according to the one person whose word on this actually counts. Rakhmonov’s manager, Daniel Rubenstein, shut down a social media rumor this week that had the undefeated welterweight in talks with the former champion. He wrote on X: “Completely false and inaccurate. JDM hasn’t been mentioned as an opponent and Shavkat won’t be returning in January.”
Bloody Elbow, which flagged the denial, had reported that things were trending toward a return for “The Nomad” in January or February. Rubenstein’s post takes January off the board. He didn’t say anything about February, so file that month under hope for now.
Rakhmonov, 32, hasn’t fought since December 2024, when he beat Ian Machado Garry at UFC 310 and handed Garry the first loss of his pro career. Since then a knee injury has put him through several surgeries and a long rehab. In July his physician said nothing was stopping him from returning. That was almost four months ago, and he still has no fight.
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The opponent pool keeps moving under him. Michael Morales teased a fight with Rakhmonov earlier this month, and Dana White, when asked about that pairing, hinted it had originally been in the works. The apparent plan had champion Islam Makhachev facing Carlos Prates while Rakhmonov and Morales sorted out the next contender. Instead, Prates and Morales got booked for the interim title in the UFC 337 co-main event, and Rakhmonov was left without a dance partner again.
Della Maddalena looked like a logical fallback on paper. He hasn’t fought since May, when Prates finished him in the third round of a lopsided UFC Perth main event. Per Rubenstein, his name never came up.
Meanwhile Makhachev, who turned 35 in October, is sitting on a 17-fight win streak and two welterweight defenses, the latest over Garry at UFC 330. He also tweeted “My next fight is one of the last in my career.” Michael Bisping, arguing on his YouTube channel that Makhachev should chase a middleweight belt, named Rakhmonov as the only other real welterweight obstacle and called him a guy “who may or may not ever fight again.” Bisping added, “I keep seeing rumors that he’s going to be in a matchup sometime soon.” Now he’s seen the manager’s response.
My take: I have a standing rule about fighters coming off long layoffs at short odds, and Rakhmonov is going to test it hard. Whenever he books a fight, he’ll be favored, because undefeated guys who just beat Garry get priced like nothing happened in between. By the time he walks out he’ll be well past two years removed from his last fight, with multiple knee surgeries on his chart. I’ll want to see real camp footage before I lay a dime on him. And if Makhachev really is down to his last couple of fights, the window for the welterweight fight everybody wanted is shrinking while Rakhmonov waits. The next real data point is UFC 337, when Prates and Morales decide who gets Makhachev. Rakhmonov will be watching that one from home, same as the rest of us.
