Usman Nurmagomedov is a free agent. His 90-day exclusive negotiating period with PFL/MVP MMA ran out on Thursday, Bloody Elbow reported, which means the undefeated lightweight can now take calls from the UFC or any other promotion that wants to make an offer. There’s no indication he re-signed with PFL before the clock hit zero.
The last fight on his PFL deal came this past July at PFL New York, where he knocked out Archie Colgan in the first round. Fans started demanding a UFC signing almost immediately after that one. PFL’s bosses shut the idea down at the time, pointing to the exclusive window that has now closed.
The money
This is where it gets interesting. According to his manager, Ali Abdelaziz, PFL had a shot at keeping Nurmagomedov before the Colgan fight but passed once they saw the figure he was asking for. After the knockout, they came back with a $2 million offer. Nurmagomedov rejected it because he wants a bigger number.
The 28-year-old then turned up cageside at UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi, and the rumor mill did what it does. Dana White tried to cool things down. He said he wasn’t aware of any talks and didn’t know where Nurmagomedov stood on his contract, but he also made a promise that matters a lot more as of this week: “when his contract is up and he can negotiate, we will start talking with him.”
That condition is met. The door White described is open.
The ask
Abdelaziz isn’t waiting for a contract to start matchmaking. Nurmagomedov’s camp is pushing for a UFC debut against former champion Ilia Topuria, with a win over El Matador earning an immediate title fight. That’s his team’s pitch. Nothing in the reporting suggests the UFC has agreed to any of it, and as of White’s comments in Abu Dhabi, the two sides hadn’t even started talking.
The Topuria call is the loudest possible opening bid. It tells the UFC that Nurmagomedov doesn’t plan to come in on the prelims, work through a ranked gatekeeper and spend 18 months earning a number next to his name. You can call that arrogant, but you also have to account for the $2 million he already said no to. A fighter who walks away from that kind of money usually knows somebody else will pay more, or he’s ready to sit until somebody does. I’d love to see him debut against Topuria. It’s the fight that answers every question about the PFL résumé in one night, and if he wins it, no one gets to grumble about the title shot. The UFC can make the call starting this week, and White has already said publicly that it will.
