{"id":473467,"date":"2026-02-11T19:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/473467\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T19:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:30:08","slug":"buckley-shavkat-could-be-released-following-latest-ufc-injury-setback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/473467\/","title":{"rendered":"Buckley: Shavkat could be released following latest UFC injury setback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Assuming he returns at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only did they knock him out of the rankings, but potentially they can get rid of him because he hasn\u2019t been fighting in so long,\u201d Buckley said on Overdogs Podcast<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s going to come up on two years. I\u2019m going to make this prediction right now: We never see Shavkat again. The thing about Shavkat, he ain\u2019t no content creator. It\u2019s going to be to the point where the fans lose interest. They\u2019re going to forget about Shavkat, I promise you. They\u2019re just going to forget about Shvakat, and guess what the next move is going to be for the UFC? They\u2019re going to send his ass back to Kazakhstan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rakhmonov (19-0) isn\u2019t the only inactive welterweight contender, but Buckley sees a marked difference between \u201cNomad\u201d and the aging Colby Covington (17-5), a former 170-pound title challenger who\u2019s been out of action since losing to \u201cNew Mansa\u201d in the UFC Tampa main event<\/a> back in late 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason they\u2019ve still got [Covington] is because they\u2019re waiting on him to waste his money because eventually he\u2019s going to have to get paid, and eventually he\u2019s going to have to get slaughtered by somebody \u2014 whoever they\u2019re trying to promote to get into the rankings,\u201d Buckley explained. \u201cSo that\u2019s why they\u2019re keeping Colby. At least Colby is keeping his name out there. He\u2019s keeping himself relevant. He\u2019s in the RAF. You\u2019ve got to do these things in order for people to recognize your name, but every time we hear about [Rakhmonov\u2019s] name, it\u2019s about something negative.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Assuming he returns at all. \u201cNot only did they knock him out of the rankings, but potentially they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,110261,102865,1396],"class_list":["post-473467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-310","tag-ufc-medical-suspensions","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}