Farid Basharat is ranked among the top bantamweights in the sport with a perfect 15-0 record including six wins in the octagon but he\u2019s still risking everything going into his next fight at UFC 329 in July.<\/p>\n
Despite a flawless resume, the 28-year-old fighter is about to compete on the final fight of his current UFC contract and he knows there\u2019s a world where the promotion just opts not to sign him to a new deal. Obviously, Basharat hopes otherwise and he\u2019s just adding that onto the list of reasons he wants to win and then move onto higher ranked competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is going to be the last fight on my contract so I\u2019m hoping it does reward me,\u201d Basharat told MMA Fighting. \u201cI\u2019m hoping I go out there and have a good performance and then as it stands because [Sean] O\u2019Malley beat [Aiemann] Zahabi, I do have the longest win streak in the bantamweight division.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m hoping go out there, beat this guy and get rewarded with a new contract. Hopefully the next opponent is going to be a step up. That\u2019s the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fighting out a contract gives the UFC the option to offer a new deal or just cut ties with the athletes so nothing whatsoever is guaranteed for the future.<\/p>\n
Farid\u2019s brother Javid Basharat found that out the hard way after he won a fight over Gianni Vazquez back in February but the ultimately decided not to to offer him a new deal after he fought out his contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a gamble,\u201d Basharat told MMA Fighting. \u201cIf it were up to me, I\u2019d re-sign straight away because ultimately the UFC is where everybody wants to be. I love being here. I enjoy fighting here on this stage. The company has always been good to me. My goal was always to be the UFC champion and I feel like I\u2019m on my way. But it happened in a way where they wanted me to have this fight first to see.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut listen, here we are. July 11, I go out there on the biggest card of the year and one of the biggest cards of the year and have a great performance, I think I\u2019ll be undeniable to re-sign [to a new contract].\u201d<\/p>\n
Basharat says he has spoken about his future with his manager Ali Abdelaziz and he\u2019s confident winning at UFC 329 fixes everything for him moving forward.<\/p>\n
Originally scheduled to face rising star Ethyn Ewing until an injury knocked him off the card, Basharat now awaits word on a new opponent for his upcoming fight.<\/p>\n
The mission stays the same for Basharat, who was already out to prove something with his performance at UFC 329.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously I\u2019ve discussed it with [my manager] and ideally you want to re-sign as soon as possible,\u201d Basharat said. \u201cBut the way the timing happened, the UFC offered this fight and they said \u2018get this fight out of the way and then we can discuss.\u2019 For myself, I feel like I\u2019ve already proven I belong in the UFC. I have the longest win streak. They\u2019ve been tough guys. They\u2019ve been tough guys and now I\u2019m fighting another tough guy who many people are touting as the next contender or champion or superstar or whatever you will.<\/p>\n
\u201cI go out and [win], seven fight win streak, 16-0 before turning 29 even, surely you\u2019d think this is somebody the company would want to keep. I\u2019m hoping to go out there, have a great showing and re-sign to be honest with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ideally, Basharat wanted ranked competition but he was more than willing to accept the matchup against Ewing and the same goes for anybody else the UFC gives him.<\/p>\n
Rather than languish in frustration, Basharat is putting everything into his training camp to fight on one of the biggest cards of the year where he really hopes to make a splash.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy whole mentality is control what you can control,\u201d Basharat said. \u201cIf it\u2019s not in my hands, why worry about it?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Farid Basharat is ranked among the top bantamweights in the sport with a perfect 15-0 record including six…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-779680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779680","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=779680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}