Dana White suggested there\u2019s more than meets the eye when it comes to Farid Basharat no longer being on the UFC roster.<\/p>\n
The undefeated Basharat made headlines this week when MMA Fighting reported he was a free agent<\/a> following the completion of his UFC contract. Basharat\u2019s departure raised eyebrows due to his 16-0 record, including seven UFC victories. However, Basharat also secured just one finish during his time in the promotion, which led to theories that his style might not have been considered exciting enough in the eyes of officials.<\/p>\n Following Saturday\u2019s UFC Edmonton event, UFC DEO Dana White was asked about the Basharat situation and alluded to issues beyond in-cage performance and contract numbers.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that when guys\u2019 contracts are up\u2014I mean, this is the first time this has happened\u2014either guys aren\u2019t good to deal with and the matchmakers don\u2019t want to deal with them, which could be turning down fights or whatever the reasoning is,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re 16-0, with seven wins in the UFC and don\u2019t get re-signed, there\u2019s definitely a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n White didn\u2019t elaborate on the reason for Basharat not being re-signed, nor were there any follow-up questions on the topic.<\/p>\n Earlier this week, Basharat released his own statement on his departure, writing, \u201cMy departure clearly has nothing to do with my fighting capabilities. Unfortunately the organization just isn\u2019t what it used to be. They\u2019re heading in a different direction from what we all grew up loving.\u201d<\/p>\n Basharat\u2019s brother Farid (4-2, 1 NC in the UFC) also parted ways with the UFC this year following a win over Gianni Vazquez.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first time White has made cryptic comments regarding a highly touted fighter not being brought back to the UFC. Undefeated flyweight Muhammad Mokaev was allowed to walk in 2024 after a lackluster win over top contender Manel Kape, and when White was asked why Mokaev was let go, he said, \u201cThere was so much bad shit that happened behind the scenes.\u201d<\/a> Mokaev had been involved in several altercations with Kape before their fight at UFC 304.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dana White suggested there\u2019s more than meets the eye when it comes to Farid Basharat no longer being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":932830,"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-932829","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\/932829","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=932829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/932830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=932829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=932829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=932829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}