{"id":250216,"date":"2025-10-30T14:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T14:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/250216\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T14:14:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T14:14:11","slug":"muhammad-mokaev-denies-bad-guy-label-ufc-tried-to-put-on-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/250216\/","title":{"rendered":"Muhammad Mokaev denies \u2018bad guy\u2019 label UFC tried to put on him"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been 15 months since Muhammad Mokaev was tossed out<\/a> of the UFC despite going 7-0 with the promotion, and the top flyweight is finally expressing some anger over the situation.<\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath of the UFC\u2019s very public announcement that they would not re-sign Mokaev following the conclusion of his contract, Mokaev was extremely suppliant. He denied speaking to other promotions, he offered to fight for free, and when that didn\u2019t work he still declared that getting back into the UFC was his top priority.<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite a lack of fresh contenders at 125 pounds, the UFC hasn\u2019t budged on the Mokaev position, and now \u201cThe Punisher\u201d is pushing back against their claims that he was \u2018hard to deal with.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m a bad guy, I\u2019m a hard guy to deal with, you don\u2019t keep that guy for seven fights in your organization,\u201d Mokaev told MMA Fighting.<\/a> \u201cYou kick him out straight away. I\u2019ve been renewed with a UFC contract twice while I was there with a better purse, of course. If I\u2019m a bad guy, straight away you kick him out. That\u2019s how it works.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not exactly sound reasoning. Mokaev was involved in multiple brawls<\/a> with Manel Kape leading up to his final fight with the promotion, including a situation where he lured Kape to a meeting \u2014 ostensibly so they could make peace \u2014 only to jump him.<\/a><\/p>\n

In today\u2019s UFC, that\u2019s not enough to get you fired. But \u201cPunisher\u201d committed the ultimate sin by fighting extremely safe and cautious, winning his last two UFC fights in an extremely boring way. After all the brawls, people expected fireworks with Kape. When the Mokaev vs. Kape fight was another dud, the UFC had enough.<\/p>\n

The UFC also accused Mokaev of trying to leverage<\/a> a move to PFL in negotiations for a new contract. Mokaev denied this<\/a> at the time, but now confirmed the PFL was interested.<\/p>\n

\u201cPFL said we don\u2019t want him but at the same time it wasn\u2019t true,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve got messages from PFL, too. They actually offered me to fight Patchy Mix for the belt. They offered me to step into the Grand Prix on short notice, 10 days, I accepted but I couldn\u2019t get a working visa on the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201dThat\u2019s what got me upset. I haven\u2019t done something that should put me in the media as a bad guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mokaev has gone 2-0 in MMA and 1-0 in Karate Combat since leaving the UFC, with two of those wins coming via finish. If there\u2019s anything that will earn him a path back into the UFC, it\u2019s more of those.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been 15 months since Muhammad Mokaev was tossed out of the UFC despite going 7-0 with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82],"class_list":["post-250216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}