Stephen Thompson reveals why he will not accept the Shavkat Rakhmonov fight: ‘Give me a striker’

Stephen Thompson is not keen on taking on the rising prospect Shavkat Rakhmonov.

Having remained out of action since his last outing against Belal Muhammad in Dec. 2021, Stephen Thompson got paired up with undefeated Rakhmonov for his return to action. After the loss, Thompson had been in recovery from a collarbone injury he sustained in training but now looks set to step inside the cage before the end of the year.

Stephen Thompson reveals why he does not want to fight Shavkat Rakhmonov

The UFC expressed interest in booking Thompson with Rakhmonov, for the promotion’s highly anticipated return to Madison Square Garden in New York, on the main card of UFC 281, scheduled for Nov. 12. Coming off two losses in a row to grappling specialists, the prolific striker revealed he would not be accepting another similar stylistic matchup.

“The UFC was talking about maybe Shavkat, he just beat Neil Magny. I was like look, ‘UFC, give me someone that is going to want to strike with me.’ I haven’t turned down the last two guys who are grapplers, one of the top grapplers in the welterweight division, didn’t turn him down,” Thompson said via BJPENN.com. “I was like ‘give me a striker.’ We were looking at Li Jingliang but he’s got a fight coming up, Kevin Holland, we were going to take that one but I wanted the Madison Square Garden card and he wanted to fight a little sooner.”

Although the promotion was pushing for the showdown, “Wonderboy” believes that it does not make sense for him to face a grappler for a third consecutive time and argued the fans want him in an exciting striking battle.

“Not at all. It doesn’t make sense for me to face another heavy grappler. Let me work on my craft a little more, especially when it comes to wrestling,” Thompson added. “They were pushing it, but it just doesn’t make sense, the fans didn’t want to see it either. They are like ‘dude, give Stephen a striker, someone who is going to strike with him.’ It is what it is, that is not a fight that interests me at this point.”

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