Yair Rodriguez Touches On Zabit Magomedsharipov’s Retirement: “It’s Sad We Never Got To Fight”

Yair Rodriguez has a few things to say about Zabit Magomedsharipov’s recent retirement from the sport. 

Magomedsharipov recently decided he would take his talents to the medical field and leave MMA in the rearview mirror. He last competed against Calvin Kattar back in 2019, but issues with COVID and a few other things forced the Russian to stay inactive. 

Magomedsharipov only had one professional loss in his whole professional career back in 2014. He posted on Instagram to announce his retirement from the sport. Many fans had believed that Magomedsharipov was next up to be a world champion, as he had everything one could want in his bag of skills. He was a fantastic grappler, to go along with an extraordinary striking skillset.

Yair Rodriguez & Magomedsharipov never settled their bad blood inside the octagon – and it looks like the rivalry matchup will never happen

It would have been a fantastic fight to watch and could have gone down as a potential ‘Fight of the Year’ candidate, but with Magomedsharipov’s retirement, it will go on the long list of “dream fights” that never happened.

Rodriguez didn’t hold back on what he thought about Magomedsharipov’s retirement:

“Well, I thought he was already retired. So, I wasn’t surprised when I hear like, he officially retired… It’s sad that we never get to fight each other. There was a lot of things between him and I that was said.” Rodriguez said (Transcribed by BJPenn.com).

The two were scheduled to fight a few times, but Rodriguez was forced out with injuries. Rodriguez holds no ill will towards Magomedsharipov in his retirement and pursues in the medical field.

“But I don’t have any bad feelings towards the guy. I wish him the best. I hope he’s healthy. I hope everything’s going well in his life. It’s just sad that we never got to settle what we have.”