Zabit Magomedsharipov competed again after seven years, and beat a ranked UFC featherweight
Zabit Magomedsharipov had not competed since 2019 and formally retired from MMA in 2022. On Saturday in Istanbul he beat Youssef Zalal, a ranked UFC featherweight, by unanimous decision. It was a grappling match, not a fight, and that distinction is the whole story.
- Fight Hub
- 31 August 2026
Key takeaways
- Zabit Magomedsharipov beat Youssef Zalal by unanimous decision in a grappling match at ACBJJ 22, at the Ora Arena in Istanbul, on August 30.
- It was his first competition of any kind since beating Calvin Kattar in 2019. He formally retired from MMA in 2022 after a run of cancelled bookings.
- Zalal was ranked eighth at UFC featherweight as of the April 28 rankings update, and is active in the division.
Zabit Magomedsharipov won on points, on the mats
What actually happened
The headlines around this need reading carefully. Magomedsharipov did not return to MMA. He competed in a submission grappling match on the ACBJJ 22 card at the Ora Arena in Istanbul, under jiu-jitsu rules, and won a unanimous decision over Youssef Zalal.
No cage, no strikes, no round in which seven years of ring rust would be exposed the way a fight exposes it. That is not a criticism of the performance, it is the frame it belongs in.
Why the opponent matters anyway
Zalal is not a ceremonial name. He was ranked eighth at UFC featherweight in the division’s April 28 update and is actively competing there. Beating a ranked, in-form fighter on the mats after seven years away is a real result, whatever the ruleset.
The safest reading is the narrow one: on the single terrain where inactivity costs least, a man who has not competed since 2019 was still better than a top-ten UFC featherweight over a full match.
Seven years, and a career that stopped without an ending
He left at the top, then nothing
Magomedsharipov’s last fight was a win over Calvin Kattar in November 2019. He was 18-1, unbeaten in the UFC, and widely treated as the most creative featherweight in the division. Then the bookings stopped arriving, or arrived and collapsed, one after another. He formally retired in 2022 without ever getting the title fight everyone assumed was coming.
That is the part this result speaks to, and he addressed it himself in a line that is harder than it looks: “I have no regrets about leaving the sport and not winning anything.”
What he did not say
He did not announce an MMA return. No promotion has said anything, no date exists, and reading a comeback into a grappling match would be inventing one.
What the match does establish is that he is training, competing, and willing to be measured against current UFC fighters in public. That is more than has been true of him at any point since 2019.
I have no regrets about leaving the sport and not winning anything.
The same weekend, he had something to say about Shanghai
A verdict on the biggest upset of the week
Magomedsharipov also weighed in on Song Yadong’s knockout of Umar Nurmagomedov at UFC Shanghai the night before, calling it a lucky punch. Coming from a fighter with his own history in that division, it is a claim worth reporting and worth resisting.
The punch was a right uppercut landed on a level change, in the second round, by a man whose camp had prepared specifically for that wrestling. That is a read, not a lottery ticket. Song’s team even called the finish in advance.
What to watch next
Two things, and only two. Whether Magomedsharipov books anything else, in grappling or otherwise, because one match after seven years is a data point and two is a direction. And whether any promotion says his name out loud, which nobody has yet.
Until then, the honest summary is the boring one: he competed, he won, it was grappling, and he says he regrets nothing.
Follow the featherweights with real numbers
Zabit Magomedsharipov’s full record, Youssef Zalal’s fight history and the current featherweight rankings are all in the FightHub app. Download it to see where the division stands.
