Farid Basharat is 16-0. He is 7-0 in the UFC. He has been ranked as high as ninth at bantamweight. He no longer works there.
“The news is confirmed, I am no longer with the UFC,” Basharat said in a statement Thursday.
MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz first reported Wednesday that Basharat had not been offered a new contract after his July fight. His deal expired with that bout and nothing followed.
He Says He Was Never Even Asked
“I was never offered a contract or an opponent, I waited but it never came,” Basharat said.
His manager, Ali Abdelaziz, pushed for a new deal in August and got no positive response. Basharat says the UFC told him to wait until after the John Garza fight and then never followed up.
He beat Garza by unanimous decision at UFC 329 on July 11. He was ranked ninth in the division that day.
“It’s worth keeping me around. I think I tick all the boxes,” he told MMA Junkie.
The Record Is the Argument
Basharat, 29, is an Afghan-born British bantamweight from Paktia Province who fights out of London. He is 16-0 with one knockout, six submissions and nine decisions, and he entered the UFC off Dana White’s Contender Series in September 2022 with a decision over Allan Begosso.
His UFC run: Da’Mon Blackshear at UFC 285, Kleydson Rodrigues by arm-triangle choke, Taylor Lapilus, Victor Hugo at UFC 308, Chris Gutierrez at UFC 320, Jean Matsumoto by split decision in February, and Garza in July.
Six of those seven were decisions. That is the knock, and it is the only one available. He has never lost a professional fight.
This Is the Actual Problem
A promotion is entitled to let a contract expire. What it should not be able to do is let a top-10 fighter run out his deal without a conversation, which is what Basharat describes.
“My exit clearly has nothing to do with my fighting capabilities,” he said. He leaves, in his words, with a stainless record, and he claims he had the longest active win streak in his weight division and the fourth longest in the entire UFC. That last figure is his own and should be treated as his claim rather than established fact.
The UFC has not commented publicly.
It Happened to His Brother Too
Older brother Javid Basharat left the UFC earlier this year after the promotion declined to renew him following a February win over Gianni Vazquez. Javid has since signed with PFL.
Two brothers, two non-renewals, both coming off wins. Whether Farid follows Javid to PFL has not been reported.
No purse or contract figures exist in any reporting on either case, which is itself part of the story. Decision-heavy fighters do not sell pay-per-views, and the promotion’s compensation structure rewards finishes and personalities rather than records. A 16-0 fighter who wins on the cards is, in business terms, expensive and unmarketable at the same time.
What Happens Next
Basharat is 29 with a perfect record and a free market. PFL, which already has his brother, is the obvious destination, and the Global Fight League and Misfits operations have been buying UFC departures all year.
“I’m still young, the best is yet to come inshaAllah,” he said.
He is right about the age. The division he was ninth in will now crown a contender without him in it.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.