Muhammad Mokaev pushed back on October 18 against Dana White’s explanation for why Farid Basharat was not re-signed by the UFC. The unbeaten former UFC flyweight rejected the promotion’s reasoning and pointed instead at its financial partners, giving American fans a rare, on-the-record look at how fighters themselves read the business side of the UFC’s new TV deal.
A blunt reaction on social media
On X on October 18 at 6:42 p.m. ET (3:42 p.m. PT), Mokaev responded to comments Dana White made following UFC Edmonton. “They can’t give a reason. Only thing they gotta say is the matchmakers can’t deal with him,” he wrote, calling it a “total bullshit answer.” He then named who he holds responsible: “Still I don’t blame Dana, I blame Paramount and TKO.”
Dana White stays vague on the Basharat case
At the UFC Edmonton post-fight press conference on October 17, Dana White listed several general reasons a winning fighter might not be re-signed: friction with the athlete, matchmaking disagreements, or declined bouts. He did not say which of those applied to Basharat and did not name any opponent Basharat allegedly turned down. Pointing to matchmakers is a familiar move for White. In September, he used the same explanation for Michael Page’s exit, a 5-1 UFC run, saying flatly that “the matchmakers make the decisions on who stays and who goes, and they didn’t want to re-sign him.”
A perfect record that wasn’t enough
Farid Basharat’s UFC contract expired after his decision win over John Garza on July 11, 2026. The promotion has not offered him a new deal since, despite a 16-0 professional record that includes seven wins under the UFC banner. In a video posted October 18, Basharat denied turning down opponents or causing problems with staff, and invited UFC employees to speak to his conduct themselves. His record includes a decision win over French bantamweight Taylor Lapilus on January 13, 2024; Lapilus has since moved to the PFL.
The Page case, a precedent fans keep citing
Page’s situation keeps coming up in the comparison. All six of his UFC fights went the distance, for a 5-1 record with his only loss to Ian Machado Garry. After wins over Kevin Holland and Shara Magomedov, the UFC matched him with lesser-known opponents, Sam Patterson and then Nursulton Ruziboev, before dropping him from the rankings-eligible list. Jake Paul of MVP and bare-knuckle promoter David Feldman have both since said they want to sign him. Like Basharat, Page never lost his UFC run on a finish, a pattern critics now point to when they argue the promotion is quietly favoring finishers over win columns built on decisions.
Mokaev went through the same exit two years ago
Mokaev has lived this before. His own UFC contract ran out after a unanimous decision win over Manel Kape in Manchester on July 27, 2024, which pushed his promotional record to 7-0. The UFC chose not to re-sign him at the time, citing matchmakers’ concerns about a style built heavily around wrestling and grappling, the same kind of decision-heavy profile now cited in Basharat’s case. That departure happened more than a year before the new Paramount broadcast deal was announced, a gap that argues against drawing a direct line between the two situations, even as Mokaev himself now draws that connection publicly.
A $1.1 billion-a-year Paramount deal in the background
TKO, the UFC’s parent company, announced a seven-year U.S. broadcast deal with Paramount on August 11, 2025, worth 7.7 billion dollars total, or an average of 1.1 billion dollars a year starting in 2026. The deal ended the UFC’s longtime pay-per-view model with ESPN: numbered events and Fight Nights now stream on Paramount+ at no extra cost to subscribers, with select cards also airing on CBS. That financial arrangement is what Mokaev blames for the UFC’s recent roster decisions, rather than any call made personally by Dana White. Neither TKO nor Paramount has commented on his remarks so far, and the UFC has not announced a next step for Basharat, who remains a free agent as of this writing. The current bantamweight and flyweight rankings, the two divisions Basharat and Mokaev competed in, are available on the UFC rankings page.
