Muhammad Mokaev still doesn’t have his answer.
More than two years on from the night he beat Manuel Kape in Manchester, stretched his UFC winning streak to seven, and looked to be closing in on a flyweight title shot, the Russian-born Briton is still trying to understand how it all vanished in a few hours.
From title push to release in one night
On paper, UFC 304 should have been his launchpad. A unanimous decision over Kape, a highly regarded contender, pushed Mokaev deeper into the title conversation. Young, unbeaten in the promotion, and already handling seasoned names, he seemed to tick every box the UFC usually celebrates.
Then Dana White walked into the post-fight press conference and detonated the narrative: the UFC would not be re-signing Muhammad Mokaev.
The reaction was instant disbelief. Clips of Mokaev’s confrontations with Kape at the hotel and again at the weigh-ins started circulating as a ready-made explanation. The story quickly formed: he’d talked too much, pushed too far, behaved the wrong way.
Mokaev rejects that completely.
“If we talk about behaviour, right – if I'm a bad guy, why would you let me fight seven fights and renew my contract twice?” he told BBC Sport. “If I'm a bad guy in the company and organisation, they would cut me after one or two fights.”
He has his own theory.
‘They texted my manager: stop wrestling’
Mokaev arrived in Britain as a 12-year-old refugee and built himself into one of the most suffocating grapplers in the flyweight division. That same strength, he believes, helped push him out of the UFC.
He exploded onto the scene with a 58-second submission win in his debut. Then came a dominant unanimous decision over Charles Johnson. After that second fight, he says, the message from the promotion changed.
According to Mokaev, the UFC texted his manager: “he needs to stop wrestling – we don't want these decision guys”.
The numbers, he argues, don’t support the label.
“I have around a 60% finish rate in the UFC. Four out of seven fights were finishes against top guys,” he said. “I don't know what else I need to do to show them – I was 21 when I was fighting these veterans and now I'm much better and much stronger.
“From 21 to 23, I beat all these guys. Even Manuel Kape, and he is ranked number two right now. I really don't understand the politics. I really don't know. I wish I knew the full story behind everything.”
He never got that story. So he went back to work.
Eight fights, four ways to finish, still no call
You only need one glance at his schedule since July 2024 to see how he chose to respond. Few fighters on the planet have been more active. Eight bouts in two years. Different opponents, different stages, same mission: make himself impossible to ignore.
He has choked opponents. Folded them with body kicks. Swung high for head-kick knockouts. Finished with punches. Collected belts in Brave CF and ACBJJ along the way.
That kind of run usually drags a fighter back into the UFC conversation. This time, silence.
Matchmakers Hunter Campbell, Mick Maynard and Sean Shelby have not pulled the trigger. Mokaev is in a WhatsApp group with Campbell and Shelby, but he feels the target keeps shifting every time he gets close.
“Hunter made me a promise. They basically wasted two years of my life,” he said. “That's how I feel right now. I don't think what they are doing is right.”
The frustration is layered: not just the lack of a contract, but the type of offers that have come instead.
A BJJ offer, an insult, and a refusal
One proposal particularly stung. Mokaev says he was offered $10,000 to compete in UFC BJJ, a grappling event, against bantamweight champion Mikey Musumeci, a five-time world champion.
For a man who believes he belongs back on the UFC’s main stage, the fee felt like an insult. Still, he was prepared to take it on one condition: a UFC contract afterwards.
“They said, ‘no, this is different. BJJ is different. This is different. We have other plans.’ I told them where to go,” Mokaev said, admitting his reply to the UFC was laced with expletives.
Moments like that have shaped how he now handles his career.
He has turned away from long-term deals and locked himself into one-fight contracts. Freedom over security. Flexibility over guarantees. If the UFC door opens again, he wants to be able to walk through it immediately.
PFL interest and a waiting game at 125
Offers have come since 2024. Bigger money. Multi-fight packages. Stability. He has listened, but he has not fully committed.
One of the more serious approaches came from the Professional Fighters League, who want him to compete at bantamweight. The problem is simple: the PFL doesn’t currently run a men’s flyweight division.
Mokaev is a career 125er. Cutting down and dominating that class is his identity. Jumping to bantamweight is an option, not a preference.
He admits the equation might change if the PFL builds a flyweight bracket off the back of its merger with Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions in July. A 125-pound division, a clear path, real backing – that would be hard to ignore.
For now, he keeps moving, keeps fighting, keeps waiting.
“I want to stay active because I'm still young. I just turned 26 – most people start their careers at this age,” he said. “I'm going to do what's best for my family.”
Two years after his release, the record is stronger, the résumé deeper, the questions sharper. The only thing missing is the call that tells him whether his future lies back under the UFC lights or somewhere determined on his own terms.
