Ex-UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub stirred massive controversy. During a recent episode of the Thiccc Boy podcast, ‘Big Brown’ claimed Muslim fighters shouldn’t be UFC champions, which drew instant disapproval from Islam Makhachev’s manager.

“It was pretty much cemented, signed, done deal,” Schaub said. “Islam was supposed to fight Carlos Prates in Toronto, January 30. And then all of a sudden, Islam goes, ‘Nope, Ramadan, I’m not gonna fight him.’ Now you know Dana bends the knee to Dagestanis. To Dagestanis he’s like, ‘It’s all good, you fight once a year’, but finally he’s had enough. Dana goes, ‘Cool, we’re doing an interim title fight.’

“They should’ve stripped his a–, but they still bend the knee to him. This is why you’ve got to be careful of crowning new champs when they’re from that origin; this is why. They fight once a year; it’s not enough, it’s not good. This is a huge issue; it’s the elephant in the room. This is why you can’t have champs of that religion; you can’t run a business off it.”

The former UFC heavyweight’s comments drew instant condemnation from Islam Makhachev’s manager, Ali Abdelaziz, who responded to Schaub on X.

“For many years, I’ve tried to help Brandon get a fair shot,” Abdelaziz said. “But hearing him say that Islam Makhachev doesn’t want him as champion because he’s Muslim is disgusting and uncalled for. I’m deeply disappointed by his words.”  

Brendan Schaub’s outrage remained centered on Islam Makhachev pulling out from the UFC 336 fight in January 2027. But the core of his argument was built on the UFC facing problems in its divisions because Muslim fighters often abstain from competing in Ramadan.

Many UFC fighters, like Islam Makhachev, are devout Muslims, and they often avoid fighting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which is going to start in February 2027. That creates a scheduling conflict for the promotion and the fighters as well, which can result in pullouts like Makhachev’s from UFC 336.

Schaub firmly believes this is the case with Makhachev as well, since he couldn’t fulfill his original plan to fight in January. However, the reason for the Dagestani’s withdrawal wasn’t particularly about Ramadan. He wanted to see who deserves to fight him between Carlos Prates and Michael Morales.

Makhachev’s approach drew criticism from the likes of Dana White, who said he cannot “hold up” divisions like that. Still, the criticism from the UFC CEO and others was based on the way the Dagestani stalled the division by forcing an interim title fight between Prates and Morales by not fighting in January.

Though Schaub’s argument could sound compelling to some, the way he chose his words hurt Makhachev’s manager, who didn’t shy away from showing it.

It also seems to be the first time Brendan Schaub, or anyone else associated with the UFC, has made such a statement about Muslim fighters.

Schaub’s remarks drew heavy criticism, and he finally issued a clarification.   

Brendan Schaub clarifies his controversial statement about Islam Makhachev and Muslim fighters 

Following such inflammatory comments, Brendan Schaub faced backlash from fans online. The fans were unsurprisingly not happy about how the ex-UFC heavyweight targeted Islam Makhachev and his religion. So, to avoid any further controversy, Schaub responded with a social media post and said his words were taken out of context.

“Oh boy. Here we go. This was a much larger point taken out of context,” Schaub wrote on X. “Religion isn’t the point; it could be a number of reasons a fighter isn’t active. My point was you can’t build stars if they’re not active. That’s it. My whole ‘rant’ was dumb because Islam is already a superstar. Move on.”

Schaub weakened his argument by bringing up Dagestani Muslim fighters and their Ramadan. Even the ex-UFC heavyweight himself called his rant “dumb.”

Also, he is not particularly a fan of Makhachev.

Previously, the ex-UFC heavyweight claimed Charles Oliveira and Alexander Volkanovski have better resumes than Makhachev before the Dagestani defended his 170 lbs belt at UFC 330 in August. His comparative analysis again wasn’t backed by the majority of the fans.

Now, with Brendan Schaub delivering perhaps his most polarizing take in recent times, it needs to be seen whether the controversy escalates further or dies down.