Zabit Magomedsharipov‘s UFC career remains one of the biggest “what-ifs” in the promotion’s history. He retired in June 2022 at the age of 31, still in his prime, with a perfect 6-0 record inside Dana White’s promotion. While about two weeks ago, it was announced that the Russian MMA star would make a return to grappling this year, sadly, the 35-year-old’s long-awaited comeback against a UFC star seven years after his last bout has now fallen apart.

On July 5 this week, the 35-year-old was all set to face young UFC bantamweight star Raul Rosas Jr. in a highly anticipated grappling, BJJ showdown at the Absolute Championship of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu 21 (ACBJJ 21) event in his home country of Russia. However, just before the matchup could take place, an injury has forced Zabit out of the contest, forcing his brother, Khasan Magomedsharipov, to step in as a short-notice replacement.

The former UFC fighter announced his withdrawal on his Instagram Story. Later, Red Corner MMA also reported Zabit’s withdrawal and confirmed that his brother would replace him in the bout against Rosas. 

As of now, Zabit Magomedsharipov hasn’t revealed what injury forced him out of his scheduled grappling bout. However, the Russian clearly suffered a setback serious enough to make him withdraw from his long-awaited comeback. Still, Zabit’s running into untimely injuries isn’t entirely surprising, as similar setbacks interrupted his UFC career on multiple occasions.

Among the most notable cases, the former UFC featherweight pulled out of his scheduled matchup against Yair Rodriguez back in 2018 because of an undisclosed injury. Following that, the Russian again withdrew from his fight against Calvin Kattar the next year for undisclosed reasons. However, the UFC later rescheduled the bout in November 2019, and Zabit went on to defeat Kattar via unanimous decision.

After that fight, Zabit Magomedsharipov had another scheduled matchup against Yair Rodriguez canceled, this time because the Mexican withdrew with an ankle injury. Soon after, the Russian revealed that he had been dealing with health issues and ultimately retired from the sport in 2022, with the 2019 bout against Kattar being his very last.

Because of his unceremonious departure from the sport, the MMA community eagerly anticipated seeing Zabit showcase his skills once again in a grappling match, which could have also signalled his return to MMA. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a little longer for that.

Zabit Magomedsharipov’s brother, Khasan, would face Raul Rosas Jr. at the ACBJJ event 

For those who don’t know, Zabit Magomedsharipov’s younger brother, Khasan, is also a professional MMA fighter and currently competes in the PFL. Just like his older brother, Khasan has showcased his dominance inside the cage, amassing a perfect 11-0 professional MMA record. However, most of those victories came under the Bellator banner before its merger with PFL.

Well, Khasan is definitely filling the shoes of his star brother rather quickly, as nobody has managed to hand him a defeat so far. However, he has also seen quite a few of his scheduled fights getting cancelled for various reasons. Even so, the 25-year-old recently defeated Joshua Weems at PFL San Diego, further proving that he’s one of the sport’s rising featherweight prospects.

As such, Zabit’s younger brother has stepped in on short notice to save the ACBJJ 21 headliner, and the rest of the marquee matchups on the card remain intact as well. Former UFC fighter Rinat Fakhretdinov will take on fellow ex-UFC fighter Armen Petrosyan. Also, ranked UFC middleweight contender Brendan Allen will grapple against Team Khabib’s Ramazan Kuramagomedov.

With that, the ACBJJ card still shapes up to be a stellar spectacle, even though one of its biggest names had to pull out. Now, it remains to be seen whether Zabit decides to return once again after he recovers from his existing injury.