Muhammad Mokaev Won Two Titles After His UFC Cut

Muhammad Mokaev will not be in the cage when Joshua Van defends the UFC flyweight title on September 19. Van, 24, meets Alexandre Pantoja in a rematch in Los Angeles, three years after Mokaev looked like the 2000s-born fighter who would get there first.

Mokaev is 17-0 as a pro, with one no-contest, and he now holds two titles the UFC does not sanction. The promotion that released him after a 7-0 run still will not book him.

UFC 304 Was Mokaev’s Last Night on the Roster

On 27 July 2024 in Manchester, Mokaev beat Manel Kape by unanimous decision and moved to 7-0 inside the UFC. It was the last fight on his deal. Later that night Dana White, the UFC’s chief executive, said the contract would not be renewed “for many different reasons,” and added that “PFL is going to get a great undefeated guy.”

Mokaev, born in Buynaksk, Dagestan, on 30 July 2000, had signed with the UFC on 17 November 2021. He debuted on 19 March 2022 and submitted Cody Durden in 58 seconds. He finished four of seven UFC opponents, took Performance of the Night bonuses against Durden and Tim Elliott, and had his deal renewed twice. Only Demetrious Johnson (13) and Pantoja (8) had logged longer UFC flyweight win streaks than his seven.

The cut was sold, in part, as a character issue. Fight week with Kape had already gone ugly.

THE PILE-UP BEFORE THE PINK SLIP

• The hotel: Mokaev and Kape clashed at the fighter hotel in Manchester, days before UFC 304.
• The scale: They went at it again at the ceremonial weigh-ins and never managed a clean face-off.
• The style note: After the Charles Johnson decision in July 2022, Mokaev said the UFC texted his manager that he needed to stop wrestling because they did not want “these decision guy.”
• The PFL line: White pointed at the Professional Fighters League on the night of the cut. Mokaev said he had turned other offers down, and that PFL did not even run a men’s flyweight division.

Mokaev rejects the idea that behaviour was the real trigger. “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 said. “If I’m a bad guy in the company and organisation, they would cut me after one or two fights.”

He still does not have the full story. “I really don’t understand the politics. I really don’t know.”

Four Finishes and Two Titles Later

Since July 2024 he has competed eight times across MMA, karate rules, and grappling. He is 4-0 in MMA in that span, with a Brave CF flyweight title, a Karate Combat knockout, and an ACBJJ belt. He also lost two grappling matches, including a short-notice trip up to lightweight against Arman Tsarukyan.

EIGHT NIGHTS SINCE THE CUT

The MMA nights are the ones he wants the UFC to count. Joevincent So lasted 1:52 on two days’ notice at Brave CF 91. Gerard Burns was knocked out eight seconds into round two at Brave CF 100 in Isa Town, Bahrain, and Mokaev left as the inaugural Brave CF flyweight champion. Jorge Calvo was finished in 42 seconds in Madrid. Thomas Assis went the distance at bantamweight in Dubai.

Amateur MMA adds another 23 wins and no losses. Across amateur and pro MMA he is unbeaten in 40 fights, with the one no-contest on the Brave CF 51 card in 2021. He is 5 ft 7 in, fights at 125 pounds, and lists a 70-inch reach. The Punisher nickname has followed him from Manchester gyms to Bahrain and back.

On 30 August in Istanbul he beat Moris Boleyan by unanimous decision in a nine-minute no-gi match at 132 pounds and became ACBJJ champion. He then posted a video aimed at White. “Dana said two years ago, ‘He can become champion somewhere else.’ I became BRAVE CF champion, I became ACBJJ champion,” he said, tagging the UFC boss and adding that he was “taking over the 125 division outside the UFC.”

Dana said two years ago, ‘He can become champion somewhere else.’ I became BRAVE CF champion, I became ACBJJ champion, I won 5 fights, 4 finishes within two years, staying busy, staying active and showing the world why I’m the best flyweight in the world.

Muhammad Mokaev, after ACBJJ 22 in Istanbul

That “5 fights, 4 finishes” line was his MMA-and-karate tally before the jiu-jitsu title. The ACBJJ win was a sixth victory outside the UFC, and it went to the judges. The two grappling losses sit on the same ledger, and one of them now sits on the UFC 331 poster.

Why the UFC Still Will Not Re-Sign Mokaev

Mokaev says he is in a WhatsApp group with UFC executive Hunter Campbell and matchmaker Sean Shelby. Mick Maynard, the other matchmaker on the flyweight beat, is in the same orbit. That has not produced a contract. “Hunter made me a promise. They basically wasted two years of my life,” Mokaev said. “That’s how I feel right now. I don’t think what they are doing is right.”

After the 42-second win in Madrid he wrote that Campbell had promised to reopen talks once he landed a couple of finishes, and that he now had four finishes in five fights since the cut. The phone still did not ring with an offer he would sign.

THE UFC RELATIONSHIP AFTER 304

1. 27 July 2024: Beats Kape in Manchester. White says there will be no new deal.
2. 24 August 2024: Re-signs with Brave Combat Federation, the promotion he left for the UFC.
3. 7 November 2025: Wins the inaugural Brave CF flyweight title. Mokaev later said Campbell and Maynard wished him luck before the fight and congratulated him after it.
4. 9 February 2026: Posts that UFC BJJ has offered him Mikey Musumeci for a belt.
5. 6 June 2026: Stops Calvo in 42 seconds and publicly asks Campbell to honour the finishes promise.
6. 30 August 2026: Wins the ACBJJ title and reminds White he became champion somewhere else.
7. 19 September 2026: Van vs Pantoja 2 headlines UFC 331. Mokaev is not on the card.

White’s original explanation mixed style and “behind the scenes” trouble that started at the UFC Performance Institute and ran through fight week. Mokaev’s counter is the record. “I have around a 60% finish rate in the UFC. Four out of seven fights were finishes against top guys,” he said. Four of seven is the count. He was 21 when that run started and 23 when it ended. He is 26 now, and he says Kape is ranked number two. “From 21 to 23, I beat all these guys.”

A 7-0 flyweight with two Performance bonuses is the kind of fighter promotions usually keep. The UFC kept other names through losing streaks in the same window and let this one walk. Winning was never the whole test. The people who make the matches never wanted him back on the list.

The Musumeci Offer Stopped at $10,000

The only concrete UFC offer Mokaev describes since the cut was not an MMA fight. It was UFC BJJ, the promotion’s submission league, against bantamweight champion Mikey Musumeci, a five-time world champion. The fee was $10,000 (£7,399). He called it insulting. He still said he would take it if an MMA contract came with the bout.

It did not. “They said, ‘no, this is different. BJJ is different. This is different. We have other plans.’ I told them where to go,” Mokaev said, and he has said that reply had several expletives in it.

He had already floated the bout in public on 9 February, asking fans what they thought of a UFC BJJ title fight with Musumeci.

I have been offered to compete against Mikey Mussumeci for the UFC BJJ belt

What do you think guys? 🙂

— Muhammad Mokaev (@muhammadmokaev) February 9, 2026

That is the irony in miniature. The promotion that complained he wrestled too much later dangled a grappling title at a pay rate he treated as a joke, then refused to attach the MMA deal that would have made the joke worth swallowing. He is a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Musumeci is a specialist in a different sport. The pairing was never a flyweight title path. It was a side door with no house behind it.

UFC 331 and the Belt That Got Away

Van became the first UFC champion born in the 2000s when he stopped Pantoja at 0:26 of round one at UFC 323 on 6 December 2025, after Pantoja hurt his arm in an early exchange. Van was 24. Mokaev, born 15 months earlier in 2000, had been the prospect that timeline was written around after he signed in 2021. Van then made a first defense, a fifth-round TKO over Tatsuro Taira at UFC 328 in May. Saturday is the second defense, and a proper five-round argument with the man he beat in 26 seconds.

The Crypto.com UFC 331 fight card returns to Crypto.com Arena on 19 September, the promotion’s first numbered show in Los Angeles since UFC 227 in August 2018. Pantoja, 36, is 30-6. He defended the flyweight title four times against Brandon Royval, Steve Erceg, Kai Asakura, and Kai Kara-France, and he is trying to become the third flyweight to reclaim the belt, after Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo. Van is 17-2 overall and 10-1 in the UFC. He has since matched Mokaev’s seven-fight UFC flyweight win streak on the way to the belt Mokaev never got to fight for.

THE TWO 17-WIN FLYWEIGHTS

• Mokaev: 17-0 (1 NC), 7-0 in the UFC, two titles outside the promotion, age 26, not on the card.
• Van: 17-2, 10-1 in the UFC, first champion born in the 2000s, age 24, defends on Saturday.
• Pantoja: 30-6, eight-fight flyweight streak before the 26-second loss, four successful defenses in the last reign.
• Tsarukyan: Co-main event at UFC 331 against Mauricio Ruffy. In March he submitted Mokaev in a grappling match in Brazil after Mokaev moved up three weight classes on two days’ notice.

Tsarukyan fighting in Los Angeles on the same night is a small, sharp detail. The lightweight who strangled Mokaev in a crossover match gets five rounds on Paramount+. The unbeaten flyweight does not. Van did the things the UFC pays for. He beat Royval in a war, finished Taira late, and took the belt when Pantoja’s arm gave out. None of that erases the other 2000s-born flyweight sitting at home with two belts and a 7-0 UFC file.

PFL Has Money but No Flyweight Belt

Mokaev has been taking one-fight deals rather than long contracts, because a multi-fight pact would make a UFC return harder. He says more lucrative offers have been on the table since 2024, including from PFL, but PFL still does not run a men’s 125-pound division. The offer he has seen is at bantamweight. He would look harder at it if PFL added flyweight after its merger with Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions in July.

White’s goodbye line in Manchester already pointed him at PFL. Two years later that league still cannot give him the weight class he actually fights in. He has stayed busy anyway, because idle 26-year-olds do not get called. “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.”

He moved to Britain at 12 with his father after his mother died, spent time in a Liverpool refugee centre on £5 a day, then settled in Wigan. He became a UK citizen in 2021. The wrestling base was built at Manchester Wrestling Club. The MMA base was built cleaning mats for gym time. The UFC gave him the platform, then took the platform away, and he has spent the gap collecting belts in Bahrain and Istanbul instead of title shots in Las Vegas.

He Turns 26 With the Same Title Ambition

He still talks as if the octagon is a delayed appointment. “The way I’m going to compete and keep winning, eventually they’re going to send me there,” he said. “Back then I said, ‘the best fight the best.’ But it doesn’t matter what happens with the situation, I think I’m the best flyweight in the world and I deserve to fight the best.”

On Saturday the best flyweight the UFC will recognise walks out in Los Angeles with the belt. The best flyweight Mokaev believes he is will be somewhere else, 17-0, two titles heavier, and still waiting on a WhatsApp message that turns into a contract.