No Zabit thread?

[Kymus]

Gene must be slipping in his old age

Zabit Magomedsharipov is a Sanda and Sambo (and a whole bunch of other things according to Wikipedia) fighter who is the #5 ranked featherweight (145lbs) fighter in the UFC with a record of 17-1 (5-0 in the UFC). Despite his Russian heritage, he bears striking similarity to Abraham Lincoln . Like many greats, Zabit attended a martial arts boarding school at a young age, training with Gusein Magomaev (who as I understand it, was trained in China) for around 10 years. Zabeast, as he is sometimes called among fans, is a wrecking machine in the octagon, delivering heavy pressure to his opponents from his arsenal of kicks and when it gets in close he's shown to be very good at clinch work or just sending his opponents to the ground via hip throws or leg sweeps where he submits them with his sambo. His long frame really helps him, I'm sure. He's tall; especially for this division. Many feel that he's a future champion and he's likely 1 - maybe 2 tops - fights away from the title with his next fight being against Calvan Kattar in Russia on Nov 6. Zabit trains in Russia most of the year and when preparing for a fight he trains with Mark Henry (coach of former UFC champions Frankie Edgar and Eddie Alvarez) in New Jersey.

Here's some media I pulled mostly from YouTube with the exception of this link from the Sherdog forum that talks some about the boarding school he stayed at for 10 years.

Here is a video of his last fight against Jeremy Stephens (a fighter that some consider to be a real litmus test to the upper echelon of the featherweight division). His performance wasn't in typical spin-and-smash Zabit style as it turns out he broke his hand just before the fight. Commentary is in Russian; you're not likely to find one with english commentary on YouTube since UFC is retentive as hell about IP and stuff.

Some highlights from two of his UFC fights where Zabit is doing typical Zabit things

This is a good video from a YouTuber MixedMollyWhoppery who does commentary on MMA, Zabit, The Master and the Shaolin of Dagestan, talking about Zabit's life growing up and why he's such a badazz

A shorter video from MindSmash talking about Zabit being the Zabeast that he is: "The Best Fighter They've Ever Seen" | Zabit's Hidden Footwork In MMA

A short, 3min promo video of Zabit from the UFC

and lastly, Zabit's interview with MMA journalist Ariel Helwani. He's joined by a fellow fighter and translator as well as his manager (who can't stop talking)

Zabit's chances at UFC gold are rough, but still very possible. Later this year the current champion (Max Holloway) will be facing Alexander Volkanovski who is a training partner of the recent UFC champion Israel Adesanya and despite Max being a killer, many feel that he may meet his match in Volkanovski. Whether Zabit has to face Holloway or Volkanovski, both will be a tough fight but he's got some real gifts and his career in the UFC is only just beginning, so it's really not a matter of if he wins the title, but when; outside of the two mentioned, I don't think anyone else in that division will give Zabit much trouble.

His wikipedia page says that outside of MMA, he's a multiple-time Sanda champion (4x Russian champion, 1x European champion, and 1x world cup winner)

This guy is something really special