Zabit Magomedsharipov vs Raul Rosas Jr

The strangest comebacks are the ones that refuse to call themselves comebacks.

Zabit Magomedsharipov, still one of the great unfinished arguments in modern MMA, is back in public competition on July 5 in Moscow. Not inside the UFC cage. Not in an MMA return dressed up as a rumor. A grappling match, against Raul Rosas Jr, after a silence that stretches all the way back to November 2019.

That detail matters because Zabit never left the way most fighters leave. He retired in 2022 with an 18-1 record, unbeaten in the UFC, and a highlight reel that made every featherweight conversation feel slightly incomplete. Now his brother Khasan says people may be startled by the condition Zabit has kept himself in, even after years spent mostly coaching and staying out of the frame.

Zabit Magomedsharipov Return

Zabit has been out of sight long enough for an entire wave of UFC fans to know him more as a myth than as a weekly threat. For those who watched the run, the memory is sharper: a featherweight who mixed length, trips, spins, scrambles and old-school composure in a way that never felt built from a gym manual. Then he was gone. No title shot, no final chase, no neat ending to file away.Khasan Magomedsharipov pulled the topic back into the open after his own fight at PFL San Diego. He had just returned from nearly two years away and needed only one round to submit Joshua Weems with an arm-triangle choke. Afterward, while speaking about Zabit’s upcoming grappling match, Khasan said his brother is in better condition than fans might expect and suggested he may even be beyond the level he carried during his active UFC years.

Why Raul Rosas Jr Is Not A Soft Pick

Rosas is not being used as a ceremonial opponent here. He is a current UFC name, a young grappler with real promotional visibility, and he brings a very different kind of pressure than an exhibition partner chosen to make the older star look polished. Zabit is the bigger historical name, but Rosas represents the present tense of the sport: fast, aggressive, raised in the era where teenagers study elite transitions before they can legally rent a car.

• Zabit Magomedsharipov is scheduled to face Raul Rosas Jr in a grappling-only match on July 5 in Moscow.
• The bout will be Zabit’s first public contest since November 2019.
• Zabit retired from MMA in 2022 at 18-1 after going unbeaten during his UFC run.
• Khasan Magomedsharipov says Zabit is in outstanding shape, while still insisting his brother is done with MMA.

Rosas Jr Grappling Test

The useful read here is not that Zabit is secretly mapping a UFC return. Khasan pushed against that idea, saying his brother is finished with MMA, though he left the door open for more grappling appearances if the right opportunities come along. That distinction is important. Grappling lets Zabit show timing, creativity and conditioning without stepping back into the full violence and schedule of a cage career he already chose to leave.For Rosas, the match is a different kind of opportunity. He gets an older, larger-name opponent whose aura was built before Rosas became a UFC storyline, and he gets him in a ruleset where one clean sequence can travel across the internet for days. If Rosas can make the exchanges ugly, crowd Zabit, and force extended defensive work, the night becomes more than a novelty booking. If Zabit looks fluid immediately, the old question returns with teeth: how much elite ability did MMA lose when he walked away?The featherweight rankings do not move from a Moscow grappling match, and the bantamweight ladder does not formally bend around it either. Still, fans and matchmakers watch these things. Conditioning after long inactivity, comfort under live resistance, and how Zabit handles a younger UFC grappler will say more than any training-room clip ever could.

Khasan’s own return at PFL San Diego sharpened the timing of the story: after almost two years away, he submitted Joshua Weems in the first round, then pointed attention toward his brother’s July 5 match in Moscow.