One of the most anticipated UFC debuts from last year’s season of “Dana White’s Contender Series” won’t actually happen.
In a shocking turn of events, Russian striker Artem Vakhitov has turned down an offer to fight in the UFC following his first-round finish win over Islem Masraf last October. He will instead return to the sport of kickboxing, recently inking a deal to face long-time GLORY Heavyweight Champion Rico Verhoeven at the promotion’s 100th numbered event on June 14th.
The reason for Vakhitov’s sudden shift away from an MMA career was strictly financial. The 33-year-old recently explained that the offer UFC made to him following a win on the “Contender Series” wasn’t as much as he’d hoped, causing him to turn down the offer.
“Unfortunately, when it came time to finalize the UFC contract, it became clear that the UFC has strict policies for fighters coming through DWCS,” Vakhitov told MMA Fighting’s Damon Martin recently. “Under their protocols, they were only able to offer me the standard contract given to all DWCS signings. My team tried to negotiate, but the UFC’s rules left no room for adjustments. I want to be clear that I don’t take issue with their approach—I respect their structure. But I am a prizefighter, and I have a family to support. I have a limited window to make the most of my career.”
Vakhitov’s management described their meetings with the UFC as “respectful” and claimed that a potential run in the promotion could be explored sometime in the future. “The doors are not closed,” Andrey Busygin said.
Vakhitov aimed to join a recent lineage of kickboxers who parlayed their success within the sport into a UFC career. Israel Adesanya, Alex Pereira, and Cesar Almeida had all found notoriety in the sport before joining the promotion in recent years.
Much like the arrival of other GLORY names, Vakhitov’s presence in MMA garnered a fair amount of interest. Many fantasy-booked a trilogy between the Russian stand-out and Pereira, as the duo had both earned a win over the other during a pair of 2021 meetings.
In fact, Pereira was in attendance when Vakhitov scored his “Contender Series” win last year, a victory which many assumed would lead him to a first UFC fight.
While UFC’s market dominance means that few fighters can find a better deal elsewhere, Vakhitov joins a small yet growing list of high-level combat sports athletes who have recently passed on an offer with the promotion to pursue another opportunity they deem more lucrative.
In 2024, former Cage Warriors champion Paul Hughes opted to ink a contract with the PFL, whom he claims had provided a better offer than the UFC. Later that year, two-division KSW champion Salahdine Parnasse reached a new agreement with the top Polish promotion, claiming that he had also gone where the better offer was financially.
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