Rashid Vagabov started talking 10 minutes into his fight against Paulo da Silva on Tuesday.
He went straight toward UFC CEO Dana White’s table after the second round of his opening flyweight fight at DWCS 84 at the UFC Apex and had some things to say. Then he had to put in another five minutes of work, after which he had some more things to say.
When Vagabov (14-2) left the cage with a 30-27 scorecard sweep over da Silva (11-2), the 7-1 betting favorite stopped and told UFC matchmaker Mick Maynard some things, too, about his potential.
Then Vagabov, a student of former UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, who is an all-time White favorite in many respects, had to wait four more fights to find out his fate – only to have to sit next to his fellow winning fighters and find out White thought he was good, but was not nearly impressed enough to bring him into the UFC. And after that, all four of the other winners on the show got deals while he had to sit back and watch their exuberance, then hear more from White about how talking a big game better lead to big results.
Check out the uncomfortable moment right out of the chute in the DWCS 84 post-fight contract conversation between White, Laura Sanko and the winning fighters above.
