One of the most exciting fighters in combat sports has revealed he is turning his back on MMA after rejecting an offer from the UFC.
Two-time GLORY Kickboxing light heavyweight champion Artem Vakhitov, who has been testing the waters in professional mixed martial arts over the past two years, announced today that he is set to return to the ring on June 14 to face Rico Verhoeven at GLORY 100.
Vakhitov picked up three wins inside the cage in 2024, the last of which came against Islem Masraf on Dana White's Contender Series (DWCS) in October. The Russian appeared to be on his way to the UFC, but during an appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show this week, he revealed that there has been a change of plans.
“It’s kind of a big fight, which we wanted from 2017,” Vakhitov told Helwani through a translator. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t reach an agreement with UFC because they have their own protocol, but we still have good relations with them, so that’s it.
“Now we’re announcing a big fight against Rico Verhoeven. I think Rico doesn’t need to be (introduced) because he’s well known and, for sure, we wanted this fight a long time ago. For me, it’s a good opportunity to become a double champion, and it was in my mind a very long time ago.”
Vakhitov Reveals Reason For Rejecting UFC Offer
Vakhitov first won the GLORY light heavyweight title in 2016 and successfully defended the belt multiple times before being dethroned by future UFC champion Alex Pereira in 2021. He avenged that loss in an immediate rematch and watched as "Poatan" made his UFC debut just two months later.
After shining in his appearance on DWCS in October, it seemed almost certain that Vakhitov would follow in the Brazilian's footsteps and sign with the UFC. However, the 33-year-old says that once he sat down to negotiate with the organization, the juice simply wasn’t worth the squeeze.
“UFC always works off a standard contract after 'Dana White’s Contender Series,'” Vakhitov said. “Unfortunately, we could not reach an agreement, or there were some things couldn’t agree on. When we got an offer (from GLORY) and we saw the news that all the Russian fighters are coming back to GLORY, we got an offer to fight against Rico and probably the possibility to become a double champion, we agreed very easily. And for sure, for good money, why not?
"I'm not so disappointed about the UFC, but we are not out on it. Why not in the future? Now we are mostly focused on the upcoming fight, so it's more important for us for now. I just got to have some satisfaction from the MMA classes — from wrestling, from grappling, from all this stuff — but it was also a good experience for me trying MMA, so we see how it's going now".
