Who is Shavkat Rakhmonov?
Shavkat Rakhmonov is one of the biggest up-and-coming prospects in all of MMA and is hoping to continue his 100% finishing streak this weekend in the 16th fight of his professional career against Neil Magny (26-9), let us take a dive into the professional record and finishing streak of Shavkat.
The early years of Shavkat Rakhmonov
Uzbekistan born Shavkat Rakhmonov debuted as a professional on October 17, 2014, against Adam Tsurov (2-1) at M-1 Challenge 52. Shavkat locked up the triangle choke early in the first round and moved to 1-0 as a professional. Shavkat would alternate between fighting under the M-1 banner and his local MMA promotion, KZMMAF. Only 1.5 months later, he took his 2nd professional fight against Marcus Vinicios (10-7) where he won by TKO with 2 seconds left in the first round. In May of 2015, he was matched up with submission artist Bartosz Chyrek (4-1 with all finishes by submission) and wasted no time scoring his second KO in 2:51 of the very first round. Continuing to stay active, only 2 months later he faced Michał Wiencek (5-2) and scored another submission win, this time by guillotine choke in 49 seconds.
A little over one year later he faced Adil Boranbayev (12-3-1), his biggest test to date, a well-rounded knockout artist with 7 of his wins coming by KO/TKO. Shavkat fought a smart fight and entered the second round for this first time in his career. With only 9 seconds left in the round, he got the tap by rear-naked choke and moved to 5-0. Again, only one month later, he faced Marcelo Brito (13-7), another well-rounded submission artist who had never been finished as a professional, at 1:37 of round 1, Shavkat landed a huge liver shot that shut down the body of Brito and got his hand raised with his 3rd TKO win.
Two months later, Shavkat faced future UFC fighter, Jun Yong Park (3-2), who pushed him into a second round for the second time in his career, but that did not slow down Shavkat as he sunk in the rear-naked choke at 1:51 of round 2 and now moved to 7-0 with 4 submissions and 3 KO/TKOs. After a much-deserved hiatus for a year and a half, he faced Levan Solodovnik (5-1) where he locked in his second triangle choke submission at 4:42 of round 2.
Three months later, Shavkat was offered his first regional title shot at KZMMAF: Battle of Nomads 10, where he completed a full 12-week training camp for the toughest test of his career against Faridun Odilov (7-1-2). Odilov took Shavkat the latest of any fight so far, but at 3:03 of round 3 Shavkat scored his fourth KO/TKO win and secured the vacant KZMMAF Welterweight Championship. After a couple months off and another full training camp, Shavkat defended his KZMMAF title against Rinat Sayakbaev (10-4-1) after dominating Sayakbaev for the entire first round leaving him unable to continue into round 2.
In March of 2019, Shavkat was offered another title shot, this time under the M-1 banner against Daniil Prikaza (10-3-1) for the vacant M-1 Welterweight Championship at M-1 Challenge 101 and moved his KO/TKO streak to 3 at 2:20 of the second round to secure his second regional title. Three months later, an M-1 title defense was set up against tough veteran Tiago Varejão (28-6-1) who had scored 16 wins by KO/TKO throughout his career and had never lost by way of KO/TKO, but Shavkat changed that at 4:50 of round one when he knocked him out to retain the M-1 Welterweight Championship and now had eyes on him from Dana White and the UFC.
Shavkat Rakhmonov enters the UFC
Shavkat signed with the UFC at the beginning of 2020, but due to the pandemic was unable to fight until October of that year. Originally scheduled to face Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos at UFC 254 in his debut, Elizeu pulled out at the end of September due to injury and was replaced with Alex Oliveira (22-8-1) on short notice.
Due to the short training camp, Alex missed weight by 2lbs, but Shavkat did not let the weight advantage get in the way as he scored the guillotine choke submission at 4:40 of the first round. In his second fight with the promotion, Shavkat faced 14-fight UFC veteran Michel Prazeres (26-3) and secured the rear-naked choke submission at 2:10 of the second round moving him to 14-0. After another well-deserved hiatus, Shavkat faced Carlston Harris (22-4) and earned his first Performance of the Night bonus after landing a beautiful spinning hook kick knockout at 4:10 of the first round.
Shavkat has kept active through his entire career and faced some tough opposition in the process; his opponents holding a combined record of 179-53-7 until they faced him. Now sporting a perfect record of 15-0 with 8 KO/TKO and 7 submissions, Shavkat looks to continue his finishing streak against Neil Magny on UFC on ESPN 38 and hopefully secure another bonus in the process.
