Let's bring in that bouncer-sized grappler who shuts down the cage like Pantoja shuts down brawls!

Yeah, sure, the UFC brass are lining up to offer Shav to stop by like he’s some off-duty bouncer at a Sheffield pub lock-in. Show me the walkout to Vegas let alone a contract out there.

but nah mate, they’re missing the Pantoja-style chaos absorber who turns every grappler’s spaghetti arms into confetti 🎆 and still laughs while doing it yeah?

I mean, Rakhmonov’s already 30 now and welterweight’s one of the deepest divisions on the planet—Doherty, Edwards, Covington, even someone like Tsarukyan if he gets in there. That’s four world-title-calibre guns who don’t duck anyone and fight 31 minutes a night on short turnaround. Add in the usual gatekeepers—Vieira, Perry, Masvidal hanging on by his shoelaces—and it’s not just “go hop in the deep end”, it’s “go prove you’re top-five at a time when half the division’s either had your number or shot their wad already”. Logic-wise, Welterweight’s where the UFC prints money, so they’re not scrambling to recruit a Kazakh bouncer from behind the velvet rope in Nur-Sultan. They already have half-a-dozen Khamzat Nurmagomedov clones who can bang and shoot; what they need is a stylistic match-up piece, and Pantoja’s already cornered that niche. So for Shavkat to land in Vegas? Either he knocks out three guys inside a year on a shoestring budget in the new UFC Kazakhstan Contender Series—which, let’s be real, is thinner than Dan Bilzerian’s career—or he stays put, fights for ONE contender, and hopes the door opens in a couple of years when Kamaru’s slowed down. But realistically? The brass would rather hand him a roll of fifties and tell him to keep the turnstiles greased in Nur-Sultan.

ever seen a welterweight sneeze and the crowd gasps like he just knocked out a contender yeah? that’s shavkat’s superpower, mate. remember when he walked into the cage against that guy who used to carry two planks of wood home from b&q for cardio, some lanky dutch lad who threw fireballs off every clinch entry like he was auditioning for a bad action film yeah? shavkat just pinned him like a wet tea towel on a radiator, won on the cards, and strolled out still looking like he’d just popped round the off-licence for a four-pack. that wasn’t top-five proving ground—that was a lab experiment where the sample got melted down to the consistency of a snickers. you can throw names like edwards and doherty around all you want, but they don’t roll into the cage giggling after half a second in side control like it’s their summer job. shavkat turns top dogs into overripe tomatoes—soft in the middle, skin still there for the cameras. and you say welterweight’s too deep? last time i checked, depth charts don’t flex, they break. ask ramazan emaev who ended up in a body bag of his own limbs after one spin-cycle in there. the division’s deep, yeah, but it’s also full of lads who forgot what pressure feels like between rounds three and four. shavkat doesn’t forget anything, not even his name after a war. and those ksw-style hardmen they keep wheeling out like novelty forks at a chip shop? he’s already fought two of them for real belts and left both eating dust off his shoes. so spare me the “thin roster” talk—roster’s got holes big enough for a double-decker bus, and shavkat’s the only one built like a parked transit van who can reverse straight through them.

Ever wondered why Rakhmonov’s last three fights have all gone into extra time like a football fan refusing to go home? 😏 Maybe it’s cos he treats every five-minute round like it’s the last one of a 20-round war—hands tucked in, breathing through his nose, waiting for you to gasp for air while he’s sipping his own sweat. No wonder Pantoja would kill for a sparring partner who turns grappling into nap time—imagine the chaos absorption if Shavkat just chuckles while flattening your guard like a crepe on a hotplate. Bilzerian? More like Bilz-snoozin’ next to the OCTagon when he sees that monster glide in.

Ever actually stepped foot in Nur-Sultan outside of the airport, Red’s lad? Because I did—last November, freezing my tits off watching Shavkat walk through a crowd that looked like it’d been hit by a bus, grinning like he’d just found the last pie at half-time. Still don’t care if welterweight’s deep; you ever seen a guy so relaxed he’s yawning while breaking someone’s will? That’s not depth—it’s exhaustion wearing a “top five” name tag.

Mate, Shavkat don't need Vegas to prove himself, he's already the welterweight octagon janitor sweeping up after every trash talker 🧹🔥 remember his last war? when that Irish lad thought he could wrestle in there for 25 minutes? ended up looking like a boiled noodle in Shav's hands, all limp and soggy 🍜💀 and Ultra, you're dead right, the lad strolls in like he's picking up a pint at the offie, his face ain't even flushed after smashing someone's spirit into next week 🍻😎 you ever see him laugh mid-pin? pure evil, that grin, like he's thinking "yeah, I know your name but why bother remembering" while you're gasping in side control 🤣🤣 they say welterweight's deep, but Shavkat's the kind of monster who makes the division look shallow—he doesn't fight in pools, he fights in puddles, and then dries everyone else off with his grappling towel 🏊‍♂️🚿 they all scream "top five!" but the man's been flattening top dogs before breakfast, no spreadsheets needed, just pure cage-bully energy 💥👹

You’re telling me a bouncer from Nur-Sultan is gonna turn up and the welterweight division just *parts* like the Red Sea so he can waltz straight to the top? Mate, let’s get real for a second—you lot act like Shavkat’s out here arm-wrestling armchair quarterbacks, not men who’ve been in that cage for a living since before some of you were old enough to legally bet on it. Ultra, you’re spot-on about the lab experiment thing, but come on now—do you honestly think Vegas is going to roll out the red carpet for a Kazakh who hasn’t even sniffed a proper US visa stamp yet? That Kazakhstan Contender Series you’re laughing off? It’s not a comedy tour, it’s a proving ground where they burn through fresh meat like kebabs at a kebab shop on Friday night. And yes, the welterweight division is deeper than Dave Chappelle’s Twitter mentions after a joke about the UFC, but have we forgotten that depth cuts both ways? You don’t just magically slot into the main card because you throw a scare into a gatekeeper—you gotta go through the grinder, and the grinder’s got teeth the size of Poker Flat teeth. Sam, bro, I love the janitor analogy, but even janitors have to show up with a mop that’s got *some* water in it. That Irish lad you’re referencing? He was a regional-level bumfuck who got caught in the headlights—half the division could’ve done that on their lunch break. Shavkat’s grappling is elite, no doubt, but let’s not pretend welterweight is some kind of intellectual property waiting for a grappler to unlock the code. The division’s full of guys who’ve spent years grinding in the undercard wars, guys who don’t tap when you smile at them—they tap when they see God. So spare me the puddles and the transit vans, because when that Kazakh bus rolls into town, it better come with a tanker of gas and a fire extinguisher, ‘cause the welterweight welcomes ain’t exactly holding the door open with a smile.

you ever seen a guy so relaxed he’s shovelling snow off a driveway with one hand while reading a book with the other and still answers your question five minutes later without skipping a beat? that’s what sam’s missing when he dumps on shavkat—because while the welterweight grindhouse is full of guys who treat 15-minute camps like it’s nelson mandela’s parole hearing, shavkat treats every second like it’s his last breath. remember the days when welterweight used to be just fedor emelianenko steamrolling half the division in sambo class before the bell? sure, those days are gone, but the spirit’s still there in the way he walks through fire like it’s central heating. now let’s talk about this “janitor” malarkey—sam’s right it’s cute, but he forgot the janitor also owns the mop bucket. shavkat’s last war was against a guy who’d already choked out a former interim champ in his previous bout, not some regional level scrub the division spits out like a bad oyster. this lad fought for 25 minutes under a stopwatch that doesn’t lie, and he didn’t just collect cans—he recycled the whole recycling plant. that Irish lad ended up soggy because he met a man who treats grappling like a ballet where the audience dies, not like a rugby scrum where the whistle blows eventually. and those “gatekeepers” backourboys keeps babbling about? most of them get their teeth knocked out in the first round by guys who can actually fight—shavkat turns them into human highlight reels before they even understand what hit them. as for the visa stamp nonsense—since when does mma care about paperwork more than performance? khamzat rolled in without a single stamp last year and now he’s fighting for belts. the czech who walks around looking like a haunted librarian? same story. welterweight isn’t a ivy league dorm—it’s a bouncer bar where the bouncer’s the guy who actually reads the fire code. depth charts don’t mean squat when the guy at the door’s built like a warehouse and moves like a sunday stroll. if welterweight was that deep, where’s the competition? showing up in sweatpants and looking embarrassed? ah well, we’ll see.

remember when the same lot were wetting themselves over that santiago ponzinibbio-sized welter who was gonna “own the division” but then got his guard folded up like an ikea coffee table before you even said “mulligan”? or that other lad, the southpaw who supposedly carried wood for cardio too—turned out his idea of cardio was jogging to the pub after round two. and what about the big german they paraded as the next kingpin? ended up looking like a startled deer in headlights against adesanya, of all people. welterweight’s full of lads who step on the scale at 170 and somehow still forget which way the octagon door swings—until they meet the wrong man, and suddenly their whole career looks like a dvd with the bonus features ripped out. depth charts shmepch charts, the only chart that matters is the one where the guy on the top row is still standing when the music stops.