Sharaputdin Magomedov is perhaps the most exciting fighter in the UFC at the moment. Since joining the Dana White-led promotion, the one-eyed Dagestani has won all four of his fights so far, winning a performance bonus for his stupendous knockouts in his last three fights.

Having finally broken through into the middleweight rankings, Magomedov has his sights firmly on the title. And to reach the pinnacle, Magomedov will have to fight the best of the best in his division, where his skills would be put to the test. In this article, we take a look at Magomedov’s abilities on the ground and the feet.

Is Sharapudtin Magomedov a wrestler/grappler?

No, Sharaputdin Magomedov is not a wrestler. The Dagestani is primarily a striker and a pretty darn good one at that. Before transitioning to mixed martial arts in 2017, the undefeated middleweight was a Muay Thai fighter. But that doesn’t mean ‘Shara Bullet’ can’t wrestle. After all, he is from Dagestan, and wrestled a fair bit even if he didn’t much train in it formally.

“We’ve seen other champions in middleweight, such as [Israel] Adesanya and [Alex] Pereira… They don’t have base wrestling. I think that my wrestling is much better than theirs. And then, being from Dagestan, this is something that I did anyways,” Magomedov told journalist Kevin Iole through an interpreter.

In fact, his story is the story of every Dagestani child- he started wrestling in the streets since that is just what kids do in the remote Russian province to pass the time like kids in Europe play soccer. In addition, ‘Shara Bullet’, even in his Muay Thai days, did wrestle occasionally and since transitioning to MMA, must have made it a part of his training.

“[I did it] just even in the streets, a lot of times just wrestling my friends, or wrestling in a street fight, or even while I was doing kickboxing and Muay Thai, I would stop by the wrestling gym once in a while just wrestle for myself. [I did it] just to kind of keep that skill up for myself. So I think that it’s not going to be an issue in the UFC for me,” he added. But ‘Shara Bullet’s biggest strength, of course, is his striking, which he has been training most of his life.

Sharapudtin Magomedov’s boxing and kickboxing background

Sharaputdin Magomedov’s first love was soccer and he played a fair bit of soccer in his childhood. But, disagreements with his coaches and a knack for getting into fights saw him get kicked off the team. By this time, ‘Shara Bullet’ was fairly experienced in fighting. With his distinctive red hair, the Dagestani stood out from the other kids, which made him an easy target for bullies, which taught him to fight from a very young age.

This is why it was but natural for Magomedov to get into martial arts, and he started off with boxing and showed promise straightaway. Eventually, ‘Shara Bullet’ moved to Moscow, where he would start training Muay Thai. Within six years, the Dagestani won the Russian Muay Thai Championship, the Moscow Muay Thai Championship thrice, and the Moscow K-1 Championship twice.

But, the problem was that ‘Shara Bullet’ wasn’t making any real money in Muay Thai. Not even enough to pay for his training and gym membership fees. This financial hardship prompted the one-eyed middleweight to make the most important decision of his life. Having developed an excellent striking game, Magomedov transitioned to mixed martial arts since the money was better there. And the rest, as they say, is history. What do you think about Sharaputdin Magomedov’s fighting style?