Rakhmonov Vs. Barberena? ‘Why Not?’

Rakhmonov and Barberena played matchmaker over social media after Shavkat’s fight against Geoff Neal fell through due to injury.

The UFC’s first event of 2023 took a serious hit yesterday with the news that Geoff Neal was injured and out of a highly anticipated fight against Shavkat Rakhmonov.

Rakhmonov is 16-0 and dominated the extremely tough Neil Magny en route to a second round submission win in June. He’s another one of those fighters that has a hard time securing opponents, so when Neal revealed he was pulling out, “Nomad” was less than understanding.

“Apparently Geoff Neal is all talk,” Rakhmonov wrote in one tweet. Another tweet included a quote from Neal about beating Shavkat ‘easy.’ Rakhmonov said “Show up then.”

Few fighters have put their name forward to challenge the No. 10 ranked welterweight, but one man willing to step in on January 14th is Bryan Barberena.

“Neal out. We were supposed to fight before on short notice,” Barberena wrote on Twitter. “No one wants to fight you. F— it make it at 180 and I’ll see you there!”

“Why not?” Shavkat replied. “Let’s do it for the fans.”

Mad respect, let’s f—in go!” Barberena wrote. “UFC, Sean Shelby, Dana White, let’s make this official. Send the contract and let’s get it done.”

It would be a quick turnaround for Barberena, who just suffered a second round submission loss to Rafael dos Anjos at UFC Orlando on December 3rd. The entertaining brawler is clearly looking to remove that memory from everyone’s mind, and he thinks a banger with Shavkat would do the trick.

Will the UFC agree with his assessment, or will they stay the course and try to reschedule the Neal fight? That’s certainly what Neal is hoping for.

“Didn’t know getting injured means I’m all talk,” he wrote on Twitter. “Mf let’s re-book it.”

UFC Vegas 67 goes down January 14th from the UFC Apex and is headlined by a middleweight scrap between Kelvin Gastelum and Nassourdine Imavov.