The MMA world was taken by surprise when social media sensation Hasbulla Magomedov announced on Instagram that he had signed a contract with the UFC. The social media star stands at just 3ft 4in, and has a form of dwarfism.
He is believed around 20 years old. Despite his size, he gained fame for his MMA-style face-off with Abdu Rozik, who also has the same condition.
But the news of his signing came and went and he hasn’t really said much about it.
In an interview with My Mom’s Basement, UFC President Dana White confirmed that the UFC had indeed signed Magomedov. However, he also gave the roundabout answer as to whether Magomedov would make a UFC debut or not.
UFC went on to release merch collaboration with Hasbulla including some unique items.
For instance, a Hasbulla signed replica belt is priced at a staggering $399.99 plus shipping.
UFC’s official website features an entire Hasbulla merch collection for sale with the prices far exceeding those of typical talent.
Dana White gave some interesting insight into what made UFC sign Hasbulla. During a Power Slap presser, White elaborated:
“This is how powerful Hasbulla is. Nelk boys went out to Russia. They did all this cool s**it with him. And he said, let’s make a Hasbulla Full send t shirt. That T-shirt. They did. They sold like $500,000 worth of Hasbulla T-shirts. In like 48 hours, something ridiculous like that. And they gave him half the money for the stuff. So we did a deal with Hasbulla”
In return Hasbulla helped promote slap and was even on hand at the finale taping to provide some extra star power. But even Hasbulla couldn’t save Powerslap. The struggling promotion has been moved off of cable tv and straight onto free to watch on Rumble.
Promotion was even caught planting fake tweets about the live finale to put on the broadcast.
Magomedov has been enjoying his time in the US, he even attended an NBA game this week.
As for his UFC debut, it’s quite unlikely but considering his proficiency in grappling he would probably do better than CM Punk, if he were to get an opponent of matching size.