According to a coach in the know, the month-long observation of Ramadan should not necessarily preclude a challenger from vying for a Ultimate Fighting Championship belt.
With the main events of the first two UFC pay-per-view offerings of 2025 already on the books—UFC 311 will feature Islam Makhachev vs. Arman Tsarukyan with a co-main of Merab Dvalishvili against Umar Nurmagomedov, while UFC 312 sees Dricus Du Plessis defending his throne against Sean Strickland while the co-headliner comes between Weili Zhang and Tatiana Suarez—speculation quickly turned to its upcoming March card. On March 8, the UFC’s regular stomping ground of the T-Mobile Arena will play host to UFC 313, and no marquee bouts have been announced yet.
Light heavyweight kingpin Alex Pereira recently stated that he was planning to return in March or April, and his expected opponent would be Magomed Ankalaev. Some put the pieces together, questioning how the UFC would deal with Ramadan—the holy month when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset—this year, which starts on Feb. 28 and ends on March 29. When “Poatan” published on his social media that Ankalaev, a Muslim, might not be his next opponent after all, rumors swirled and ended up pointing at fellow Muslim Khamzat Chimaev. Sherdog sought out American Top Team chief coach Marcos da Matta, who holds a long history of training Muslim fighters over the last several years, for answers.
“In recent years I have trained dozens of Muslim fighters, and because of this I have become very familiar with this issue of Ramadan,” Da Matta established. “In fact, Muslims have to fast for four weeks. The guy who is Orthodox doesn’t change the set date, which this year will be between February 28 and March 29, but when the guy is not so Orthodox he can make the dates more flexible. I’ve seen many of my athletes do this, but there has to be a real reason, whether it’s an illness or a professional issue. In this case, [not following the exact days of Ramadan] is not ‘Haram’ [sin].”
The coach further explained that start and end dates could be shifted for the right reason, but there are limits.
“The Muslim fighter who is going to fight with ‘Poatan,’ be it Chimaev or Ankalaev on March 8, can postpone the start of the fast by 10 days, for example, starting on the ninth and going until April 9. I think it would be much more complicated for them to fight at UFC 314 [expected for April 12], for example, as they would have to fast in the middle of the camp. I would even bet that there won’t be any Muslims on this Miami card, but on the March card, yes.”
Da Matta made it clear he did not agree with the talk that Chimaev should have a place in the UFC light heavyweight title picture, but he knows that in this era of the UFC, anything could happen.”
“Obviously it’s possible [for Chimaev to fight for the 205-pound belt],” Da Matta said. “A champion from Rizin’s top category was brought in to fight Pantoja directly for the belt. Even though he hasn’t had any light heavyweight fights, Chimaev is undefeated and has nine million followers on Instagram while Ankalaev has one million. Now if you ask me if I think it’s fair, obviously not, I think it’s total disrespect to Ankalaev who has already beaten everyone and shown that he deserves that title shot. But everything is possible. Let’s see in the next few weeks.”
