Nasrat Haqparast

Abdullah Qazi
AOPNEWS | March 17, 2018

Afghan Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter Nasrat Haqparast’s fight against Nad Narimani was cancelled today by the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). The UFC released the following statement regarding the bout on its website:

“Based on advice from the UFC medical team on Saturday morning, Nasrat Haqparast was deemed unfit to fight due to an infectious eye condition and his bout against Nad Narimani has been cancelled.”

Haqparast posted the following photo on his instagram account.

The fighter posted that his fight was cancelled a hour before it was scheduled to begin. He added that he even wore sunglasses during the weigh-ins to avoid getting the fight pulled.

The fight was going to be a lightweight preliminary bout of UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) Fight Night 127 in London. This was going to be the 22 year old Haqparast’s second fight in the UFC. Unfortunately, he lost his debut fight against Poland’s Marcin Held via unanimous decision on October 21, 2017. All three judges scored the fight 30-27, in favor of Held. Haqparast was surprised he had lost the fight via points, and claimed he was more dominant against Held, even though he only had a 10 day notice. After the fight, Haqparast posted on his Facebook page that he was only at “50% skills and shape”, and that for his next fight, he will be going in with a full camp and it will be “PURE DESTRUCTION”. To his credit, Haqparast did knock down Held once in the fight, and threw more significant strikes. However, Held had more overall strikes and more take-downs, and was even given a submission attempt credit.

Haqparast is only one of two Afghans who are fighting in the UFC, which is the largest MMA promotion in the world, and has the best fighters. The other UFC fighter and first Afghan to be signed by the promotion is welterweight Siyar Bahadurzada. Bahadurzada is scheduled to fight Luan Chagas on April 21st at UFC Fight Night 128. Bahadurzada is on a two fight win streak, defeating Rob Wilkinson on September 2, 2017 via TKO in round two, and submitting Brandon Thatch on March 5, 2016 in the third round.