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Yair Rodriguez hasn't fought in over a year now in UFC since his last bout in October 2019 against Jeremy Stephens. He was victorious in the three-round fight, and UFC shifted their focus on booking Yair Rodriguez vs. Zabit Magomedsharipov - which was first planned for 2018.
Yair Rodriguez was originally scheduled to face Zabit Magomedsharipov in a main event bout at the end of August, but that fell through after the Mexican Featherweight suffered an ankle injury.
While UFC attempted to re-book the fight for November, it seems to be off again. Zabit Magomedsharipov's coach Mark Henry posted a photo on Instagram, stating that the fight was off again and described it as "embarrassing":
When asked about Yair Rodriguez's status after UFC Vegas 15, Dana White gave a rather strange answer (H/T MMAMania):
“Yair? Have we not talked publicly about that?” White asked his assistant off camera. “Why not?”
After asking his assistant, White simply said, "I don't think he's going to fight anytime soon" and didn't elaborate too much on it:
“We didn’t announce it, I don’t know why we didn’t but yeah, I don’t know what the deal is,” White said cryptically. “It’s none of my business what’s going on there. So when it comes out, it comes out. It’s none of our business, none of the UFC’s business. When they figure it out they’ll let us know.”
The speculation behind Yair Rodriguez's time away from the Octagon
What's important to note is Dana White stating that it was none of UFC's business. If it was an injury, or even if Yair Rodriguez failed a USADA test, then it would be UFC's business.
However, neither seems to be the case, and it wasn't a situation where he seemed to decline the fight either because that would be UFC's business as well. Hopefully, it's nothing too bad, and Yair Rodriguez returns to the Octagon sooner than later.
