Dzhabar Askerov emerged in 2008 as one of the sports biggest up and coming talented young fighters, establishing his place in the elite levels of MuayThai Kickboxing at 70kg. Dzhabar successfully made a name for himself in Europe, Asia and Oceana, along the way. Starting off the year as an exciting looking prospect from the Contender MuayThai Kickboxing reality show, Dzhabar entered the K-1 Max Sweden qualifier tournament as somewhat of a wildcard and then smashed his way through to the final, only to have the fight waived off by the judge probably seconds before he was going to win, due to a cut that came from an accidental head clash. Moving on from that tough loss, Dzhabar next faced his toughest opponent for the year, Australian John Wayne Parr. Coming off his hardest and most intense training regime for a fight yet, Dzhabar threw everything he had at John Wayne Parr, but the Australian's experience, kicking and movement once again saw Dzhabar take a hard earned decision loss. While Dzhabar may not have achieved the result he was looking for, his impressive performance continued to have the powers that be in K-1, Shootboxing and the WMC taking serious notice of him.