“Everyone was expecting an easy fight, but it was 13,000 kilometers away from my country, a fight against the best fighter in the world in his territory – I knew it would be a difficult fight, but I beat him by unanimous decision, and it was a good experience for me. ”, Makhachev said in an interview with ESPN after the UFC 284 tournament in Perth.
According to Makhachev, he has no doubts about his victory, and he himself is sure that he deserves the title of the best fighter in the world.
“I was preparing for a tough fight, in the last round he hit well, but I think I won all the other rounds. It was a good fight that will make me better because I have never fought five rounds before and now I have that experience. Whether people like it or not, I’m the best fighter in the world right now.”
“The plan for the fight was not to fight all the time, and there were many reasons for that. We fought early in the morning, we had less time to recover from the weight race – there were many different factors, but I do not want to discuss it. It was just a great crazy fight.”
At the same time, the Russian answered in the affirmative to the question of whether he was ready to give revenge to the Australian.
“Why not? If the UFC wants it, let’s go! Let’s do it again!”
Makhachev also spoke about the conversation that he had after the fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov.
“He called me and he said, ‘I went gray while watching the fight, but sometimes we need such hard fights, we need this experience,’ and I said, ‘If you were here, everything would be much easier.’ He said, ‘Come back, we’ll work on the mistakes and come back'”