“Roman is gaining momentum, and if he shows his best form, he will be in the tops,” the Russian promoter said in an interview with the channel “Ushatayka”. “Even before he plunged into MMA, Kopylov won the Russian hand-to-hand championship many times, where the level of competition is very high. He became the champion of Fight Nights, and there he had difficult fights. He just needed time to adjust. Roma is very bright, very cool, very precise. He had failures at first, but now he is getting on a good wave.”
“In the context of Ballet Bullet, I said the other day that the UFC middleweight now is the striker division. If our guys are psychologically ready, UFC tops won’t surprise them. What, Kopylov won’t fight Adesanya or Pereira? Yes, of course it will! Because when they start to beat him with his hands and feet, he starts to beat him back with his hands and feet, and he does it just as well. He had some specific difficulties with wrestling, but Pereira and Adesanya are not great wrestlers either. Now is the time when Roma Kopylov can fly into the tops “
As for Umar Nurmagomedov, Gadzhiev believes that in two fights the Russian can claim the bantamweight title.
“When someone wins by knockout in this weight, this is already an event. Umar grows up, adds power – handsome, what can I say. The division is not the biggest, so in two fights he can fight for the title. His fight with Dillashaw or O’Malley could have been a big deal, it would have been crazy noise.”
Last weekend at UFC Fight Night 217 in Las Vegas, Roman Kopylov finished by TKO in the second round of the American Punahili Soriano, and Umar Nurmagomedov knocked out the Brazilian Raoni Barcelos in the starting five minutes, and both Russians received bonuses for “Performance of the Night”.