Reigning UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev has named a teammate who is helping him prepare for a stand-up confrontation with Dustin Puryear, considered one of the organization’s best punchers.
“Usman Nurmagomedov always gives me hard rounds,” the Russian fighter said on another edition of the WEIGHING IN podcast. “He was sick, but as soon as he got better, he immediately joined the training camp to help me. His striking is better than Dustin’s, and I have a hard time with him. He hits with his hands, his feet – he’s actually very good in the standup.”
“When you spar with fighters of this level, it’s called a scythe on a stone, but now we are working carefully, controlling the situation to avoid injuries. In the last month I don’t like to work with new sparring partners because they can injure you, do something you don’t expect. With Usman and the rest of the guys on the team, we spar for life. I have five sparring partners in total and they are all very high level fighters”
Usman Nurmagomedov, who holds the Bellator lightweight championship belt, was scheduled to make a title defense against his compatriot Alexander Shablia in Paris on May 17, but fell ill with pneumonia and withdrew from the fight, which has been tentatively postponed until September of this year.
Recall that the lightweight title fight between Islam Makhachev and Dustin Porier will be the main event of UFC 302, which will be held June 1 in Newark.
Source: https://fighttime.ru/news/item/34767-makhachev-nazval-glavnogo-sparring-partnera-pered-boem-s-pore.html?rand=19907
