Reigning Bellator light heavyweight champion Vadim Nemkov appreciated the performance of his compatriot Magomed Ankalaev, who at UFC 282 in Las Vegas could not defeat Jan Blachowicz and win the vacant UFC light heavyweight championship belt.
“I think Maga won 60 by 40, he was better, but due to the fact that Blachowicz beat off his legs, the judges gave a draw,” said the Russian in an interview with the channel “Ushatayka”. “Another moment, when Magomed was translating, he did not do any supernatural activity. There were no blows, finishing, purely designations, so that they would not be raised in the rack. If Blachowicz stood up, and his face was collapsed, there were cuts, hematomas, then maybe there was a different picture. And so he got up from the stalls, and he didn’t have any injuries. ”
“Magomed conducts all fights like this – carefully, carefully, slowly taking away. In theory, he took this one too, but we are fighting away, and we need to win clearly. We need to understand that we are from Russia and we need to win rounds with a clearer advantage. Magomed Ankalaev is trained, hitting, functional is good, there are more trump cards, but even in between rounds, I don’t know what happened to Magomed, maybe he closed up, maybe he was worried, but his coach Sukhrab forced him to go forward, and he had some kind of stupor. If Magomed had worked right away, as he worked in the fourth or fifth rounds, there would be no questions at all – they would have given the title, and everything was fine.
Nemkov also commented on the words of UFC President Dan White, who called the light heavyweight title fight terrible, saying that after the third round he stopped following his progress.
“I found the fight boring. You can transfer to the stalls and just lie down, as Maga lay down for two rounds, or you can finish off hard, try to finish. But he didn’t try to finish – he just tried to take two rounds. And in the rack, their work was monotonous. Blachowicz did the same thing, Magomed did the same thing. Nothing new and no risk”
Source: https://fighttime.ru/news/item/30250-nemkov-razobral-boj-ankalaeva-i-blakhovicha.html?rand=19907