Despite the fact that Umar Nurmagomedov failed to defeat the organization’s debutant Bekzat Almakhan early, the undefeated Russian is confident that he will be able to do so in confrontations with the top representatives of the lightweight division, Peter Yan and Corey Sandhagen.
“Everyone talks about me pulling out of fights, but through my fault it happened only twice,” Nurmagomedov said at the press conference following UFC Fight Night 238. “The first time I got really sick. It was before the fight against Sergey Morozov, and I felt very bad. Then I got in a fight with him. And the second time I hurt my shoulder and went into surgery before the fight against Corey Sandhagen. Hopefully our fight will be scheduled again.”
“I’ve had fights canceled twice because of me, and in all the other cases, fights have been canceled by my opponents, but for some reason people keep saying, ‘Umar has been taken off eight times.’ I don’t think anyone is afraid of me. That’s our job – we go into the cage and try to do damage to each other. I don’t think anyone is a coward, and I just want to fight.”
“When I say I can smash and finish Peter Yan, I’m absolutely serious. When I say I’m going to finish Corey Sandhagen, I’m serious, not just because I’m cocky and cocky. Look at my team – we have three or four guys who are lightweight champions. Who else has a team like that? Hopefully Corey will be next. He said he wanted to fight me at International Fight Week. If he changed his mind, I’m willing to fight anybody. I really don’t care.”
Recall that the bantamweight bout went the full distance and ended in a unanimous judges’ decision with scores of 30-25 and 30-26 twice in favor of Nurmagomedov, however, in the first round the Russian had to return to the fight after a knockdown.
Source: https://fighttime.ru/news/item/34072-nurmagomedov-obeshchaet-finishirovat-petra-yana-i-kori-sendkhagena.html?rand=19907
