Former UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos compared Khabib Nurmagomedov and Islam Makhachev.
“Khabib had great cardio – he could push and push and push,” dos Anjos told RT Sport MMA YouTube channel. “Very good cardio. Islam is more technical, I can see from his fights that he does not want to take risks at all. He saves energy because he is afraid to get tired. I heard about it from the guys who trained with him before.
Therefore, against Islam, one of the ideas of my game plan was to crush him, to increase the pace. Islam’s takedowns are also different from Khabib’s. He uses judo a lot, all those inside holds. Not so often passes in two legs. Therefore, when preparing for it, I involved judoists in order to better understand his style. It’s not easy to fight with the guys from judo – they prepare takedowns differently, there are differences».
On October 30, Makhachev defeated Dan Hooker with a kimura in the first round of the fight at UFC 267 in Abu Dhabi.
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