“Everyone asks me about him,” the head of the organization said at a press conference in Newark. “This guy is not someone everyone wants to fight, but we will deal with it. It is always difficult to organize a fight for a guy who is on the way to the top ten, because those who are ahead of him do not want to risk their place in the rankings. This is a difficult task. The fight with him is from the category of those that everyone accepts publicly, but in a private conversation they refuse. Nobody wants to fight him.”
Earlier it became known that the fight with Umar Nurmagomedov was officially offered to the first number of the division, Merab Dvalishvili, who refused to fight the Russian fighter, citing a hand injury and lack of time to prepare.
The 27-year-old native of Dagestan spent his last fight in January of this year, knocking out the Brazilian Raoni Barcelos in the first round.