Usman Nurmagomedov stored his ‘O’ intact, scoring yet one more carefully contested victory over Paul Hughes within the PFL Dubai headliner on Friday.
Nurmagomedov bought Hughes right down to the mat late within the first spherical, although it got here moments after Hughes absorbed a low blow that the referee opted to disregard. Hughes began to seek out his vary within the second, although that didn’t hold Nurmagomedov from taking him down as soon as once more.
The third was essentially the most aggressive as much as that time, with Hughes trying to land his huge proper hand. Nevertheless, Nurmagomedov might have swung the scorecards into his favor with a late takedown.
Lower than a minute into the fourth, Hughes was the recipient of one other nasty low blow that introduced a pause to the bout. Hughes seemed to be in immense ache, mendacity stomach down close to the nook. Luckily, he was in a position to proceed after a couple of moments. Shortly after the restart, Nurmagomedov notched one other takedown earlier than stinging Hughes with a brutal physique kick.
With the combat probably tied, we headed to the fifth spherical. As was the case with a lot of the contest earlier than it, the ultimate 5 minutes had been pretty aggressive. Probably the most important strike of the spherical got here on account of an inadvertent conflict of heads that minimize open Nurmagomedov with somewhat greater than a minute to go.
Nurmagomedov responded with one other huge takedown, placing a punctuation mark on the spherical and securing himself one other huge win over the Irish celebrity.
Official End result: Usman Nurmagomedov def. Paul Hughes by way of unanimous determination (50-45, 49-46, 48-47) to win the PFL light-weight world championship.
Test Out Highlights From Usman Nurmagomedov vs. Paul Hughes at PFL Dubai:
