ABU DHABI – Umar Nurmagomedov was slightly critical of his UFC 321 win.
Nurmagomedov (19-1 MMA, 7-1 UFC) swept the scorecards to snap Mario Bautista’s eight-fight win streak on Saturday’s main card at Etihad Arena.
Nurmagomedov went 11 of 14 in takedowns, but Bautista (16-3 MMA, 10-3 UFC) did a good job of popping back up on most of the attempts, which surprised him.
“I feel great, and I’m thankful to God we won tonight,” Nurmagomedov said at the UFC 321 post-fight press conference. “I understand we have to go back to Dagestan and rest one week, two weeks maximum, and I will have to come back to the gym. … I thought I would control him a little better in the ground and pound, and he was good. He tried to always stand up.”
Bautista briefly dropped Nurmagomedov with a knee in Round 1, a tendency Nurmagomedov says he has to fix.
“I will work a lot. I have this big mistake: I always go down,” Nurmagomedov said. ” I do it a lot of times and even in the gym, coach, Khabib, they always tell me, ‘Don’t do this. You have to fix this,’ and today I paid for it. We’re not perfect, but we will try to become.”
Nurmagomedov revealed what his cousin Khabib thought of his performance.
“He said good job. He said we won, and he said to me you have a lot of things that you can show, that you can do,” Nurmagomedov said. “You have space to grow up. Today, we’re done, but we’re not finished.”
If Nurmagomedov doesn’t get his rematch with UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili, he’s willing to fight another top contender instead.
“If it’s not going to happen before Ramadan, if they will give me another fight, maybe with (Deiveson) Figueiredo or Aiemann Zahabi, with anybody else, I will be happy to fight because today, I became a little better in the cage because it’s experience,” Nurmagomedov said. “You need to spend a lot of time in the cage to feel at home, feel confidence, feel arena, feel fans, and I want to fight. I just have sleep, eat, train, repeat.”
