{"id":237486,"date":"2025-10-24T12:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T12:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/237486\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T12:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T12:02:09","slug":"ufc-321s-umar-nurmagomedov-abandoning-khabib-career-aspirations-for-gsp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/237486\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC 321\u2019s Umar Nurmagomedov abandoning Khabib career aspirations for GSP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Umar Nurmagomedov is set to fight Mario Bautista on the pay-per-view portion of UFC 321,<\/a> which goes down this Saturday afternoon<\/a> (Oct. 25, 2025) from Abu Dhabi, UAE. But he\u2019s also fighting for the chance to rematch current bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili, who beat him back at the start of the year.<\/p>\n

Dvalishvili took their UFC 311 scrap via unanimous decision, earning 49-46, 48-47, and 48-47 scorecards from the judges. Nurmagomedov started out strong, but \u201cThe Machine\u201d quickly took over the fight, as he\u2019s done twice since and plans to do for a fourth time in one year at UFC 323.<\/p>\n

Nurmagomedov asked Dana White at the UFC 321 press conference for a title shot if he beats Bautista, and White said he\u2019d get one<\/a> with an impressive enough performance. Easier said than done against a grinder like Bautista, but Umar is confident in his abilities against Mario and Merab.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have fire, like for revenge, I think fire more than for the title,\u201d Umar told TNT Sports. \u201cEven my blood wants revenge, you know? And I hope it\u2019s gonna happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI did work with coaches, mentally, everything, a lot,\u201d he said of changes since his defeat. \u201cI prepare for this fight, not like for regular fight. I prepare for this. It\u2019s very important fight for me. I have to win. I have to win to keep working toward my dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last fight happened, I broke my hand and things didn\u2019t go how I expected. And even with broke hand, I thought I did very well. It was a close fight. My mistake in last fight was the last two minutes in the last two rounds. I gave him takedowns. It was a mistake, because of that I think the judges gave it to him. But the next time it\u2019s gonna be very different fight. It\u2019s gonna be not same, even not close to same.\u201d<\/p>\n

The loss to Merab cost Umar his perfect record, but he\u2019s re-calibrated his career expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a little upset, of course, directly after fighting,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I understand that MMA is not everything in life, and perfect record is not everything. I was expecting my career would be same like Khabib. I wanted to repeat his result. But there\u2019s a lot of champions. For example, George St-Pierre. He lost a lot of time but he revenged everybody, and everybody recognize he one of the greatest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think my way is gonna be same with Islam [Makhachev]. More Islam. But whatever, I have to become a champion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Umar Nurmagomedov will get his chance to put his championship aspirations back on track in Abu Dhabi, where he\u2019s a massive -650 favorite<\/a> over +450 dog Mario Bautista. But will his performance be good enough to justify a second shot at Merab Dvalishvili\u2019s belt?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Umar Nurmagomedov is set to fight Mario Bautista on the pay-per-view portion of UFC 321, which goes down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[139414,64,63,786,785,139415,85,138947,1396],"class_list":["post-237486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-aspinall-vs-gane-start-time","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-preview-and-live-results","tag-sports","tag-ufc-321-fight-card","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}