If Usman Nurmagomedov signs with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) then his manager, Ali Abdelaziz, is hoping to land the Professional Fighters League (PFL) lightweight champion one of the biggest matchups in the sport.<\/p>\n
In case you didn\u2019t know, Nurmagomedov is officially a free agent<\/a> after fighting out his PFL contract one week ago (watch HERE<\/a>). At 22-0, Nurmagomedov is arguably the best fighter not competing in UFC right now and with the Khabib connection he already has a massive following. It would be surprising if UFC didn\u2019t step up and pay Nurmagomedov the money he wants to move on from PFL (and Jake Paul<\/a>).<\/p>\n Assuming Nurmagomedov joins UFC\u2019s stacked lightweight division it will be interesting to see who matchmakers pick to welcome him to the Octagon. According to Abdelaziz, it makes the most sense to book Nurmagomedov against former UFC lightweight champion Ilia Topuria, who recently lost his title to Justin Gaethje at UFC\u2019s White House card. That may seem like a reach for even Abdelaziz, but the two fighters already share some history<\/a>. UFC matchmakers may bite.<\/p>\n Check out Abdelaziz\u2019s comments below and let us know if you think Nurmagomedov can land a Topuria grudge match in his first UFC fight:<\/p>\n \u201dThe fight I want, if he goes to the UFC, is Ilia Topuria for his first fight,\u201d said Abdelaziz. \u201cThere\u2019s already beef there. Ilia created the beef.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m telling you straight up, I think Usman will make Ilia quit. He\u2019ll hit him, kick him, and knock him out flat.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Usman Nurmagomedov signs with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) then his manager, Ali Abdelaziz, is hoping to land…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,8081,85,1396],"class_list":["post-847523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-professional-fighters-league-pfl","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847523","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=847523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}