{"id":181967,"date":"2025-10-01T07:10:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T07:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/181967\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T07:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T07:10:07","slug":"magomed-ankalaevs-ex-foe-recalls-brutal-injuries-he-destroyed-my-legs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/181967\/","title":{"rendered":"Magomed Ankalaev\u2019s ex-foe recalls brutal injuries: \u2018He destroyed my legs\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recently retired<\/a> Paul Craig scored the best \u2014 and most surprising \u2014 win of his UFC career early on.<\/p>\n

Back in March 2018, Craig was still a relative newcomer to the UFC\u2019s Light Heavyweight division. After opening his Octagon career with an armbar victory, Craig would lose consecutive fights to Tyson Pedro and Khalil Rountree. The pressure was high ahead of his fourth UFC bout, the last match up of his first contract with the promotion.<\/p>\n

He was matched up with some 8-0 nobody named Magomed Ankalaev \u2026 a man also known as \u201cBig Ank,\u201d the current 205-pound champion of the world, scheduled to face Alex Pereira in the main event of UFC 320 this Saturday (Oct. 4, 2025) from Las Vegas, Nevada.<\/p>\n

Ankalaev took it to Craig early in their fight, showing off his wealth of Combat Sambo experience. He beat up Craig on the feet and on the canvas for a vast majority of the fight, pummeling the Scottish submission fighter for a long while. Back then, Ankalaev was more well-known for his ground-and-pound than boxing, and \u201cBearjew\u201d learned of his ground striking aptitude the hard way.<\/p>\n

However, at the literal last second, Craig wrapped up a triangle choke submission and forced his foe to submit (watch here)<\/a>. It was the first loss of Ankalaev\u2019s professional career, and seven years later, Craig remains the only man to defeat Ankalaev. The legendary win<\/a> came at a heavy physical cost though, one Craig recently discussed with Tom Aspinall.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor almost 14 minutes, he imposed his will on me,\u201d Craig explained. \u201cHe was very explosive, very strong. I remember at one point, he picked me up in a wrestling takedown and he sat me down like a father laying down a baby. I remember [thinking], \u2018I can\u2019t do anything about this!\u2018<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the hardest opponents I\u2019ve ever had to face. He had a hole in my jaw underneath my chin where he had clocked me. He fractured ribs. He basically beat me up and for the next two days, I couldn\u2019t walk because he destroyed my legs, destroyed my arms. But, for that one saving submission \u2014 so special to me, that one moment. That was the last point in my career where I potentially wasn\u2019t going to be a fighter for the UFC, fast-forward eight years later and I was still there.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the shocking defeat, Ankalaev nearly walked away from the sport<\/a>. He did, of course, return to action, but there were side effects. Ever since that loss, Ankalaev has largely preferred to strike with his opponents, so perhaps Craig\u2019s influence is still lingering. Alex Pereira isn\u2019t much of a submission threat though, so maybe in this rematch we see the return of Ankalaev\u2019s punishing ground-and-pound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The recently retired Paul Craig scored the best \u2014 and most surprising \u2014 win of his UFC career…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,702],"class_list":["post-181967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}