{"id":234921,"date":"2025-10-23T17:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T17:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/234921\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T17:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T17:32:10","slug":"dana-white-makes-deal-with-umar-nurmagomedov-over-title-shot-before-ufc-321","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/234921\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana White makes ‘deal’ with Umar Nurmagomedov over title shot before UFC 321"},"content":{"rendered":"

Umar Nurmagomedov has spent much of UFC 321<\/a> fight week fielding questions about a potential rematch with bantamweight champion.<\/p>\n

At Thursday’s pre-fight press conference for the event at Etihad Arena on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi (ESPN+<\/a> pay-per-view, Disney+\/FX\/ESPN+), it was Nurmagomedov who decided to ask a question, and it was directed at UFC CEO Dana White.<\/p>\n

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With Nurmagomedov (18-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) holding uncertainty about what exactly is on the line in Saturday’s main card bout with Mario Bautista (16-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC), he put White on the spot to clarify.<\/p>\n

“I ask question,” Nurmagomedov said. “Is it possible that this fight is for (next) contender, me and Mario?”<\/p>\n

White was quick to reply, telling Nurmagomedov that a lacklustre performance isn’t going to get the job done.<\/p>\n

“Should this fight be the contender fight?” White responded. “Go out there and put on a show on Saturday that makes people go, ‘Damn, one of these guys should be fighting for the title next.'”<\/p>\n

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Nurmagomedov intends to oblige, ideally setting up an early 2026 title shot with the winner of Dvalishvili and Petr Yan, who have a rematch of their own at UFC 323 on Dec. 6 in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

“OK, I’m going to do (that),” Nurmagomedov said.<\/p>\n

“Deal,” White answered in closing.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC 321: Dana White makes title shot ‘deal’ with Umar Nurmagomedov<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Umar Nurmagomedov has spent much of UFC 321 fight week fielding questions about a potential rematch with bantamweight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,10359,641,80519,638,82,640,21902],"class_list":{"0":"post-234921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-dana-white","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-mario-bautista","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-ufc","16":"tag-umar-nurmagomedov"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234921","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=234921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}