the evening\u2019s post-fight press conference<\/a>, Nurmagomedov was asked about the knockdown and what he has to do to make sure it doesn\u2019t happen again.<\/p>\n\u201cI will work a lot,\u201d Nurmagomedov said. \u201cI have this big mistake. I always go down, I do it a lot of times. Even in the gym, coach Khabib all the time he talks to me, \u2018Don\u2019t do this. You have to fix this\u2019 and today I paid for it. We\u2019re not perfect, right? But we will try to become.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Coach Khabib,\u2019 of course, refers to the legendary Khabib Nurmagomedov, Umar\u2019s cousin and coach. Khabib reigned as UFC lighweight champion from 2018 up to his retirement in 2020, walking away from competition with a 29-0 pro record. Mistakes were few and far between for Khabib in his prime.<\/p>\n
According to Umar, Khabib was encouraging after the fight, but stern.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018Good job,\u2019\u201d Nurmagomedov said. \u201cHe said, \u2018We win,\u2019 and he said to me, \u2018We have a lot of things that we can show, you have space to grow up. Today we\u2019re done, but we\u2019re not finished.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Nurmagomedov is eyeing a title shot after failing to wrest the bantamweight championship from Merab Dvalishvili this past January. The Bautista fight was Nurmagomedov\u2019s since he lost his undefeated record to Dvalishvili, and Nurmagomedov\u2019s goal was to stop Bautista\u2019s eight-fight win streak and potentially earn a title fight rematch.<\/p>\n
However, Dvalishvili is already booked to defend his belt for the fourth time this year against Petr Yan at UFC 323 on Dec. 6 and it\u2019s unclear if he will maintain his hectic schedule in 2026. Nurmagomedov is available if Dvalishvili wants a quick turnaround, but is more concerned with competing again soon regardless of who the opponent is.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, I will be happy, I will be even thankful and we\u2019ll see what\u2019s next,\u201d Nurmagomedov said. \u201cIf it\u2019s not going to happen before Ramadan, if they give me another fight, maybe with [Deiveson] Figueiredo or Aiemann Zahabi, with anybody else, I\u2019ll be happy to fight because today I become a little better in the cage because it\u2019s an experience. Now, we need to spend a lot of time in the cage to feel there like it\u2019s home. Feel confidence, feel arena, feel fans, I want to fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have anything else, I just have sleep, eat, train, repeat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nurmagomedov was asked if the version of himself that was victorious Saturday would have had a better chance of defeating Dvalishvili and he gave a measured response.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis \u2018what could have been\u2019 or \u2018what should have been\u2019 I don\u2019t live my life by that,\u201d Nurmagomedov said via a Russian translator. \u201cBecause if anybody lives their life by what could have been, it stops them from moving forward and from growing. So instead of reminiscing on that, what I\u2019d like to say is that if I do get the chance and there is going to be a rematch, I\u2019m going to be ready and I\u2019m going to show what I can do. I have to show with my actions, not with my words. Of course, I\u2019ll be ready for that, I\u2019ll have more time to prepare for it, and then you\u2019ll see what I can do.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, I\u2019m 29. It\u2019s 29, 30, 31, you grow up, you get into your man strength so to speak, your bones get more dense, you find this strength in you, so I\u2019m just getting stronger. So whoever it\u2019s going to be, whenever there is a chance for me to fight next, they\u2019ll see that I am already better than I was today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Umar Nurmagomedov is back in the win column and back in the title picture, but one mistake almost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-241707","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-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241707","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=241707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}