PFL sensation Abdoul Abdouraguimov will finally make his return to the cage on Saturday in Dubai, facing off with short-notice replacement Kendly St. Louis and feels a different man after a 14-month layoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cLazy King\u201d is a fan-favorite in PFL, especially at shows held in France, but felt that being expected to deliver both inside and outside of the cages became \u201ca trap.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, I was like that in some part of my career,\u201d Abdouraguimov told MMA Fighting. \u201cI was just listening around me and I wanted to prove [myself]. At the beginning, when I started, it was just for me. I was doing it because I liked it and my mindset was, \u2018I want to try it. Do the best I can do and let\u2019s see.\u2019 With that mindset, it was easier to fight because you have nothing, too much thinking. I was present at the fight and I was doing my thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at some point of my career I was too much thinking about expectations and about the future. That\u2019s when fights began to be a little bit difficult. Not because my opponents \u2014 of course they were strong, the level got up \u2014, but I knew that I could do better with a different mindset. So now I\u2019m trying to find the balance, to go back to the beginnings, take the best and mix with the experience that I\u2019ve got now.\u201d<\/p>\n
A former two-division champion in Ares FC, winning the welterweight and middleweight belts to then join PFL as a 16-1 talent, Abdouraguimov admitted that competing in the sport became \u201cless fun\u201d as he moved up the rankings.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, a little bit less, yes. It\u2019s less fun,\u201d Abdouraguimov said. \u201cBut now I\u2019m starting to change all this because in life you have this difference between a boy and a man. Now I\u2019m starting to become a man, you know? [laughs] 30 years old. It\u2019s about me. I am choosing. I don\u2019t need to let all the environment influence me. And this is what I\u2019m trying to do, to have fun, because I know how to have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not always easy, though.<\/p>\n
\u201cI say to myself I\u2019m not attached to the world, but at the same time, when I\u2019m fighting, I think too much,\u201d Abdouraguimov said. \u201cThat means that inside my heart I\u2019m not aligned with what I feel and what I say, with my head. So that\u2019s the goal for me now, to align myself and then life is gonna be easy. Because when you think like that \u2014 if you lose, for example, so what? If you win, so what? If you always keep asking questions yourself and then you respond like this, \u2018so what?\u2019 Because at the end, really, what\u2019s gonna happen, man?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to risk in this life, you know? Without risk, there is nothing. I am here because in the beginning I took every risk. My first fight was a tournament fight, two fights in the night \u2014 professional directly, I didn\u2019t go through amateur fights. I took the risk because I believed in my techniques and so. And then my third fight they gave me a Cage Warriors champion, veteran. Everybody around me talked, \u2018it\u2019s too risky because you\u2019re only the beginning.\u2019 I took the risk. The more I took the risk, the more I\u2019m here. This is life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLazy King\u201d said he has no idea what makes him a fan-favorite in the sport. Winning three in a row under the PFL banner definitely helped make him more popular after an already successful career in smaller promotions like Ares FC and Brave CF, but Abdouraguimov believes the key to success in gaining fans is be yourself instead of \u201cplay the role.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to be myself and have fun,\u201d he said. \u201cBut now I need to find the balance with fun or seriously, all at the same time, because it\u2019s not always fun in life. We have to work also. This is my journey now. I\u2019m finding the balance right now. For me, the martial arts journey is not like fitness. For me, it\u2019s really when I do martial arts at my gym, I don\u2019t just only practice and then go home. We also talk about life because this is part. The martial arts, what I learned here, I always tried to practice in my life. Life is the same thing, we have to learn to when you\u2019re knocked down to stay up and then try again. This is the same thing in life. You have just to find out how to use the techniques that I\u2019ve learned at the gym now in real life. Stay calm and do what\u2019s needed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abdouraguimov\u2019s upcoming bout is his first since a cancelled fight in Nantes, France when he announced on social media complaints about the promotion led to his withdrawal. \u201cLazy King\u201d said he is happy with his relationship with the company today, and learned valuable lessons over time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s life,\u201d Abdouraguimov said. \u201cAt the of the day I feel great, everything is good, I\u2019m just learning. When something happens in life we think it\u2019s bad, but when you take time, with time you see it\u2019s not so bad, it\u2019s even good. Sometimes you need time. Patience is key. It\u2019s not easy, man. I admit I\u2019m not very patient guy, but sometimes you have to be patient. No choice. \u2026 When I look at the good sides, there are a lot of good things in my life, you know? Of course there are bad things, but why look at the bad things if you have good things?\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Louis, his opponent Saturday, is looking to rebound after suffering the sole defeat of his four-fight PFL run, and \u201cLazy King\u201d says it could be a tougher match-up than original opponent Magomed Umalatov because \u201che has nothing to lose.\u201d Abdouraguimov remained focused on the task ahead but hopes to earn a shot at the belt with an emphatic performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m always looking for the finish but my last fights, my mindset was I was too much holding to not to lose,\u201d Abdouraguimov said. \u201cThat\u2019s make it difficult to finish. When you want to finish someone, you don\u2019t have to push it too much or you can\u2019t pull it, you have to be in the middle. When you chase too much something it\u2019s difficult. When I started my jiu-jitsu career and so I was always going in, takedown, take position and go for the finish. This was my game plan always. And MMA was the same, but sometimes it doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut for me, it\u2019s not a pressure. I\u2019m used to look for the finish. For me, the most difficult part is to be in the middle, not to chase too much because of expectations and all that. Just to be myself and be creative and I will find it. When I in the mindset of creativity, I was find something.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PFL sensation Abdoul Abdouraguimov will finally make his return to the cage on Saturday in Dubai, facing off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,1863,8417,82],"class_list":["post-452260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-pfl","tag-pfl-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452260","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=452260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}