On Jan. 25 in Dubai, PFL promoted a thriller of a lightweight championship bout when unbeaten titleholder Usman Nurmagomedov edged out Irish upstart Paul Hughes over five rounds by majority decision in, quite possibly, the best fight in the promotion’s seven-year history.
Nine months later, on Oct. 3 in the same city, the stage has been set for an epic rematch in the main event of PFL Champions Series 3 and the two breakout stars in question haven’t held back during interviews since the fight was announced.
“I said that in the buildup to the last fight, ‘You are looking past me and that is going to be your demise. It was,” Hughes told CBS Sports last week. “Obviously, I believe I won that fight. [Nurmagomedov] didn’t take me serious enough and I humbled him. I brought him into a fight that he hadn’t been in before, a true and proper fight. But look, he’s going to be coming in more prepared next time and is going to try to never let that happen again but that is my job to make sure he doesn’t.”
The main crux of the beef between the two fighters ever since their razor-thin first meeting, which produced judges’ scores of 47-47 and 48-46 (twice) for Nurmagomedov (19-0, 1 NC), is that Hughes (14-2), the 28-year-old from Northern Ireland, has maintained his opinion that his Russian-born opponent needed to be threatened by PFL brass to accept the second fight.
While speaking with BBC Sport NI earlier this week, the former Cage Warriors featherweight champion pulled no punches.
“I’m certain he didn’t want this, he tried to delay this for the longest period, that’s why the fight only got done very recently,” Hughes told Michael Markey. “But, ultimately, he is not bigger than the organization. The PFL told him what’s up and he had to say yes, otherwise he would have got stripped [of his title], to be honest.”
The 27-year-old Nurmagomedov, a proud native of the Dagestan region who is a first cousin of former UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and the younger brother of UFC bantamweight contender Umar Nurmagomedov, could only laugh when presented with Hughes’ comments during an interview with CBS Sports on Wednesday.
“If Paul Hughes, maybe in [his] next life, if he may be in the same position where I am and he beat me, ask him if he is going to give me a chance again, or not?” Nurmagomedov said. “For sure, [he would] not. It is what it is.
“But here we are ahead of October and people have asked if we want this fight. PFL wants this fight. Paul Hughes wants this fight. The only person who could cancel this fight is me. But when [manager] Ali Abdelaziz asked me about this situation, I told him, ‘I don’t care.’ If [PFL] wants Paul Hughes, we will do it again. I’m going to beat him twice. Nothing has changed. This guy is not on my level.”
Nurmagomedov dominated Hughes for the majority of the first two rounds in January. But just as the champion began to noticeably fatigue as the fight approached the championship rounds, and no longer had the gas tank to provide the threat of the takedown, Hughes began to rally with body punches that visibly hurt his opponent.
The champion even looked as if he might be on the verge of exhaustion late in Round 4 until an accidental head clash provided Nurmagomedov with a key period of rest to recover. The final round turned into a back-and-forth affair but one that two of three judges ultimately scored for the champion.
“How this rematch will be different is, ultimately, I will break him at some point in this fight, no question,” Hughes said. “Whether that is Round 3 or whether that is Round 5, I truly, truly believe I am going to put the pressure on that man early. I am going to make him fight once again. I am going to make him scramble for his life for every single position and I am not going to get off of him until I have him broken.”
Nurmagomedov admits that he made multiple mistakes in their first meeting following a difficult training camp that left his conditioning not up to par with where he typically is at. The fact that his performance came following a pre-fight build in which Nurmagomedov actively dismissed Hughes’ skillset entirely left many, including Hughes, to believe that the champion was humbled by Hughes’ performance.
It’s a notion that Nurmagomedov outright rejects, however, saying he is humble at all times when it comes to his fighting career and that the only reason Hughes was close on the scorecards was due to strategical errors by himself that will be corrected ahead of October. Still, Nurmagomedov’s closing remarks appeared to be anything humble when asked what the rematch will ultimately look like.
“When [Hughes] lost [the first] fight, he was crying,” Hughes said with a devilish smile. “A million people are watching and he cried. A man crying.
“I’m going to make him cry again.”
