Usman Nurmagomedov saved his ‘O’ intact, scoring yet one more carefully contested victory over Paul Hughes within the PFL Dubai headliner on Friday.
Nurmagomedov bought Hughes right down to the mat late within the first spherical, although it got here moments after Hughes absorbed a low blow that the referee opted to disregard. Hughes began to search out his vary within the second, although that didn’t preserve Nurmagomedov from taking him down as soon as once more.
The third was essentially the most aggressive as much as that time, with Hughes trying to land his large proper hand. Nonetheless, Nurmagomedov could have swung the scorecards into his favor with a late takedown.
Lower than a minute into the fourth, Hughes was the recipient of one other nasty low blow that introduced a pause to the bout. Hughes gave the impression to be in immense ache, mendacity stomach down close to the nook. Happily, he was capable of proceed after a number of moments. Shortly after the restart, Nurmagomedov notched one other takedown earlier than stinging Hughes with a brutal physique kick.
With the struggle probably tied, we headed to the fifth spherical. As was the case with many of the contest earlier than it, the ultimate 5 minutes have been pretty aggressive. Probably the most important strike of the spherical got here as a consequence of an inadvertent conflict of heads that reduce open Nurmagomedov with somewhat greater than a minute to go.
Nurmagomedov responded with one other large takedown, placing a punctuation mark on the spherical and securing himself one other large win over the Irish celebrity.
Official Outcome: Usman Nurmagomedov def. Paul Hughes through unanimous resolution (50-45, 49-46, 48-47) to win the PFL light-weight world championship.
Verify Out Highlights From Usman Nurmagomedov vs. Paul Hughes at PFL Dubai:
