Usman Nurmagomedov stored his ‘O’ intact, scoring one more carefully contested victory over Paul Hughes within the PFL Dubai headliner on Friday.
Nurmagomedov acquired Hughes all the way 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 seek out his vary within the second, although that didn’t hold 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 huge 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. Fortuitously, he was capable of proceed after just a few moments. Shortly after the restart, Nurmagomedov notched one other takedown earlier than stinging Hughes with a brutal physique kick.
With the struggle doubtlessly tied, we headed to the fifth spherical. As was the case with a lot of the contest earlier than it, the ultimate 5 minutes have been pretty aggressive. Essentially the most vital strike of the spherical got here resulting from an inadvertent conflict of heads that reduce open Nurmagomedov with just a little greater than a minute to go.
Nurmagomedov responded with one other huge takedown, placing a punctuation mark on the spherical and securing himself one other huge win over the Irish famous person.
Official Outcome: Usman Nurmagomedov def. Paul Hughes by way of unanimous resolution (50-45, 49-46, 48-47) to win the PFL light-weight world championship.
