Struggling his first-ever loss at UFC 311 over the weekend, Umar Nurmagomedov’s group have revealed their trainee refused to tell them of his brutal hand harm suffered within the first spherical of his title combat Merab Dvalishvili — which finally would’ve modified their combating strategy.
Nurmagomedov, who co-headlined UFC 311 over the course of the weekend, noticed his good eighteen-fight unbeaten run in combined martial arts come to a crashing finish by the hands of incumbent bantamweight kingpin, Dvalishvili — dropping a unanimous resolution (48-47, 48-47, 49-46) loss.
Nonetheless, following the back-and-forth pairing, Nurmagomedov revealed in his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan how he suffered a fractured hand within the opening spherical of his title pairing with Dvalishvili.
Umar Nurmagomedov didn’t reveal harm to group throughout UFC 311
And in accordance with his coach, Javier Mendez, Umar Nurmagomedov didn’t relay to his nook that he suffered an harm within the early goings of the pairing, and speculated that if he did, the group doubtless would have applied a unique strategy to the remainder of the conflict.
“If he had told me he (Umar Nurmagomedov) broke his hand, I would have changed the gameplan,” Javier Mendez instructed Submission Radio. “Khabib (Nurmagomedov) and I would have changed the gameplan completely around because Khabib is a great corner. He’s one of the great ones that I’ve encountered cornering with. So we could have changed the gameplan, but we weren’t told that, Umar didn’t tell us. We would have changed the plan had he told us. Why would we do what we did? Having him throw that broken hand if we knew he broke his hand, that’d be stupid.”
“I would have had him kick more,” Mendez stated. “Keep the distance, keep kicking, because he’s a great kicker. But no, the gameplan was to stay inside and pick him (Merab Dvalishvili) apart, you know? And he kept putting his head down and I’m like, what the hell, you know? I go, okay, must be that much tougher. And yeah, he is that tough. But I didn’t know that Umar broke his hand. He didn’t tell us. If he would have told us, we would have changed the gameplan. But he didn’t.”