Abu Dhabi – The timeline for Umar Nurmagomedov to return to a bantamweight title after UFC 321 could become very interesting.
Nurmagomedov earned a hard-fought decision victory over Mario Bautista on Saturday and returned to the win column after suffering the first defeat of his professional career against Merab Dvalishvili earlier this year. Khabib Nurmagomedov’s cousin remains a top contender at 135 pounds, but Petr Yan is next for the champion, with the pair headlining UFC 323 in December.
Despite working at an intense pace and entering his fourth title defense this calendar year, Dvalishvili will likely need some time off after that. However, Nurmagomedov hopes to fight before the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which runs from February 18 to March 19 in 2026. Nurmagomedov hopes to fight again before then.
Should Merab be willing and able to compete by then, “of course I will be happy. I will even be grateful,” Nurmagomedov (19-1) said after his victory over Bautista, speaking to media outlets such as Cageside Press. ‘We’ll see what happens [happen] next. If it doesn’t happen before Ramadan, if they want to give me another fight – maybe with [Deiveson] Figueiredo, or Aiemann Zahabi, with anyone else – I will be happy to fight.”
Staying active is at least partly about growing as a fighter, it seems. Nurmagomedov continued by saying: “Today I got a little better [in the] cage. Grow experience. You have to spend a lot of time in the cage to feel like it’s at home there. Feel confidence, feel arena, feel fans. I have nothing else. All I have to do is sleep, eat, train and repeat.”
There were difficult moments in the fight for Nurmagomedov, who admits he may have underestimated Mario Bautista. Still, a dangerous-looking heel hook he got caught in early wasn’t as bad as many thought, he suggested. “It wasn’t even close. Doing a submission in MMA is very difficult because you can punch a guy.”
“In jiu-jitsu, I understand it, just like you do [the limb] and you try to break [it]he can’t hit you. In MMA it is very difficult. And I always move, during training, always, like a snake with legs. I have good strength, and I don’t even care.
The knee he ate was a different story, with Umar Nurmagomedov admitting his tendency to dive down is something he needs to work on. “I will work a lot, I have a big flaw. I always go down, I do it often. Even in the gym, coach Khabib tells me all the time: ‘don’t do this, you have to solve this, you have to solve this.'”
“Today I paid for it. We’re not perfect, right? But we’ll try to be.” [perfect].”
Watch the full UFC 321 post-fight press conference with Umar Nurmagomedov above.
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