The eyes of the MMA world will be firmly fixed on the United Arab Emirates this weekend for a lightweight title showdown between Usman Nurmagomedov and Paul Hughes.
A whole host of celebrities and household names are expected to attend the PFL Road to Dubai Champions Series event this Saturday, including heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou.
‘The Predator’ has now offered his preview for this highly anticipated lightweight title fight, revealing that he’s already ‘counted out’ the Irishman before – never again.
Francis Ngannou previews Nurmagomedov vs Hughes PFL title fight
Usman Nurmagomedov defends his lightweight title against Paul Hughes in the main event of this weekend’s PFL Champions Series card in Dubai, UAE.
The 18-0 Nurmagomedov is an enormous betting favorite over ‘Big News’, with a whopping 85% of Tapology users picking the Russian to retain his title – but which way is Francis Ngannou leaning?
“The [main] event will be very massive because here you have two stories; not only do you have two great fighters, but you have two great stories,” he stated on the Bellator YouTube channel.
“Everybody has his own story, I fought on the same card with Paul in Riyadh and I mean personally, I had counted him out, and [that’s] my mistake.
“But he managed to pull AJ McKee out properly – clean – no arguing about that and you know, from that moment, he got my respect.”
Hughes was a sizable underdog in that fight too but ultimately walked away with a sensational split-decision win; coincidentally, exactly 85% of Tapology users also picked against Hughes that night.
“And for Usman, I mean, he’s been around for so long – we see him pulling people, dragging them into [deep waters] like an ocean. And I think it’s very backed up with Khabib,” continued Ngannou.
“The funny stuff is that I heard about Conor [McGregor] saying it would be a great honor to assist or train with Paul Hughes, and there’s still an old beef between Conor and Khabib… Now, each one of them, they’re going to transfer it to their protégé – which is good [for the fans].”
Paul Hughes believes Nurmagomedov is ‘shook up’ ahead of title fight
Tension has been building nicely ahead of this championship scrap, especially after Nurmagomedov tried to goad Hughes into throwing down then and there during their launch face-off last week.
In an exclusive interview with Bloody Elbow, Nurmagomedov would argue that there’s nothing personal between the two, and that his comments were simply him “promoting this fight.
“He began saying like ‘Saturday, we’ll see’ or something like that. But where I come from if someone calls you to fight, you don’t wait for four days. If he said, ‘Let’s go’ [then] I would smash his face there.”
In response, Hughes accused Nurmagomedov of being “shook up” as he argued that the typically cool, calm, and collected Russian seems a little more emotional than usual.
“To me, he just seems kind of shook up. I’m there being my always quietly calm self, and he basically offered me up we can go here, like let’s do it and I mean, what the f*** is he talking about? I mean, that’s clearly to me an emotional irrational response.
“And, you know, as I said to him, ‘you’re looking past me’ and he says, ‘Who are you?’ I said, ‘Exactly’. And that is his problem, and that is going to be the test for him in my eyes on Saturday night.”
PFL Road to Dubai Champions Series: Nurmagomedov vs Hughes goes down live on Saturday, January 25 live from the UAE.