UFC Lightweight’s up and comer fighter Rafael Fiziev has revealed that he is not a big fan of Former lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov’s fighting style.
Rafael Fiziev fought against Bobby Green at UFC 265. The fight was a back and forth battle between two brawlers. After the fight which was very close to the judge, the scores were announced and were in favour of Fiziev. He had a 30-27 and a pair of 29-28s for the unanimous decision. After the fight, Rafael appreciated Bobby for the fight and putting on a show for the fans. The UFC 262 took place at Toyota Center in Houston. It aired on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN2 and ESPN+. The event was headlined by the interim heavyweight fight between Derrick Lewis and Ciryl Gane.
Speaking to MMA journalist James Lynch in a recent interview, Rafael Fiziev stated that he was never a big fan of former UFC lightweight champion and one of all-time best fighters, Khabib Nurmagomedov. He said that he always found that kind of wrestling-based fighting style as a boring style. He never enjoyed watching Khabib’f fight, as he comes from a striking background, Rafael finds it hard to like wrestling-style fighters. He also revealed that he was bored while watching Islam Makhachev’s fight against Drew Dober.
“I was never his fan because we have different styles. We have big different styles. I’m a striker and he’s a wrestler. In wrestling, he’s very hard and you can win against everyone with his wrestling that Khabib has, but I don’t like this style. I don’t like fights like when Islam Makhachev fought with Drew Dober (at UFC 259). Three rounds of just wrestling and nothing to show. He finished him, but it was a boring fight,” Fiziev said.
Though the thoughts of Rafael are pretty interesting on Khabib and Islam. Their records speak for themselves. Khabib retired from the sport as the undisputed and undefeated lightweight champion with a 29-0 record while Islam has just lost one fight in his career and is standing at the top of the lightweight division with a 20-1 record. If Rafael keeps getting better as a fighter and starts to climb up the lightweight division rankings he might get a chance to put his striking game at test against Islam Makhachev’s wrestling. But for that fight to happen he still has a long road to go that is going to be filled in with some high-level fighters in the lightweight division.
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