Paul Hughes believes Usman Nurmagomedov was on ‘death’s door’ in first fight

PFL star Paul Hughes believes that he had Usman Nurmagomedov beat in their first encounter before a change in momentum late in the fight.

As we know, Paul Hughes and Usman Nurmagomedov are set to run it back later this year in a rematch of their incredible first meeting in January. While the first bout was closer than many had anticipated, it was Usman who just about managed to get his hand raised in victory. As you can imagine, Paul wasn’t too pleased about that.

While the two have shown a lot of mutual respect towards each other, there’s a certain competitive rivalry that’s emerged – and Paul Hughes is leading the dance. He wants to make it known that he believes he’s the better man out of the two, and he’ll hope to prove it on October 3rd.

In a recent interview, Paul Hughes opened up about how he saw the fight going and when things shifted in Nurmagomedov’s favor back in January.

Paul Hughes reflects on first Usman Nurmagomedov fight

To cut to the chase, Usman was just refusing to fight me, and that is just the reality,” Hughes said on “The Ariel Helwani Show.” “The reality is he was just straight refusing to fight me, and they probably had to look for other options, but then I think push comes to shove and they were like, ‘No, this is happening,’ and here we are. The fight is done.”

“I was in that cage with him, and I know that I had broke him,” Hughes said. “I know that he was basically on death’s door towards the end of that fight. Had that head clash not happened towards the very end of the fourth round where he got a full three-minute recovery, there is absolutely no chance that he was going to do another full six minutes with me, and me not finish him.”

Quotes via MMA Junkie