Umar Nurmagomedov’s team reveals he hid brutal injury during UFC 311 fight with Merab Dvalishvili
Suffering his first-ever loss at UFC 311 over the weekend, Umar Nurmagomedov’s team have revealed their trainee refused to inform them of his brutal hand injury suffered in the first round of his title fight Merab Dvalishvili — which ultimately would’ve changed their fighting approach.
Nurmagomedov, who co-headlined UFC 311 over the course of the weekend, saw his perfect eighteen-fight unbeaten run in mixed martial arts come to a crashing end at the hands of incumbent bantamweight kingpin, Dvalishvili — dropping a unanimous decision (48-47, 48-47, 49-46) loss.
However, following the back-and-forth pairing, Nurmagomedov revealed in his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan how he suffered a fractured hand in the opening round of his title pairing with Dvalishvili.
Umar Nurmagomedov failed to reveal injury to team during UFC 311
And according to his coach, Javier Mendez, Umar Nurmagomedov failed to relay to his corner that he suffered an injury in the early goings of the pairing, and speculated that if he did, the team likely would have implemented a different approach to the rest of the clash.
“If he had told me he (Umar Nurmagomedov) broke his hand, I would have changed the gameplan,” Javier Mendez told 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 said. “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.”
