From the moment his hand was raised in victory, Usman Nurmagomedov began to spin his narrative against a Paul Hughes rematch.
On January 25, PFL delivered a fight of the year contender as Bellator lightweight champion Nurmagomedov defended his belt against the fast-rising Irish contender Hughes. Over 12,000 fans packed the Coca-Cola Arena to create a raucous atmosphere, and both men delivered.
Calls for a rematch were immediate, but the champion seemed content to let them go to voicemail. Bloody Elbow has spent the week in Dubai finding out direct from the people themselves just what happened in order to make him change his mind.
Usman Nurmagomedov vs Paul Hughes has found perfect home in Dubai
One key factor that made the initial Usman Nurmagomedov vs Paul Hughes fight so compelling was the location. Often, a Middle Eastern site fee will see a promotion give up any sort of organic atmosphere and fanfare in favor of a massive payout for their show.
But from the get-go, Dubai seemed to just work. Thousands of Irish ex-pats call the region home, while the local Muslim community are massive fans of the Nurmagomedov family, from Usman to his brother Umar and of course their legendary cousin Khabib.
“The Irish community, the Muslim community and others as well, all came together,” Eisa Mohammad Sharif Al Marzooqi, Director of Sports Events Department for the Dubai Sports Council, told Bloody Elbow.
“The fact that we got the fans cheering and supporting each of their favorite fighters was really what we were looking for. Then you look at the numbers that we have been attracting, it’s pretty incredible.”
As a result, there were immediate clamors for the pair to fight again. Belfast was touted as a potential host, as well as US cities with major Irish populations like Boston or New York.
However, Nurmagomedov held the upper hand in negotiations – and he knew it. As champion, he was never going to leave his comfort zone, and for months the trail went cold on making an immediate rematch.
Within moments of leaving the cage, he infamously told reporters that Hughes could need as many as four or five wins in order to earn another shot at the gold.
That he has just two fights left on his own deal and has publicly touted a move to the UFC to claim the lightweight title that his teammate Islam Makhachev once held, remained unsaid.
“As I said from the get-go, he was ducking this rematch,” Hughes told Bloody Elbow days out from the fight. “He tried anything he could to possibly delay this. But we’re here, and all that matters is Friday night.”
Hughes even forced the PFL to relocate a May European series show that was already planned for Liverpool to Belfast, where he sold over 8,000 tickets to pack the storied SSE Arena. With an all-time great PFL crowd behind him, he needed just 42 seconds to knock out Brazilian Bruno Miranda.
“That was number one on my bucket list,” Hughes explained. “It only happened a few months ago but to sell out the SSE Arena where I’m from? That’s something that every single time I drove past the arena I dreamed of. And I f—ing did it all this year.”
PFL considered a new contender for Usman Nurmagomedov
In the meantime, talks continued about getting Nurmagomedov back out continued to limited success. Uncharacteristically for his team, the Bellator champion is quite an active fighter – although he seemed happy to sit on the sidelines as no other option emerged.
Then one day in early June, the promotion announced that a bout between Archie Colgan and Mansour Barnaoui would determine Nurmagomedov’s opponent. The American maintained his unbeaten record, and for a few weeks seemed to be preparing himself for a title fight.
“That night, I was told I was meant to be fighting Usman,” he told Bloody Elbow. “Then over the next three or four weeks after that I was told that. But at some point they came to me and said that was the direction I was going.”
Colgan does feature on Friday’s card, in a bout not officially classed as a number one contender match against Jay-Jay Wilson, who was forced out of this year’s PFL World Tournament with injury.
Indeed, since all of this drama happened, Alfie Davis was crowned 2025 World Tournament winner, throwing a spanner into the works of who gets the next shot. This all is made significantly more complicated in the case of a Hughes win, which almost certainly triggers a trilogy.
“I just had to change gears and focus on Jay Jay Wilson,” Colgan continued. “I was told this was going to be my fight but it’s not my fight and I have to take care of business on Friday night.
Usman Nurmagomedov vs Paul Hughes 2 was signed this summer
Ultimately, Usman Nurmagomedov even found himself at odds with his famed cousin Khabib. The legendary former UFC champion has gone on record as admitting that Hughes likely did enough to at least warrant a rematch, and his cousin this week publicly disagreed.
Usman told media, including Bloody Elbow: “I think Khabib has his opinion and I have my opinion. Sometimes those opinions are not the same. In my opinion, he still does not deserve it. But who cares about this? No one, we’re going to fight Friday.”
It appears that at some point in July, something changed behind the scenes and Nurmagomedov agreed to make the fight happen. Hughes didn’t believe it was legitimate even after signing his bout agreement, and had to wait until the bout was officially announced before celebrating.
While new CEO John Martin joined up at the latter stages of talks, he admits that the fight was not easy for his team to make. “I heard that,” he replied when asked if it was a difficult deal to get over the line. “I wasn’t part of it directly but the January fight was really entertaining.
“In the end, Usman is a dominant champion and I think he wants to put to rest any discussion that Paul Hughes is at his level.”
Now, the pair are locked in and both looking to make a statement on the big stage. The Russian has left no stone unturned, and welcomes back his brother Umar Nurmagomedov to the corner after the pair were separated for the first fight.
In fact, he cites the split camps for his fight and the double header of his brother and Islam Makhachev’s UFC 311 title bouts as the main reason for his poor performance in the first fight.
“It was exactly the factor why I showed up to that fight like that,” he replied when Bloody Elbow put the idea to him. “But everything was good, this is life. Sometimes, everything doesn’t go how you want but this is life.
“In my worst shape I beat this guy but now I’m in my best shape and I have to show the people who I am.”