UFC star Khabib Nurmagomedov impressed at UFC 219 on Saturday night with another dominant performance against Edson Barboza, and if the Russian star gets his way then fans will be seeing a lot more of him in 2018.
Injuries and weight cutting issues have meant that ‘The Eagle’s’ been fighting sporadically over the past few years, including having no fights in 2015 and only one in 2017.
However, the 28-year-old believes that 2018 will be the year that he manages to put together a three-fight run for the first time since 2013.
“When I’m healthy, I always make weight, but now I hope next year I’m gonna stay busy, stay healthy, no injuries, and I want to fight April, May, before Ramadan,” Nurmagomedov told reporters after UFC 219. “After, I want to fight September and I want to fight December. This is my plan. I want to fight in 2018, three times.”
According to Nurmagomedov, he’s going to help make this happen by continuing to take greater care about the way he trains so as not to injure himself, which in the past has also had the knock-on effect of leading to weight-cutting difficulties.
“I never have problem with weight cut,” Nurmagomedov claimed. “My problem, my number one enemy is injuries because I train so hard. I’m not training like other UFC fighters. I’m training so hard and my training partners know, my close people know about this, and the last couple of years I tried to change something and I think I do this very well and I changed a lot of things, but I never have problem with weight cut. Now I’m healthy. For this camp, I’m in my healthiest period ever, like everywhere I’m healthy, inside, outside, knees, back, everything is healthy and when I begin this training camp I feel good and this is why I make weight.”
Meanwhile, it appears that Nurmagomedov will also be continue to apply pressure on the UFC to give him the big fights he feels he’s earned after registering his ninth victory in a row inside the UFC, taking his overall record to a perfect 25-0.
Nurmagomedov has made it clear he wants to fight the likes of interim champion Tony Ferguson or current titleholder Conor McGregor, and Dana White has revealed that the star even went as far as to camp outside next to the UFC president’s car on Saturday night to speak personally with him!
